The lesson that Hollywood studios should learn and always refuse to learn is that taking smart risks is good for business, now and later.
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If you're a movie nerd online, you've probably seen the trailers for How to Train Your Dragon. No no no. Not the new classic 2010 Dreamworks animated film. A live-action adaptation on the nearly 15 year old film. Honestly, I just watched about two clips of it which told me just about everything I need to know about it. It looks like it's going to be a beat for beat rehash of the original film, with the only major benefit in its favor being that the original film's writer/director Dean DeBois is writing and directing this one as well. And it could be entertaining, it could be crap. I dunno. Hard to guess with these. What I can tell you is that it will likely be...unwhelming. Just like all of the Disney live-action remakes were underwhelming box office successes that you probably haven't watched since they first came out. It's pretty clear that this just another studio mimicking Disney's strategy and seeing if they can make some extra money for themselves. Monetarily? Could work. Creatively and looking to the future? That's a terrible idea. For reasons that seem obvious to me, but apparently aren't that obvious to studio heads. So let's dig into why remakes of this sort aren't the best idea...and provide the one way they could be better
Reason #1: Animation is An Unlimited Medium
How to Train Your Dragon is a textbook example of material that's better suited to animation over live-action. The biggest reason? Effects.
Let's start with set pieces because it's the most obvious example. A standard action beat in the Dragon series is basically all effects. They're giant aerial battles where our two lead characters move lightning fast, fire out giant bolts of purple energy, while bobbing and weaving through obstacles. They zoom in for close-quarters tension and back out to give you a sense of scale on a whim. They're basically an Iron Man set piece but with two parties getting involved. Now put a real-life actor on Iron Man's back.
That alone is a gigantic lift from your filmmakers who now, instead of just storyboarding a scene or mapping out, now have to figure out which effects shots go where, where the actor insert shots are going to go, while also trying to avoid ballooning the budget into the stratosphere because one of your lead characters, Toothless the Dragon, is entirely CGI.
And at some point, you're going to have to sacrifice something because even with a, what I'm guessing is going to be a $200 million budget, something is going to give. There's going to be one less action scene or some aspect of the flying scenes will be less convincing because you're not going to get many shots with Hiccup riding Toothless on camera.
This is one of the things that stinks about Guy Ritchie's Aladdin remake. All of the scenes are close-quarters versus the grandeur of the animated palace that really sold the "epic tale" vibe of the movie.
And that's all assuming that the effects will be consistent and the effects artists have been given enough time to do their job, which if you know anything about how that's been going, doesn't seem likely. Essentially you're making a giant gamble that this will work for the audience. And because studios don't like taking risks with their giant tentpole movies like this, the chances are good that the movie you do get, will constantly remind you of the movie they already made.
Reason #2: Risk Averse Storytelling = No Future
All of these live-action remakes have a difficult push and pull going on. They really want to appeal to millenial parents who either grew up with or have a strong affection for these movies which means they're very unlikely to update the story in any big way. There may be a handful of changes but there's almost always the inclusion of famous songs or set pieces to trigger the nostalgia or satiate fans of the original.
Which will get butts in seats over the holidays sure. It's a safe bet for a family that doesn't want to watch Despicable Me 1-4 again.
But...are you ever going to watch it again? Is it ever going to replace the original in your mind? Has anyone re-watched the live-action Lion King remake? And if you have, and you don't have small children, please tell me why.
The problem with doing a live-action remake of a famous animated movie is that you have already promised the audience something. You've promised them their childhood fave, but with real actors. And we're going to give you exactly what you got before.
Which means any changes stand out like a sore thumb and there's no longevity for the film moving forward, because...did you tell a different story? Teach a different lesson? Probably not. In fact, you'll probably piss off the adults if you change it up too much, and we all know how afraid studio folks are of people online for some damn reason.
And even if you do change things up, did you do enough to make your movie stand on its own?
I'll use 2016's The Jungle Book as an example. As far as the Disney remakes go, this is one of the best. It uses the modern CGI to make Mowgli's world bigger and scarier and even refutes the original film's ending to forge it's own path.
But it's still using the same names, plot beats, and constantly references the original which means...I don't see that movie overtaking the animated movie in the public consciousness any time soon. And as successful as the live-action run has been for Disney, monetarily, artistically, their live-action offerings have been...all remakes for the last decade or so? Disney basically ran out of runway for those movies in the last few years and have been scuffling trying to find something new. There's no future in it, especially when you make the movies this way.
What do you do in 20 years when you don't have any more animated movies to shift to live action? You just might have to make an original movie again. Or, if you're really that risk adverse, maybe invest in some already popular musicals
A Solution: The Wicked Model
Online film discourse is very silly and very stupid 90 percent of the time. Like, sure I get it guys, I get that you're irritated about seemingly every aspect of the Wicked production including casting, singing on set, editing etc. I'm very sorry this movie isn't meeting your purity test for quality movie musicals.
But maybe, just maybe, we should be celebrating a gigantic budget musical adaptation not only getting produced, given plenty of time to get made (i.e. Michelle Yeoh came back onto set after winning her Oscar for 2022's Everything Everywhere All At Once), that actually got a bunch of extras, sets, costumes and even the greenlit to split the film into two parts, is also a gigantic box office smash?
Wicked was a genuinely big swing for Universal, that also happens to have the same elements people love about those classic Disney movies. Larger than life world. Catchy as hell music from a musical theater dynamo. PG rating. Well on its way to making over half a billion dollars worldwide.
And if studios like Disney are so risk-adverse, mining successful musicals, that aren't based on movies (which is a whole other thing), could give you at least another lever that isn't pure nostalgia to pull.
Moving Forward: New Ideas Aren't Just Good For Now, They're Good for the Future
The modern movie business, at least via the giant studio model, is suffering from the same problems the regular business world is. All of the emphasis is put into short-term advancement with a lack of long-term planning and what the market and customers actually want. Instead of making things more friendly and entertaining, here's more of the same with alleged new features.
The lesson that Hollywood studios should learn and always refuse to learn is that taking smart risks is good for business, now and later.
I'm trying to imagine how seminal movies of the last 30 years would ever get made in this current studio climate. How does The Matrix get approved without being based on an "existing IP?" Could Ocean's Eleven ever get made with a cast that stacked again? Would Home Alone get made now? It's a live action family movie and we sure as hell don't make those anymore.
This isn't to say great art isn't being made. It obviously is and is being made within this system (this year's Dune Part 2 comes to mind). The point is that it looks and feels as restrictive as the era before New Hollywood, and it might be time to start another film brat revolution...
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