Why Do Disney Remakes Keep Making Money?

this episode brought to you by honey the easiest way to save money when you're shopping online [Music] [Music] [Music] hello I'm the Nostalgia Critic I remember it so you don't have to sorry I have to look a little disheveled right now but did you hear how this did recently to hear what the next few films from Disney are gonna be aren't you excited most everyone I know is sick of the Disney live-action remakes even those who like them are getting tired of them we've gone from one maybe every four or five years to one every year to several every year and there's even more on the way it wouldn't be too bad if there was more variation in their work but the more they make the less they try something different even giving us what feels like a shot for a shot line for line redo of a beloved classic Disney used to be so cool I hear people say why are we being given the same thing over and over well the short answer is the long answer may be a bit more complicated and in order to understand it we first have to understand the company that puts them out Disney is a cultural phenomenon I think safe to say unlike anything the world has ever seen don't get me wrong the world has seen fairy tales and amusement parks and technological advances but to my memory there is no entertainment company centered around families that is as massive or recognizable on the planet I can take three identical circles put them together and most people would know that means Mickey Mouse just from three circles think about that it doesn't even look like a mouse but most people recognizes that because of this company and the fact that a lot of this long lasting Empire is based on stories that both children and adults can relate to is beyond impressive think of other studios directors producers they've made many stories they'll stay with people too but most would agree Disney not only has the highest number of stories that stay with us but they're the most frequent in putting them out when you think about it it's brilliant it takes something that people already know or relate to like say fairy tales put your own unique touches on it and suddenly everyone thinks your version it's hard for a child to hear the name snow white and not imagine that she looks like this if comic books are modern-day Greek mythology as some people have declared then Disney is modern-day fairy tales and from that they spawn new ideas new technologies new imaginative ways to entertain everyone and that's the key word everyone Mark Twain used to describe his work as water many people drink wine he says but everyone drinks water Disney clearly has that same mindset it not only works from an entertainment perspective but from a business perspective as well but that's the thing about show business it is show and business people now see Snow White as a masterpiece but back then it was a huge gamble threatening to destroy Disney Studios if it didn't turn in big bucks thankfully it did though as well as made history but after that their following films Fantasia Dumbo Pinocchio and Bambi did not turn in the profit they were hoping for in fact they rarely turned in a profit we know them as classics today but back then they weren't really seen as big moneymakers at least nowhere near what Snow White was so they were hurting business on top of that war most businesses were hurting because of it and Disney was no exception the films they were putting out at this time or a collection of shorts because they couldn't afford to put out one completed story they just kind of combined the stories that they started before the war broke out and said here you go this is a movie now when the war ended though they finally had breathing room to do complete movies what did they do I think it's fitting to say they made another Snow White no don't get me wrong I like Cinderella a lot in fact it was one of Walt's favorites but if you were to say which of their past completed motion pictures was it like it's clearly Snow White and from here Disney would take risks in other departments but not really in their animated features they've just gone through too many shaky times and they needed to stay afloat not to say they didn't put out top-notch quality work I mean I loved a lot of these movies but where their first fight film stylistically were very little alike now every animated film following would have to be like one of those five again not an awful thing as many of these films were great but what I'm getting is pushing the envelope in terms of originality had slowed down because that's what made sense from the business side give the people what they know they like sound familiar it's no secret Disney has gone through slumps over the years and will happily put out lesser material if it's deemed popular it seems like the recent Disney remakes as well as the recent Disney sequels are either their way out of some sort of financial mug or a way to make even more profit to venture and to other pray to God creative avenues while it seems similar to what Disney has done in the past the remakes do seem awful little now the idea of remakes is nothing that crazy back in the early days of cinema giant epics were remade when they went from silent films to talkies movies like Ben Hur Ten Commandments and even Zorro were remade with sound sometimes even by the same director this was more than just doing the exact same thing though while they followed the initial story and characters the dialogue style and performances were noticeably different they were great stories that deserved great updates for a while that's what Disney seemed to do with their remakes yeah kinda the first remake of The Jungle Book had little to do with even the book or the Disney film it was pretty silly aside from the horrified deaths that still haunt my childhood memories films like 101 dalmations brought in a pretty penny and fell not great was more fitting of what a remake should be follows the same initial story but had enough differences to be its own thing like the animals not talking more focus on the people and the goddamn craziest going close performances she played a pirate in hook yeah her IMDB is weird as you can see though these remakes are few and far between they did well but seemingly not enough to repeat over and over and over a lot of people say the official live-action Disney remake fans started with Alice in Wonderland well you can certainly say this one didn't just copy the original to a goddamn fault like many of these remakes I've reviewed this movie in the past and confirmed the barrel of dick that is so you can find out more by watching those but even though it's like the big one it didn't matter because this film was a hit of big hit but Disney had to figure out what was it hit about it did audiences like the elements similar to the original or did they like the elements that were different well four years after Alice was released Disney started budgeting their money to make even more to find out if they liked Alice as the exact opposite of what she was maybe doing the same for the villain and Sleeping Beauty would work if they enjoy more the original simplicity of the story perhaps Cinderella theme or faithful would win them over much to their delight they both did well so now we can have a totally different Dumbo where none of the animals talk or we can have a scene-by-scene retelling of Beauty and the Beast except you know moved around yeah we can submit it for Best Picture of the year oh yeah Disney try Pass good freakin guy bottom line unlike before where there needed to be some changes made to a remake to make it interesting disney discovered it wasn't