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Pixar Boss Shoots Down Live-Action Remakes of Studio’s Movies: That ‘Sort of Bothers Me’ and ‘It’s Not Very Interesting’
NewsSo log as Kermit is the hulk, I'm in
Cast Fozzie as Banner and Sweetums as Hulk.
okay wait
Cap would be Kermit
Thor is Fozzy
Black Widow obv Miss Piggy
Iron Man probably Scooter or Bunsen but if Bunsen is there we need Beaker as Vision
Hulk is Animal
Hawkeye is clearly Gonzo
Beaker as vision is inspired.
Meep
1950’s Ms. Piggy as Wanda, enters from kitchen side: Vision! You’re home from work. Such a sight for sore eyes!
1950’s Beaker as Vision: silence
1950’s W, hugs B while grabbing his briefcase, that he didn’t have walking in: Vision, what shall we have for dinner?
1950’s B: meep.
1950’s W: cries.
I need this in my life so badly...
So is Linda Cardellini gonna dress up as a chicken?
This better not awaken anything in me.
Samuel L Jackson is still Nick Fury
Okay, but I need Beaker as JARVIS before he goes full Vision.
Statler and Waldorf are Nick Fury and Colson, or Nick Fury and Happy. There’s so many options here.
Skrulls all look like generic fragile rock characters.
Nathan Fillion playing Agent Colson trying to keep it all together
There's also an argument for Bunsen being Bruce Banner and he turns into a giant Beaker for the hulk.
Though your idea is probably funnier, since Beaker being Jarvis would be absurd.
What about the Swedish chef?
Thunderbolt Ross
You won’t like me… when I’m green.
You’re dreaming if you think anyone other than Miss Piggy would be The Hulk.
Ms Piggy is the only choice for the Hulk imo
“That’s my secret cap, I’m always green.”
Um... okay. How about this: Adam Sandler is like, in love with some girl, but then it turns out that the girl is actually a ...golden retriever, or something.
I am awesome-o
With a Rob Schneider cameo as a carrot
"I'm a carrot!"
Da derp Dee derp de teetley deepee derpee dumb
Rated peegee thurteen
PUPPY LOVE!
Full metal alchemist
Are you... a pleasure model?
LAME
How about an Adam Sandler-Thanos romantic comedy where they're both muppets?
once again south park showing just how prescient they are
Muppet Avengers?
You son of a bitch, I’m in.
You can’t be out here suggesting muppets and acting like you’re not already executive material
I’d watch that.
Yeah if you want to think of a bad example of how to do a remake/reboot, you can't use the Muppets.
Right; if anything we need MORE movies like A Muppet Christmas Carol where a classic tale is retold with all the Muppets plus one or two human actors
I saw a post here once that said the two best muppet movies are Christmas Carol where Michael Caine treated all muppets as fellow actors and Treasure Island where Tim Curry treated himself as a fellow muppet.
I agree completely; no notes.
I want to reboot Lassie, but basically make Lassie Rust Cohle from True Detective. Lassie picked up a bad drug habit after Timmie snorted some H he found in Lassies Jacket like Pulp Fiction. They could not find Lance's red bag.
Flash forward 10 years and Lassie has to partner with Flipper. Flipper and his family are estranged because he keeps fucking women who look like young versions of his wife. Lassie pushes flipper around in a grocery cart while they solve crimes.
Also, have Lassie be played by Matthew McConaughey in that japanese dog suit
Nah, just do an Avengers with Samuel L Jackson as Fury and everyone else is puppets
It'll be a Multiverse movie where they visit all the puppet worlds.
Fuck, that's not a bad idea... Maybe you should be in Hollywood making 900k
I’ll quote you on my application to universal
Put me down as your second reference. I'd love some more Muppets.
I would literally watch anything where they take a serious premise, and it's just muppets.
