This post may contain affiliate links, which earn us commission. Learn more.
When Disney released their first live-action remake of their animated classic Cinderella, I shrugged it off. It wasn’t a childhood favorite and I honestly thought it was a one-off. Boy, was I wrong. Not only did they continue on their relentless cash-grab, they constructed some of the most bloated, head-scratching films to ever visit theaters.
Some Disney remakes are undeniably okay. Beauty and the Beast (2017) was perfectly tolerable, but it didn’t inspire me to continue watching the onslaught of films to come. With a massive weekend box office of $174.7 million, there was no stopping the money-printing machine, with an even bigger success in The Lion King two years later, not to mention the global $1 billion behemoth that was Lilo and Stitch (2025).
The first true box-office bomb for Disney was Snow White (2025) with an opening domestic box office of $42.2 million, the lowest of any existing release, and a 2.2/10 score on IMDB. This could have been dismissed as a one-off, with poor casting, backlash over Rachel Zegler‘s lack of tact in interview situations, massive controversy surrounding how the seven dwarves should be represented, and a story that AI would have turned it’s nose up at. One bad film, of course, was not enough to stop the content giant from stopping production; reproducing its massive catalog of family favorites.
With live-action Moana, Disney had an opportunity to rebound in a big way. The original animated film was a massive success, so why not make the film exactly like the animation–line-by-line, frame-by-frame. Yep. One of the biggest criticisms of the film is that it is a live-action replication of the 2016 animated feature.
But it doesn’t stop there. Frequent issues with critics include flat-acting, so much CGI that it makes live-action pointless, disturbing recreations of Moana’s animal buddies, and underwhelming musical numbers. One of the most glaring problems was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who aged-out of the role some years ago, with a muscle-suit look and ridiculous Fabio hair. All together, the film has become one of the costliest blunders in Disney’s history.
The US opening weekend brought in an underwhelming $43 million against a massive $250 million production budget and an estimated $150 million marketing. In all, Disney will likely need to make $500+ million in order to break even.
Not Enough to Stop Disney
As of July 2026, Disney has live-action remakes like Tangled, Lilo & Stitch 2, and Hercules in production or development. Even with hundreds of millions in losses, Disney is simply too big to stop. Their cannibalized cartoons will always find an audience, whether it’s adults taking the nostalgia bait, or parents looking for something memorable to do with their kids. That’s not to say that don’t feel the sting of failure. We can only hope that they’ll use their past mistakes and audience feedback to make each film a little bit better, and at the very least a little bit different, than the beloved originals.