totally required so now these films could be made a lot faster because the story and characters were already set and if anything the fewer changes made the better thus we went from one maybe two a year to five at the same time when people were noticing this fad growing Pixar was putting out even more sequels than before this couldn't be a coincidence chances are Disney was desperate for stability whether to make up for lost cause or conquer other endeavors I don't know but what I do know is as a now these are definitely stable but lot of business history clearly shows why they would want this stability the question remains why is it stable why do so many people go back to these and keep making them hits the films they've done in the past that certainly has similarities but they were still different movies we're now getting shot for shot remake sand plenty of audiences are totally okay with it what's the secret what are we missing well I have the secret to the Disney live-action remakes and as long as it doesn't go dark and I accidentally lose it I'm [Applause] [Music] and now an interpretive dance about honey so I guess it's not really that interpretive honey honestly before I found out about honey seemed the promo code box at checkout just stressed me out like should I be typing something in there is there a code just knowing that there could be a discount out there made me worry about overpaying every time I shopped online who thankfully now I have honey it's a free browser extension that scans the internet for coupon codes then like magic it automatically applies the best one to your cart at checkout honey will find you every coupon code sale or discount on over 20,000 sites like Amazon eBay Best Buy GameStop new wake so you might ask how do I know honey really works well not only did honey test over 1 billion promo codes last year but it actually applied oh that's a big number I don't want to say it I'm just gonna post it working codes to people's orders not to mention their subscribers who have already downloaded honey have saved over 83,000 dollars wow that's dot dot dot a lot of real life savings with there's literally no stress when you see that promo code box at checkout I actually use honey all the time whenever I buy products online look I saved almost $4 getting battle angel Aleta it's basically free money it works super fast super efficient and saves me super amounts of money save money with honey just install honey by going to join a minute that comes not nostalgia honey is for everyone because it works for practically anything you buy online and downloading is easy it only takes two clicks to install look there's really no reason not to download I made it's free to use easy to install on your computer in just two clicks never over think about the promo code pots again get an A for free @ join an aid that comes Lasha nostalgia that's joint handmade dot-com / nostalgia thanks again - I'm here for sponsoring this video you [Applause] [Music] well I guess I have to speculate well everyone is getting sick of these remakes millions still go to see them and make them tons and tons of money what are the reasons one my opinion it comes down to four factors one nostalgia yeah pretty obvious but like I said before Disney has done a brilliant job making sure their characters always stay with you so even seeing a person in a costume at a theme park can make you feel the warm fuzzy wuzzies even seeing the trailers for these films get so many people in the fields because they connected so much to their childhood and what arguably played a major part in developing their ethical and imagine it insides so now these characters have returned and you can go back to feeling like a kid again when things were simpler and therefore presumably happier you associated with seeing an old friend look at an old friend he hasn't changed at all like at all my god you grew up so much and he didn't he's still stuck in the past doing the exact same thing isn't that sad isn't that sad so friggin sad I mean the stuff that's still good about him is good right I think this brings me to number two the name is associated with quality how many versions of Cinderella have been told in the past hundreds maybe even thousands but this Cinderella is easily the best known and if that's the best known clearly it must be the best right I mean McDonald's is one of the best-known restaurants in the world and nothing beats that right oh god is that it check it I probably caught on that just because something is popular doesn't always mean it's great but it does still mean a lot of people like it and there has to be a reason why let's say you thought the original Beauty and the Beast was just okay you'd probably hear over and over how a lot of people say it touched their childhoods both kids and adults dress up as the characters and even shirts and merchandise are bought because they want to celebrate how much they love them it's likely that even though you may not necessarily be won over by all this you would have to acknowledge there's something that's winning people over and maybe it's worth taking another look one of the Disney remakes that was not a financial hit was Pete's dragon and I think a big part of that was it wasn't a strong enough property I'm sure it has its fans but while a decent amount know what Pete's dragon is everybody knows what Beauty and the Beast is a while ago I did an editorial about movie parodies being dead where I discussed how satire films were doing less mocking of popular movies and more displaying the fact that they know they're popular when people saw these big movies at the same time being mocked in one film they assumed there would be good writing that Lampoon them because the writers of these movies rarely even saw the films they were satirizing rather they just saw production photos and went off of that regardless for a while people went to see them because they thought they would be the same quality as say airplane or Spaceballs by the simple act of showing something they recognized in it Disney remakes are essentially the same thing it doesn't matter if their motivations make no sense or if the acting is off because you already connected to the original you're filling in the blanks the movie is leaving vacant because it was so hastily written Simba and Nala clearly have no chemistry in the new Lion King but you think they do because you remember when they did in the original same thing with Beauty and the Beast your nostalgia is filling in what's missing if they trick everyone to seeing the movie at least once they've already made a profit and the thing is people want to believe something they cherished as a child is still good so they're willing to put up with the faults of the remakes because they still recognize it with something positive in their lives it doesn't have to be good it just has to make you feel good the third reason is kind of a weird one but I do think it plays a big part here kids like seeing something that makes them feel grown-up I remember when I was a kid I was excited to see the new Batman because the only movies I had prior where Adam Wesson Scooby Doo I remember going crazy when I found out there was a live-action Ghostbusters based on my favorite Saturday morning cartoon I mean okay the movie wasn't based on the cartoon it was the other way around but I didn't know that at the time or cared I felt older watching it that they did grown-up things like drink and smoke and swear and get ghosts BJ's it was weird it was awesome to be watching something that adults enjoyed it you feel cooler and smarter not even remember being excited for the new Super Mario Brothers movie