I genuinely can't believe that Disney has milked the last drops out of everything it has touched and yet they still can't figure out that Gen X and Millennial parents would take their kids to see any and every Muppet adaptation of classic literature
Muppet Frankenstein
Muppet Count of Monte Cristo
Muppet Great Gatsby
Muppet Scarlet Pimpernel
Why they haven't done this is beyond me.
The secret to success of course is to have a human play a major role but have them play it totally straight, like Michael Caine. Tim Curry hams it up a little but his interactions with Jim Hawkins are top notch acting.
Completely agree on all points. My vote is for the count of monte cristo, though. That would be so cool! Or... whatever the muppet equivalent of cool is.
I would unironically absolutely eat up a muppets avengers movie. Maybe I’m part of the problem
Put 'Muppet' in front of anything it works.
I mean shit, I’d watch a Muppet parody of just about anything before more pointless remakes and franchise expansion.
Can we get a shot for shot remake of Goodfellas, with Austin Butler as Ray Liotta’s character, Kermit as Jimmy Conway and Gonzo as Tommy? I’m in
A remake of LOTR but it’s set in 1935, with film noir elements and WW2 building in the background.
Holy shit, that sounds terrible but I so want to see that
Shut up and take my money
"The Muppets Take Asgard
I do not read comics but afaik arent the Iron Man kid and Marvel kid literally building up to a Young Avengers movie? I swear I read that somewhere. They are unironically doing that, but without muppets
without muppets
That’s a flop.
Young Avengers will be the same age as old Avengers when they start shooting it, they just look youngish.
I've got another million bucks idea: We remake Titanic. Shot for shot.
With the original actors.
Just think of how much money the original made! The new one will make just as much! Probably.
I know you're joking but I would absolutely watch a Muppets Avengers movie
Um… that’s a good idea!
Somehow that's the funniest idea anyone has thought of this decade.
I still think the Live action lion king is the craziest marketing. It wasn't live action they were animated.
It looked so lifeless and bland too.
I hated Beyoncé as a lion. All I could hear was her not the character.
Beyonce sounded like she rolled up 20 minutes late holding Starbucks, walked into the booth, spouted her lines not even bothering to take off her jacket, and walked out after the first take.
she's just not a voice actor, she's going to sound bad
The woman has many immense talents and skills - but acting in general ain’t one of them. Voice or otherwise.
Donald Glover’s “flirty” voice as Simba is the cringiest shit I’ve ever heard
Beyonce is kind of terrible at adapting her speaking and singing style. It's not just her acting, when she made those Dance and Country albums she didn't change the way she sung at all. It's especially distracting on the country album cause she is singing so freaking loud over these acoustic instrumentals.
Because animals don't emote, they don't have the facial muscles we do. That's the beauty of traditional animation, you can take liberties with characters expressions and shapes to help tell the story
Character's dad dies
"Noooooooo" 😐
Lion King worked because they could give the animals human-esq expression/emotion, the live action couldn't do they because they wanted it to look more realistic.
that movie was a tech demo with a banger Beyonce album attached
Nah that movie happened because the Jungle Book movie had a lot of hype for the CGI (especially the animals) and it make a lot of money, so of course Disney wanted more money. And they got their money too, because The Lion King also made a ton of money. So much so that they're making yet another one...about young Mufasa...
Never watched it and then saw Simba “reacting” to Mufasa’s death. Never laughed so hard at such lifeless faces trying to convey emotion
I reaaally want the sequel to be live action though. I want to see Hollywood producers chasing animals around the safari
Some poor intern having to put peanut butter in a lion's mouth so it looks like he's talking ala Mr. Ed
Yes yes we know. We had to leave room for a live live version. We’ve got the lions in the basement getting trained as we speak so we’ll have 2025 H2 revenue sorted.
I honestly would like a live-action Lion King movie where all the characters are humans and the 'lion' bit is metaphorical. Basically Hamlet but set in Africa.
When they first announced a live action Lion King, I thought it was going to be a filmed version of the stage show and was VERY excited.
