Disney Now Focused on Live-Action Princess and the Frog Tiana Film. Have They Learned Anything?
Disney is once again dipping their toes into a live-action film based on a popular animated one, this time focused on Tiana and “The Princess and the Frog” franchise.
The Walt Disney Company has seemingly learned nothing from its most recent live-action remake failure. Now they have hired Colman Domingo to help co-write a new feature film about Princess Tiana along with Robert O’Hara.
Meanwhile, “Moana” is failing at the box office, as did “Snow White.”
“Moana” has only made a little over $115 million globally since it opened last week, against a $250 million budget, which doesn’t account for marketing or theater cuts.
What is this new Tiana film?
This new film will be an original story about Tiana. Disney thinks that if they reuse the character in live-action, but give her a new story, people will come to see the film.
I do like that they are going to give her a new story instead of a complete live-action copy, but they could also make another animated film or create new animated films instead.
But, no, back to the muddied live-action pool they go.
Currently, the film is in early development.
What about the Disney+ Tiana show?
Back in late 2020 (the same year they announced the Splash Mountain retheme), Disney announced a new Disney+ show about Tiana featuring the original voice actress Anika Noni Rose as the heroine.
But by 2025, Disney announced that the show would be cancelled along with a feature film. The reasons given were related to the costs associated with the show, along with studio layoffs and restructuring.
Then the live-action “Lilo & Stitch” did well, so the film was apparently resurrected.
Why does Disney keep making derivative live-action films?
Many Disney fans want to know why Disney keeps trying so hard to make live-action remakes or reimaginings. The only reason I can think of is financial, but they keep losing money.
Disney likely thinks it’s cheaper to create a live-action movie based on something they already did in animation. Especially after films like “Beauty and the Beast”, “The Lion King,” and “Lilo & Stitch” did well. However, for every hit film, the company has many duds: “Snow White,” “Dumbo”, “Moana”, “Mulan”, etc.
Original stories with legacy characters have performed a bit better for them. “Maleficent” and “Cruella” were fairly popular.
However, Disney has lost massive amounts of money in the past couple of years with “Snow White” and now “Moana”.
“Snow White” cost the company about $170 million.
The budgets on these films keep ballooning so much that they could have simply made a good animated film instead.
Disney is not learning from its mistakes
Before “Lilo & Stitch” was released, Disney seemed to be learning and shelved many of the live-action films they were working on. After Stitch brought them over $1 billion, they hit restart on the live-action train.
Audiences seem to want original or indie films now.
Maybe it’s time for Disney to stop.
Audiences and fans think so too.
“UGH, seriously Disney, haven’t y’all had enough embarrassment by these recent live-action flops or are you addicted to doubling down on stupid?!?
Why, WHY could this not be a 2-D ANIMATED sequel?!?
My advice to Robert & Colman — if Disney tries to force y’all to include any of the storylines from the scrapped ‘Tiana’ series that was supposed to launch on Disney+ back in 2021 or if they try to get y’all to make sense of the ridiculous salt mine/co-op story behind the theme park ride, just walk away. Fast!” - Mr. KMG
“They are literally going to run out of cartoons to remake by 2030. What's next, a live-action A Bug's Life?”- Tega Chinedu
“Please stop turning every animated movie into live action. It just doesn’t work.” - Han Scrollo
“I guess 2d animation is truly dead” - LEGO Man
“She spends most of the movie as a frog so cgi would have to be on point... But seriously why are doing live action anything
“it’s like Disney is scared to make animation” ILL-hombre
“You know what would be really cool… creating something new that isn’t tied to ruining other IP” - Travis Connover
“Really Disney. Make it official and shutdown all animation then.” - K White
Once upon a time, the Walt Disney Company was known for cutting-edge animation and storytelling. They were the gold standard.
Now they are becoming synonymous with tired remakes and franchise fatigue. Even when Michael Eisner was the CEO and they kept cranking out cheaper sequels, the stories were at least new ones.
Disney needs to focus on being Disney again.