Major film making companies are beginning to remake iconic movies. Disney has recently begun remaking many of their iconic princess movies in a live action form. Movies like Mean Girls and Nightmare on Elm Street have been remade in the past years.
While movie remakes seem to be a good idea, the statistics prove otherwise, with many of the original movies gaining more positive attention than the remakes do. For the recent remake of Mean Girls, the 2024 movie received lots of negative backlash, with a rotten tomatoes audience score of 62%. The original movie from 2004, however, has a rotten tomato audience score of 66%. While 4% is not that larger of a gap, other remakes such as Pet Semetary have a larger gap. The 2019 remake of Pet Semetary received a rotten tomatoes audience score of 33%, whereas the original from 1989 has an audience score of 60%.
The remaking of live action movies doesn’t seem to be the large problem though; the true problem lies in the remaking of animated movies to become live action. For example, the original animated Cinderella has a rotten tomato score of 98%, whereas the most recent remake which made the movie live action, received a score of only 41%.
The remaking of these iconic animated movies to now be live action, is said to be a way to reintroduce the films to newer generations in a way that resonates with them more. However, this being said, this seems to give the movies more negative attention than positive. In the path of trying to make the remakes more inclusive and up to date, the main story, or sometimes big parts, tend to be forgotten about.
For example, Disney’s remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was set to hit theaters in March of 2024, but was pushed back to be released in 2025. This push back was a result of the movie needing a break after all the controversy that arose from it. The main actress of the film, Rachel Zegler, stated that this version of Snow White will have a modern twist to her.
“She’s not going to be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love, she’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be,” Zegler said.
While this may seem like a good approach and a positive thing to teach young girls in today's society, the description of the movie from Zegler received lots of backlash. Fans of the original claimed they were upset at Disney for taking away the key element of the movie; love.
These movie remakes are also receiving negative comments claiming the films are only being remade because companies are getting lazy and can not come up with new ideas.
In the long run, remaking movies seems to have everything a massive company would need. It doesn’t take much time to come up with a new idea, it makes fast and easy money, and these remakes can open the movies to a whole new audience. However, the cons seem to outweigh the pros, especially when the pros are the things making the audience mad. All in all, remakes are not something that should be advertised more than original and new movies, seeing as they are usually worse than the original and only something that angers people.