Now that's intriguing. Set in a quasi-historical ancient African kingdom? You could do some really interesting stuff with it, like play with the animals they correspond to.
Not exactly what you're describing, but try to see a stage version if you get the chance.
Hey tiger vake up
Mermaids and their ocean friends aren’t real either. And belle hung out in a castle with a clock and a candelabra. It’s just animation again with more steps and way less charming
Yeah but beauty and the Beast and the little mermaid were ACTUALLY live action, just with a lot of CGI elements. The Lion King wasn't live action at all, it was 100% CGI.
User deleted comment
25d
They probably shot that one scene and said "fuck man, this is kinda hard let's just animate it"
A Tropic Thunder type movie about making a live action Lion King.
I don't think Disney ever actually marketed it as live action at all, it was all the news outlets and reddit/twitter posters etc. who kept going on about live action.
I simply refuse to watch any remakes or live action remakes of my favorite childhood movies. I get that it's appealing to the new generation of children who don't want to watch 'old movies' but I have 0 desire to see them.
I don't want any more remakes, live-action or not.
How about remakes of bad movies that can be made better?
I would love that myself, but it goes against the whole reason studios love remakes, namely that it made money before so there's higher chance it'll make money again.
I stand by that Treasure Planet is one of the few movies deserving of a live action remake because it was so under appreciated when it came out (which is actually Disney’s own fault as well)
Along with Atlantis: The Lost Empire!
But how would a remake fix that? If it's already good but didn't get enough attention, wouldn't we just want to tell more people to watch the original movie?
I'd love a remake of The Guyver movies from early 90s. 2nd one was OK but would be awesome
Diehard Guyver fanboy over here, I too, would like a remake or even a competent live action series..
Judge Dredd/Dredd immediately comes to mind
There's already Dredd from 2012
Yeah that’s what he’s saying. Dredd (2012) was a good remake of a bad movie, Judge Dredd (1995).
I'm not sure that this really fits though, because Judge Dredd is its own comic series that has been around for years before either film. Dredd is really just another live action project based on the comics, albeit much more well done than the first attempt. Similarly I don't think you would consider Marvel's Captain America: The First Avenger to be a "remake" of the Roger Corman Captain America film from 1990.
That movie can’t be made better. It didn’t sell well, but it was amazing.
Karl Urban is a treasure, can’t wait to see the cheeky cunt again tomorrow
Give us Dredd 2, cowards
Solid movie but I'm going to need to see Guillermo del Toro do three movies for the whole Judge Anderson/Judge Death cycle
Remakes aren't inherently bad, John carpenters the thing, insomnia, a fistfull of dollars, heat, the invasion of the body snatchers for instance.
The problem is when it's not creatives making the decisions but studio execs, who know little about storytelling mining ip.
Yeah some remakes can be good, but these days they're all lazy cash grabs driven by studio execs like you said. The Lion King "live action" remake was especially bad. It basically copied the original almost word for word and just replaced hand drawn animation for CGI, and somehow made it all much worse in the process.
We've been remaking movies and stories literally since the beginning of filmmaking. So after 120 years of remakes it's safe to assume they are a fundamental part of the medium and will never end.
We've been remaking movies and stories literally since the beginning of filmmaking.
If you look beyond the medium, pretty much as long as humans have sat around the fire to tell each other stories. Some would be new, some would be the same stories that were retold for generations.
Still I can't disagree that Hollywood has gotten too dependent on low-effort remakes.
I'm fine with remaking movies based on books (like the multiple Dunes, Pride and Prejudice, etc.) because different directors/writers/casts interpret the source material differently and bring their own view on the experience.
I'm more conflicted on remaking original screenplays that were genuinely good movies, because the end product is very intertwined with the source material. I'm not sure how you reinterpret that, but maybe it can be done well.
