So here's how it usually works these days Hollywood. A formula working well at the box-office? Well, how about we just recycle it again and again and again ... And once that idea stalls then how about we bank on the nostalgia of the original and reboot it into a whole new package. Disney's caught on to this like real pros with their juggernaut franchises, in fact, that's all they seem to be doing — Marvel, Star Wars, animation etc. not a single original thought conceived, they have to stick with what people already know, what people are comfortable with, what doesn't provoke new thoughts.
I wrote back in November of 2018’s Disney's Shot-For-Shot Live-Action Reboots Bank on Viewer Nostalgia:
“These are safe, and cozy projects for the mouse house because they are banking on what is most popular at the multiplex these days: Nostalgia. There is absolutely no conceivable way that these live-action remakes can artistically surpass the original animated classics. Why? Because Disney wouldn't take the risk of messing with the original formula — audiences want what they already know, that's the sad truth. And so, with these live-action remakes, Disney are, by all accounts, going for shot-for-shot duplicates, the only difference? They are done in CGI instead of hand-drawn animation.”
Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, directors of 1991’s “Beauty and the Beast,” and credited as creative consultants on the 2017 live-action remake, struggle to see the point in live-action remakes. Asked by Collider for their thoughts on the remakes, Wise and Trousdale didn’t mince words, with Wise admitting he tells people ‘Well, just go watch the old one.'” and Trousdale concurring by saying “My completely objective and non-varnished opinion is that the animated ones are better anyway — every single one of them. But that’s just me.” To which Wise adds, “It’s not just you.”
Their comments are striking because, as far as we know, other directors of the originals haven’t criticized the remakes so openly. Wise and Trousdale would later direct "The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (‘96) and “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” (‘01) for Disney, but if live-action remakes ever do get greenlit for these animated titles, don’t expect these guys to ever be hired again as “creative consultants.”
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.