Disney’s recent reliance on live action remakes for financial success has opened a void of creativity in their recent animated films. Rather than continue this string of plain repetitions, Disney should look to films that were undervalued in their original release, such as “Treasure Planet.”

On Mar. 21, Disney released a live action remake of its original 1937 staple, “Snow White,” to significant box office failure. According to Box Office Mojo, the film grossed a mere $205 million worldwide in response to its $250 million budget.

But the fight to succeed in a joyless cash grab was not over. In May, Disney soared over the peak of highest grossing films in 2025, releasing its live action “Lilo and Stitch” to a billion dollar response from domestic and international box offices. Not only did the film become the first in 2025 to break the billion dollar box office threshold, it surpassed “The Smurfs” (2011) and “The Lion King” (2019) to become the highest grossing animated-to-live-action film of all time.

This financial success, while sweet and gratifying for Disney, poses a dangerous threat to the future of cinema. Success in pure translation of animation to live action promotes the repetition of such remakes, undermining the studio’s incentive to produce original animated features. 

Since 2015, Walt Disney Productions has released at least one live action remake every year. In that same span, excluding sequels, Walt Disney Animation Studios has released only six animated features, the performance of which has steadily declined since the 2016 releases of “Zootopia” and “Moana”. The studio’s last two original releases, “Wish” (2023) and “Strange World” (2022), were both box office failures, the latter considered among the greatest box office bombs in modern times.

However, not every remake need be made in vain, so long as an opposite attitude is taken toward choosing which films to re-envision.Where Disney chooses to dig up beloved gems and ride the high of their nostalgic popularity, the company could instead grant old failures a new chance, creating a need to grace their remakes with originality to get audiences engaged.

In 2002, when “Lilo and Stitch” was shown in theatres for the first time, Disney also released what was at that time the most expensive box office flop in the company’s history, “Treasure Planet.”

Though it chalked up to a seething failure financially, the film was simultaneously praised by critics and nominated for several awards, including an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature.

The film’s blend of hand drawn animation and CGI also resulted in a stunning visual experience, and the film is given an ethereal outer space setting, elements which could both be benefitted by a remake with live action CGI.

Based on the 1883 Robert Louis Stevenson novel “Treasure Island,” the 2002 release itself is an example of an original story remade as a creative adaptation. A live action remake could present the same possibility of drawing the story into a new medium without piggybacking off of the qualities that made it popular in the first place. Whereas Disney’s current remake picks are created in pure repetition and safety from original appeal, a “Treasure Planet” remake could give better cause for CGI and give the film a second chance to impress its audience.