If it wasn’t for remakes, we wouldn’t have Oceans 11, multiple iterations of A Star is Born, Cape Fear, Scarface, True Grit, Heat, and The Departed (I’ll just stop there because I hope the point is taken). All of those movies have been hits both critically and commercially and stand the test of time. All were based off of original screenplays.
Thanks for all of those great examples!
What about a Muppet remake?
For example, I’d watch a Muppet remake of The Princess Bride. Or Die Hard.
User deleted comment
25d
There, that's the rule. Only Muppet-based remakes are allowed
It boggles my mind that Disney hasn't tried to use the Muppets this way more.
Think about it, a weekly Disney+ show where each episode is a condensed remake of a movie in their catalog. Or make them longer and do "specials" every couple of months or something.
I can only assume that Muppet productions are a lot more expensive than live action.
"Live action" Lion king was peak cinema. No idea what you are talking about. They trained actual lions to speak english with no African accents!
Remakes are good sometimes
The Thing, The Blob, etc
The Fly
Invasion of the body snatchers
The Thing, but on the other hand, The Thing
A Star is Born has been made four times, mostly successfully and most adapted to the contemporary culture.
The Wizard of Oz
Ocean's 11 was a remake of a bad/mediocre film.
Pixar won’t but Disney will.
Seriously. Smh. And Disney and a lot of their fans need to learn that a 100 CGI movie isnt “lIve aCtiOn” hate these money grabs.
That dude will do as he's told just like the Jonas brothers, haha
"Now, do we have a problem? Haha!"
"No Mister Mouse."
I want to see Toy Story with Woody played by Walter Goggins and Buzz Lightyear played by John Cena.
But only if it's 100% live-action. Not "live action" like The Lion King. Not even live-action like The Avengers. CG has to be relegated to background elements, framing, and theming. No major CGI characters.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the giant mechanical Slinky Dog to achieve this feat.
Oh, man. That remote controlled car chase scene would make Titanic's set look like nothing
They already have live action toy story and it's great
How did I today learn this? Holy amazing
Dude, you get jim henson productions involved and we are almost there
I look forward to the giant yet life-like animatronics they'll need to make for the actual people!
Fuck, now I do too
only if it's shot on an old camcorder with John Cena in a cardboard wing suit the whole time.
Pixar just can't cast that many phat assed moms
Bryce Dallas Howard will never be out of work again!
/b/ is leaking
Theres like 3 thic moms across pixar, I will never understand why this comment is so common
What thick moms are there besides Mrs. Incredible?
I guess you could count the mom from Onward? And maybe you could call the mom from inside out "thick" if we're being generous. Idk I hardly think there are any besides Elastigirl. I truly don't understand why everyone says this. I guess people must think any animated movie is pixar
I think Pixar films are especially poor candidates for such remakes. At least Disney has a lot of humans stepping into fantastical worlds (still largely handled their unnecessary remakes poorly).
Toys, cars and Wall-E robots are already 'realistic' in a sense, you could work on the materials a bit, drop them in the real world and they'd look fine. Why'd you do that? Would fish, ants and rats benefit from looking real? Soul, Inside Out? Nah, they benefit from being animated in 'the real world' as well.
If I HAD to pick one, it'd be Monsters, Inc. Make it more human-centric maybe, monsters looking a bit creepy is already their thing, and the added contrast of real humans and fantastical, fluffy monsters would work nice. But then, why not just make an original 'live-action' Monsters, Inc. movie instead of a remake? No reason to re-tell a story.
Still a bad idea, you'd have the cost of merging live action and CGI among else, lose some expressiveness in both humans and monsters, and sorta do what other studios do.
Incredibles, as others point out, would just be another superhero film, likely one where they'd take advantage of having humans to put some big names there. Though an original live-action movie would also be one of the more sensible choices, it's still a bad idea as with the one above.
A full on Raccacoonie Movie might be pretty great, though.
I feel compelled to share that Randy Newman recorded a delightful Pixar-soundtrack-style song for this fictional movie. My toddler loves it. I do too:
Thank you for sharing this. As if that movie couldn't get any more insane and perfect. I love this.