I didn't care that look - nothing like the original because I thought this was gonna be like Batman and Ghostbusters more adult and gritty and it was monkey not regardless it got me to buy a ticket yet the film was so far removed from what the original was and had so little quality I couldn't enjoy it these films are varying less and less from the original so to a kid it must be good because it's like that thing you loved only done in real life there's a reason they call it the live-action Lion King and not the CG one kids want to feel like they're seeing something more adult and it's obviously working the fourth and final reason I think you can associate to a lot of things in entertainment people like updates now keep in mind an update is very different from a stylistic change in return the Jedi switching out a song is a stylistic change you could have kept it and people would have been fine but fixing the flying effects is an update people would be more open because it looked really bad in the original it's essentially showing what it was meant to look like and I know don't touch it preserve a classic and everything I'm talking about changes though that anybody would make when needing to update something the Disney remakes to their credit do a lot of that Aladdin is set in Arabia it makes sense that the actors look and sound more like this than the cast of full house some cliches that were seen as sexist or racist could be taken out again coming to a fault where the more they tried to push an agenda the more it backfires and makes the character either more boring or ironically more damaging it's also nice to see modern actors you've grown up with in these parts not to say that all the originals were bad in the least but in their day they were big names that everyone knew so you could be excited to see them in a role recasting them with other big-name celebs is another way to relive that excitement of seeing a performer you recognize and enjoy take on a part you recognize and enjoy kids don't know who Louie prima or George Sanders are but they definitely know who Will Smith and Emma Watson are so it allows them to get excited for someone they know playing a role the same way audiences in the past got excited to see someone they know in a role I guess when you think about it it is a perfect plan you could argue there's actually more to draw audiences in nowadays than not as nostalgia is still a big part of our society and Disney has been cashing in I for quite some time now but here's the thing a lot of people are comparing these to the Disney straight-to-dvd sequels that came out a long time ago where are they now we know they exist but we don't really connect them that strongly to the original is mulan ruined for everyone because of mulan - are people gonna stop seeing fox in the Hound because its sequel was so bad no people still love the originals and the sequels half the time are barely even remembered my guess is the Disney live-action remakes will probably be the same they're big now but it'll fade and the originals will still be cherished long after these are forgotten I mean think about it Snow White is over 80 years old and she's still being watched and celebrated even today much like how we had to put up with transformer films and Twilight films and even those god-awful parody movies people will lose interest and they'll have to move on to something else Pixar is finally releasing two original films not connected to any of their past ones now there are a few movies not based on past Disney films coming out so hopefully there can be some more creativity in the near future but here's my thought if you're gonna do these Disney live-action remakes anyway take more chances with them because people are gonna see them no matter what right now I know the mindset people like to see those side by side fan comparisons on YouTube so we're gonna do the same thing what you're missing is people do those for a short amount of time not an entire movie in fact they tried it once with a shot by shot remake of psycho it sucked hard it sucked hard I say do what these remakes the same thing Disney did with the original fairytales everyone knew the story of Snow White and Cinderella but Disney came along and made it uniquely theirs to a point where people see those versions as the definitive story nobody's gonna choose this Beauty and the Beast over this one or this Lion King over that one because not only are they not better they're not different well okay they're different in these ways they like passion fresh ideas and creative need to exist you succeeded on that front what doesn't he put his studio on the line to bring Snow White to the big screen if it failed he would have been in huge trouble if these failed you just have to find another way to make an easy buck people can feel the difference both on screen and behind the scenes you can't feel anyone half-assing it with Snow White they made it because they wanted to give family something beautiful to hold on to you're literally making the exact same thing for the exact wrong reasons and sooner or later it's going to run its course so if it's gonna happen anyway bring something new and exciting to the screen I hate the remake of Alice in Wonderland but they give a credit that it is at least different I'd rather watch that a million times than another screening of the remake of Lion King even the Disney DVD sequels had their little gems like Lion King 2 or Cinderella three movies that were clearly made just for money but the makers chose to make the best of it bringing imagination passion and dare I say it new elements to stories and characters we were already familiar with there's a lot of people that like these movies and for good reason they're enjoyable and clever and people can watch and enjoy them just as much now as when they first came out where people are already getting sick of these there's a big difference between Alastair Sims Christmas Carol and the Smurfs Christmas Carol both are based on the same material but one gave an intriguing intelligent and loving take on a classic story yet for some reason you give it all the money to the Smurfs it's not fair to those that really bring something new something charming something interesting to an already timeless story I don't know what's next for Disney I'm sure they'll find other gimmicks as well as new ideas to give birth - all I'm saying is maybe we can encourage the best elements of something old with the best elements of something new to still get something special that's what you used to be known for let's make you known for that again I'm the Nostalgia Critic I remember it so you don't have to [Music] hey dub Walker here the Memorial sloan-kettering Cancer Center is this week's charity shout out this is the world's oldest and largest private Cancer Center it has devoted more than 130 years to exceptional patient care innovative research and outstanding educational programs today they are one of 50 National Cancer Institute's with state-of-the-art science flourishing side-by-side with clinical studies and treatments the close collaboration between their physicians and scientists is one of their unique strengths enabling them to provide patients with the best care available as they work to discover more effective strategies to prevent control and ultimately cure cancer in the future their education programs train future physicians and scientists and the knowledge and experience they gained has an impact on cancer treatment and biomedical research around the world click on the link and see how you can help these people bring an end to one of the worst illnesses the world has ever known you

