Disney's live-action version of Cinderella made quite a bit of money last weekend with an opening of $70 million. In case you don't know, a live-action version of Beauty and the Beast is being planned, and promises to be quite a huge hit as well. This is just one of several live-action works from Disney that is been adapted from animated Source material, a live-action animation adaption (LAAA).
So far, the Beauty and the Beast has a star-studded cast with Emma Watson (formerly Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter movie series), Dan Stevens (from Downton Abbey) as the Beast, Luke Evans (Bard from The Hobbit films) as Gaston, Josh Gad (Olaf from Frozen) as LaFou, as well as veteran actors Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts and Kevin Kline as Maurice, Belle's father.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Alan Menken, who won two Oscars for the 1991 animated version and source for the live-action version, will be scoring the film that will be directed by Bill Condon with David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman of Mandeville Films producing. The script will be written by Evan Spiliotopoulos and Stephen Chbosky, but he music that made the 1991 film a classic will be there, along with some new songs as well.
It is pretty obvious that Disney expects a hit from this LAAA Beauty and the Beast, and it is set to debut on March 17, 2017, according to Variety. This is almost two years after the live-action Cinderella, but there will be two other live-action Disney films adapted from animated films that may hit theaters before Beauty and the Beast.
According to Coming Soon, the first of these will be The Jungle Book, which is being helmed by Jon Favreau (of Iron Man fame) with a release date of April 15, 2016. The other will be Dumbo, which will be directed by Tim Burton, who also directed the live-action semi-adaption of the Disney animated film Alice in Wonderland. There is no set release date for the LAAA Dumbo.
There has been a lot of complaints that these live-action versions of their formerly animated films are a poor choice for Disney, who has produced a lot of original content over the years. Some have compared it to the mid-nineties, when the studio produced other adaptations of their animated works like The Jungle Book (1994) and 101 Dalmatians (1996). However, the Cinderella movie, directed by famed actor and director Kenneth Branagh, has been getting some good reviews, as did last year's Maleficent, a live-action tale of the villain from the animated Sleeping Beauty. In other words, if the content is good, these live-action films will have no trouble becoming hits for Disney, who will use that money to produce other more original works.
In other words, Disney has started a machine of live-action animation adaptions that isn't going to stop anytime soon. Are there any classic Disney animations that you want to see done in a live-action form? Go ahead and leave a comment after this article, because I'm sure that Disney is planning ahead for live-action animation adaption (LAAA or L-triple-A) films far beyond Beauty and the Beast.