Raccacoonie? Wtf
Yeah, that hit movie about the raccoon who’s a really good cook
He must be from an alternate universe
Everything everywhere all at once reference
But for real, live action Ratatouille, but the rats are all very obviously Muppets.
And so is Skinner (the angry head chef).
(Spoiler warning for Everything Everywhere All At Once)
I’m curious, do people not enjoy animation? Is this whole “live action craze” really just about “well I don’t want to watch children’s animation!” When these shows and movies are perfectly suitable for all ages, but hey, “change the animation to real people and now that is some prime adult-oriented content I can enjoy, because I’m an adult who doesn’t watch animation!” Like really?
Or is it something else? Because every single live-action remake I’ve seen has simply been worse, or is altogether awful and cringe.
I generally accept peoples tastes, but refusing to watch animated movies is just objectively stupid. Not only stupid, but also sad, because that means that you are not mature enough on an emotional level to emphasize with characters that dont look 100% real.
i worked with a guy who said he wouldn't watch any animated movies nor did he like them at all because he's not a child
Thats a really sad outlook to have. Imagine depriving yourself of the joys of life because of stigma.
I'm tired of 3D animation. I want 2D goodness.
I know SEVERAL people that won't watch animation in the slightest and I didn't even have to search for them. They're just so common in real life.
All animation is considered for toddlers.
Like someone like my Aunt was furious there was swearing on Adult Swim shows because it'll harm its "primary audience of Pre-schoolers" Yes, she let my little cousin watch Smiling Friends.
They also don't really like art or animation and believe that even people who work for Disney or Pixar should grow up and get "real jobs." I know people even in my own age that refuses to watch Spider Verse because they're "too old."
As somebody who's been involved in art for majority of my life I might as well be chewing on crayons in the corner until I get a real hobby.
My mother straight up won't watch animated stuff. Not sure why. Just a hard, hard line for her :/
time for a 'grave of the fireflies' and 'when the wind blows' double feature for mommy.
It's about guaranteed returns versus hypothetical. Bean Counters have no idea how well\badly a new IP will do at the Box Office. They can make rough guesses, but you can get a "Waterworld" or "Cutthroat Island", new IP that follows all of the beancounter rules and still be a major bomb.
Old IP, like remakes, are easier to make a guaranteed profit from, you can look at how the previous entries did and how little you need to spend to get people to watch it. You can tell with Live Action Aladdin that minimum effort was put in for maximum profits.
to;dr: It's a money thing, not an art thing.
Partly there are some people who are very vocal about their dislike of animation.
But mostly it is that animation takes way more time and money to be created. Executives seem to hate the idea of working on something for three - five years before being able to profit on it … especially for new properties.
Live action remakes are far quicker, lower investment, and “tested” market potential.
Live action remakes are far quicker, lower investment
Not the way Disney does them. Adjusted for inflation they've spend about 3-4x on the remakes, and it looks like they take about the same amount of time to make.
Update: Pixar Boss fired.
New boss: “This idea excites me greatly”
Can't wait for the live action remake of Toy Story that will still be 95% CGI.
"We wouldn't be making this unless we really felt like we had another important story to tell"
The only Pixar movie that I could MAYBE see working as live action is The Incredibles, and even that would just feel like another superhero movie.
That will be just Fantastic Four
More like No ordinary family,, that's literally live action Incredibles
Both have Michael Chiklis
I do remember No Ordinary Family. Imperfect show, but a lot of fun. Sadly seemed like it didn't really know what it was at times, like it had a villain that seemed to be knock-off Sylar from Heroes, the premise was knock-off The Incredibles. Michael Chiklis playing a knock-off Ben Grimm. It absolutely needed to find an identity of its own, which wasn't going to happen in the first season. But it was a lot of fun to watch at the time. Still sad it got cancelled before it could do anything with itself.