Channel: Channel Awesome

Views: 439,823

Rating: 4.8814621 out of 5

Keywords: channel awesome, nostalgia critic, movie review, film review, lion king, aladdin, disney, disney remake, lion king remake, aladdin remake, disney review, dumbo, dumbo remake, beauty and the beast, beauty and the beast remake, disney remake money, lion king live action, aladdin live action, dumbo live action, doug walker, movie reviews, the lion king 2019, the lion king review, disney movies, disney movie reviews, movie editorial, alice in wonderland

Id: 04g20M7v0Rk

Length: 24min 48sec (1488 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 31 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/MatthewHecht]

Congratulations on beating me this week. I am really enjoying the occasional editorial surrounded by weekly film reviews.

[u/jelatinman]

Doug has to stop saying “everyone” is sick of this trend when it’s still making lots of money and general audiences are praising the hell out of them. He did this a lot in Disneycember, where he’d say things like “we all hated Iron Man 2.” It makes his points less effective.

The internet is still an echo chamber.

[u/manazones]

I ask myself that same question. I really am getting sick of these half-assed remakes, even moreso then the terrible American remakes of foreign horror films and PG-13 remakes of R-rated horror films, those are at least bad in a hilarious way at times, whereas the Disney remakes are just boring and mediocre.

I'm with Caddicarus on this one:https://letterboxd.com/caddicarus/film/the-lion-king-2019/

[u/calebrhodus]

Honestly, hoping for one as good as The Jungle Book is the only reason I keep trying. I mean, it hasn't happened yet, but I did enjoy Aladdin.

[u/OrganicCrab]

I only saw Beauty and the Beast, I didn't think it was that bad. The production design and the voice work did it for me.

[u/KittyKax321]

I remember watching BlackNerdComedy's review of Aladdin and when he said he compared the live-action more to the Broadway show rather than the animation, he liked it a lot better. And I have to agree I felt the same way when I saw it. I wonder why Disney didn't try to take that route with these live actions. Remaking the Broadway shows for the big screen would feel a lot less stale because it would be bringing something to the screen that many people hadn't seen before. They all still have the same storylines but there are new songs and elements to throw in there. I remember thinking how awesome it would be if instead of the CGI Lion King, they make a movie of the Broadway show, a show that is still successfully running 22 years after it's premiere. I'd love to see that!

[u/Shirley44445]

Even someone who hasn't supported Doug's work due to the CTC debacle, Crimson Mayhem liked this video :)

[u/QueenElsaArrendelle]

because fuck you, that's why