I commend Disney for having at least one good news story per day, even during a pandemic. They’re still wheeling and dealing even if the rest of us can’t leave our houses. To wit:
Now, it’s entirely possible that you’ve arrived at this newsletter without being terribly familiar with my Twitter presence, or the Disney movie podcast I hosted for nearly nine years, or the work I’ve had published at various outlets. So there’s one thing you may need to know about me:
I cannot stand the use of the phrase “live-action remake” in reference to something that absolutely cannot be a live-action remake.
OK, there’s two things you need to know about me. The other one is that I’m not a big fan of the 1973 version of Robin Hood. I realize this puts me in a minority camp compared to many of my peers, admittedly.
(There should be a social experiment performed on what it is about this movie, by the way. I was born in 1984. I’ve only ever seen this movie on home media. I have no idea why so many people born around the same time like this movie so much. It’s one thing for us to like Disney Renaissance-era films. We grew up with those, literally. We didn’t grow up with this. And if the argument is, “Yes, Josh, but kids watched it on VHS”, well…didn’t we grow up with lots of Disney movies on VHS? I don’t hear a lot of people tweeting stuff like “We stan a legend like Thomas O’Malley Cat.” I digress.)
On one hand, a remake of Robin Hood doesn’t bother me too much. I do like a couple of the Roger Miller-composed songs, and Peter Ustinov makes for a very good simpering villain as the voice of Prince John. It’s not my least favorite Disney animated film; hell, it’s not even my least favorite Disney animated film of the 1970s. But I’m not going to complain the way I’ve seen a number of folks complain since this news was reported.
However. I am in no way excited for a computer-animated remake of this film. Because, to note, that is what this would have to be. Like The Lion King, there aren’t humans in this story. In this retelling of the English myth, there couldn’t possibly be humans because all the animals are anthropomorphized. The details are scant, yes, but they imply that this will be a musical, the animals will walk and talk, and…how could that be live-action?
More importantly: why? Why make this movie? “Josh, come on,” you’re thinking. “The answer to that is easy. Disney wants to make this because they’ve made tons of money on their other big remakes. The Lion King? Billion dollars worldwide. Beauty and the Beast? A half-billion domestically.”
You’re right. And did I mention that this Robin Hood will apparently be a Disney+ exclusive? How exactly is Disney going to rake in the dough, taking from the poor and giving to the rich, on this remake? What this speaks to is an inherent problem of self-cannibalization. It’s worked for Disney in theaters so far, with the examples mentioned in the previous paragraph. But films like Dumbo (remember that movie? It’s a year old) are a grim reminder to Disney that the Disney Animation canon is a finite resource of remake potential, and not every title within that canon is created equal.
When Disney unveiled its opening-day lineup for Disney+, including the remake of Lady and the Tramp (which, by the way, can get away with dubbing itself a live-action/CGI hybrid, because it features humans, live settings, and non-anthropomorphized animals), it made clear that the decision-makers grasped that not all remakes could be created equal. Would a Lady and the Tramp remake do well in theaters? I doubt it. I imagine Disney executives had similar doubts.
But how do those movies make money? Have you heard anyone talking about the Lady and the Tramp remake since it came out? Was there any buzz about it on social networks? And will the buzz for a Robin Hood remake be better? Right now, the best I’ve seen is tweets like this, praising the attached director while also saying…well…
Disney keeps going to the remake well, but it dried up a while ago.
Your Recommendation for Today
In the spirit of the Disney Animation bracket matchups, I will once again be recommending a title among those you can vote for today. (You can vote right now, in fact. Just click that link.) And I’m going to recommend a title that I…wouldn’t vote for myself. At least not in this specific matchup. But it’s still worth checking out.
The Rescuers Down Under is a truly perplexing film in so many ways. It’s the first sequel Disney Animation ever did. Before the direct-to-video sequels, before Frozen II, before all of it: this was the first sequel. It arrived in between The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, thus ensuring that it felt like an entry from an entirely different generation. I would also argue that the best part of this movie is its first 15 minutes, in which the title characters do not appear.
AND YET. I think you should give The Rescuers Down Under a watch. It’s a strange little movie, with some effective action sequences — the opening stretch is both ridiculous and thrilling — a solid Bruce Broughton score, a fun performance by John Candy and an equally odious one by George C. Scott. Now, against Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it doesn’t stand a chance. But I still like this movie enough. It deserves a second chance.