Surprised to see other people who remember it.
Also, I was very confused for a moment thinking you were claiming that Chiklis was in The Incredibles.
Who's gonna play Elastigirl though? The important question.
Alexis Texas
Or Mia Malkova
Bro! They should do a CG version of the live version of The Incredibles! Like make them all stylized and colorful but also give the mom a big caboose.
Also completely defeating the point of animation.
It comes from ancient Greek, to breathe life into the lifeless, it's about the illusion of actual life, people and characters.
So if you just make it live action, it's just a movie now. You're just filming living people pretending, not paper, pencils, pixels and ink tricking you into believing they are.
Like, I'm sorry, but I have to rant about this, it's the same fucking Bullshit I see in our society all the time, it's always only about the fucking money, but I'm sorry, if it's really only about the money then just fucking sell heroin instead of pretending to have any aspirations for quality or artistic expression.
Pixar was successful in their golden age because, and stay with me here, they made films THEY wanted to make.
The culture brought in talent like no other because everyone wanted to be a part of it. I remember applying to the studio back in those days (the early 2000s) and basically if you were rejected from anywhere else you had no chance of getting hired by Pixar. Didn’t matter if your spouse or family member working there recommended you. You had to be the best of the best.
And the real reason was because you could pitch your idea for their next film once you were in. All of the Pixar shorts were made this way and it bred a workplace of creativity and a feeling that you were a part of something greater.
You also made revisions and changes on a shot because you were trying to make the shot better not because you were some cog in the machine who got a note from a random executive telling you the specular highlight on the fish in scene 115 is too warm and needs to be changed before it gets graded down to nothing in DI.
You encouraged artists to be creative and shockingly you got creative work from it.
Then that all changed and the middle managers came in. The green light was no longer pitching executives in the building but non existent for anyone but a select few. Talent was no longer cultivated internally and the culture completely shifted to any other animation factory. The ideas dried up because nobody was in a position to offer them and so the films suffered.
Instead of realizing the problem was these middle managers they all created an even more repressive environment by dividing tasks and workers further into nothing more than pixel pushers. So the only reason to stay was the paycheck and the resume leading to just getting the bare minimum. The creativity that the studio was famous for in the beginning was dead and because of it the films started to tank.
Again the solution would be to embrace the original framework of the studio but instead it was to spin off the films that were created during that time.
Which leads us to now. We’re going to get more and more sequels because of a fundamental misunderstanding of what made Pixar great in the first place.
You want to save films in general? Get back to letting filmmakers make the films they want. I know a lot of people fetishized A24 and they have their misses but the one thing they do right is to say “here’s your budget, you don’t get more, we aren’t going to bother you but we’re also not going to give you more.” They trust the artists. Pixar use to, now not so much.
So they might say “no live action remakes” but let a few more “elementals” bomb and get ready for ratatouille staring Zendaya and Tom Holland.
Hell yeah, brother.
So he still has at least part of his soul
Well, he did direct Soul!
I mean, his boss is The Walt Disney Company, so his hands are actually tied.
https://youtu.be/5G0j_Huv2Fg?feature=shared
Live action Toy Story already exists and it's great.
I stand by that the only live action remake that they could do that would be a massive hit is Treasure Planet. Done right it would be a huge hit but Disney refuses to give that IP any attention.
Don’t they remember the smash hit that was Racacoonie?
Disney has cannibalized itself so badly that it can’t even rip off it’s own mediocre content anymore.
But you did try a pseudo Disney live action film through Lightyear.
Pete Docter is a life long animator, a real artist and creative. Not surprised at all.
Good. Part of the Pixar charm is their style of animation.
Keep Pixar Pixar.
Executives in Hollywood ain’t even trying at this point. Shit man, pay me $900,000 a year I’ll suggest all sorts of bullshit ideas for projects. Here’s a freebie: it’s a prequel for the avengers called “young avengers” and they’re all muppets.