Sotiris wrote:The future of a property that was already incredibly successful on its own depending on the success of a completely unrelated one doesn't make much sense to me, but I guess that's Disney for you.
This is exactly why I take the way the remakes are done seriously. If they change everything to the point it's stupid, then the remake bombs and the original property takes a hit in the company's estimation--and perhaps the public's perception, too? You see that with what's happened with
Mulan--compare her merchandise from this year to last year before the remake combusted on impact with audiences who wanted something more like what they were sold (a live-action take on the original film they liked). They were also thinking of a musical for
Mulan, those ideas were abandoned after the remake's performance, never mind the remake was nothing like the original (it wasn't even a musical, for that matter) and its floppage should be blamed on the
remake's decisions, the original property takes a hit because Disney would rather make excuses, thinking that people just don't like the original as much as they thought rather than looking in the mirror at their piss-poor decision-making.
It's actually not too different than what happened to hand-drawn animation, how they refused to accept that some of their movies just weren't good or that they had focused too much on pursuing one, very unreliable demo (young boys) rather than blaming the whole medium for their missteps. Thankfully, I believe TLM (the original) is massive enough to withstand its remake being a stinker ( same with
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), but something like
Mulan, which was a step down from the Fab Four in popularity, took a hit from their cutting the comedy, Mushu, and songs out of the remake (as well as giving Mulan superpowers and a witch villain, WTH....).
Hercules was even more removed from the Fab Four than
Mulan was, which means that property will take an even bigger hit if they screw it up by cutting the music and the Muses out of that film as it sounds like they're thinking of doing.
It's sad they screwed up so royally, because, aside from the Fab Four themselves,
Mulan had the best shot of jumpstarting a franchise from the Renaissance films other than
Tarzan--which, apparently, they're not willing to pay up for the rights for to re-make?? Pocahontas was a controversy quagmire waiting to happen that they would never be willing to touch today, same reason it's never got a musical despite its music being so great, whereas
Hunchback and
Hercules re-makes would be
lucky to simply be moderately successful. Starting franchises wouldn't be likely for either one of them beyond that.
