5 Ways Disney Can Fix Its Live-Action Movie Problems

The 2020s have been the best of times and worst of times for Disney in the theatrical movie space. Multiple animated Disney titles (like "Inside Out 2," "Toy Story 5," and "Zootopia 2") have become some of the biggest motion pictures of all time. Certain Marvel Studios titles (like "Deadpool and Wolverine" and "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness") have also been profitable. However, the studios also experienced major misfires, as evidenced by Disney having such a rough time at the 2025 box office. Live-action movies from Walt Disney Pictures (which doesn't include Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, or 20th Century Studios titles) have been stuck in a box office rut.

This side of the Disney empire has been responsible for massive 2020s box office boondoggles, like "Tron: Ares," "Snow White," "Jungle Cruise," and now the live-action "Moana" remake. It's been ages since Walt Disney Pictures launched a live-action hit that wasn't riding the coattails of pre-2010 Walt Disney Animation Studios victories. The days of this label housing successes like "Remember the Titans," "Enchanted," and "Holes" are a distant memory. Walt Disney Pictures clearly has a live-action movie problem. How can this studio fix this issue?

There are five key solutions Walt Disney Pictures can implement to secure a brighter and more lucrative future. Many of those solutions intersect with confronting recurring problems plaguing those cursed live-action remakes of Disney cartoons. Only through embracing these cures can live-action Walt Disney Pictures movies once again have a prayer at the box office.

The nostalgia spigot has run dry. In the 2010s, Disney basically printed money with its live-action Disney Animation remakes and Marvel sequels. What worked for audiences circa 2016, though, is clearly not resonating with moviegoers a decade later. 2020s moviegoers, especially younger audiences, aren't innately captivated by seeing rehashes of stories like "Snow White" and "Moana" that belong to past generations. They want either adaptations that are personally relevant to their generation (like "A Minecraft Movie" or "Backrooms") or wholly original stories that belong to this era of audiences (like "KPop Demon Hunters" or "Sinners").

In the middle of this status quo, Disney's primary live-action output has become passe. Online discussion about new live-action Walt Disney Pictures releases is bound to focus more on how every live-action Disney remake has the exact same problem rather than the excitement that greeted the "Beauty and the Beast" trailers a decade earlier. As scary as newer ideas might be to Disney brass, this studio will need to embrace them to stay afloat financially. Walt Disney Pictures needs to start focusing on endeavors like adapting new youth-skewing 2020s books in need of movie adaptations. 

Better yet, finding completely original family-friendly stories and bringing them to the big screen could also be an option. Original features are risky, sure, but at this point, just leaning on more remakes like "Snow White" and "Moana" feels like an even greater risk. It's time to embrace originality now that nostalgia isn't enough.

Upon hearing that non-sequels need to be the studios' future, Walt Disney Pictures executives might frantically point to 2010s box-office duds "Tomorrowland" and "The Finest Hours" as proof that original Disney fare will sink at the box office. However, the problem with those titles is that they cost too much. Brad Bird's "Tomorrowland" cost $190 million to make, a price tag that made it more expensive than several pre-2018 Marvel Cinematic Universe installments. "The Finest Hours," a movie where Chris Pine leads an expedition to save a sinking ship's crew, cost $80 million. That's nearly triple the cost of Disney's 2000 historical family drama "Remember the Titans."

Walt Disney Pictures needs to embrace original live-action fare, but they don't need to be as costly as either Disney's 2010s misfires in this field or the biggest box office bombs in movie history. Amazon's "The Sheep Detectives," for instance, cost $75 million, and that feature had lots of costly CG sheep to account for. Meanwhile, "Coyote vs. Acme" cost $72 million to produce. These aren't Blumhouse budgets, but making original/non-sequel live-action films in this budgetary ballpark could make them profitable even if they "only" reach the $206.5 million worldwide haul of "Tomorrowland."

The excessive budgets of recent Disney remakes like "Snow White" suggest Disney executives think live-action movies can only be expensive. It's time for smaller-scale, but more daring, original Walt Disney Pictures family fare to puncture that belief.

It might sound weird to say that Walt Disney Pictures needs to make movies actually aimed at children. However, that's actually a solid piece of advice for the studio given its recent titles. Several 2020s Walt Disney Pictures live-action works have largely been consumed by older audiences. A key reason why "Tron: Ares" bombed at the box office, for instance, was that 70% of its opening weekend ticket sales came from folks over the age of 25. Meanwhile, 21% of the opening weekend audience for "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" was over 54. Only 25% of those patrons seeing the Walt Disney Pictures logo before Indy's final adventure that weekend were under 25.

Meanwhile, the marketing for titles like "Freakier Friday" has been aimed at stoking the nostalgia of people over 35 by reminding these audience members of actors or punchlines they grew up with. The live-action movies Walt Disney Pictures has been releasing still operate like children's films, yet they're marketed to and meant to resonate primarily with adults (will 2020s youngsters get a "Tron: Ares" plot point about Depeche Mode?). It's time to make new, original live-action children's films that are actually relevant to today's youngsters.

Folks over 30 still have their copies of the original versions of "Beauty and the Beast" or "Lilo & Stitch" they can turn to. New live-action Disney fare can't be aimed at them. Instead, Walt Disney Pictures must return to making live-action titles for kids.

A recurring problem across both the five most disappointing movies of 2026 (so far) and the 15 most disappointing movies of the 2020s is a reluctance to embrace bright colors. Modern pop culture properties have been widely criticized for eschewing coherent lighting and vibrant hues, an issue live-action Disney remakes have been especially guilty of. Titles like "Beauty and the Beast," "Dumbo," "Moana," and "The Lion King," among others, are filled with characters coated in bizarrely subdued colors and grim lighting that makes everything hard to parse out. Grim naturalistic movies like "Manchester by the Sea" are infinitely more visually coherent than family-friendly live-action musicals where household objects sing "Be Our Guest."

This dedication to sucking all the colors and vibrancy out of classic animation movies has continued in Disney's remakes with "Moana." However, this trend has also made modern live-action Walt Disney Pictures movies out of step with the biggest 2020s features that embrace bright colors. The vibrant pinks dominating "Barbie," the cavalcade of colors littering the "Spider-Verse" features, and even the R-rated horror film "Backrooms" used bright hues to differentiate between the "real world" and Backrooms. 

If live-action Disney films want to be relevant to audiences, it's time for the people behind movies like "Moana" to buy some lightbulbs and not be terrified of color schemes evoking 2008's "Speed Racer." These Mouse House titles have been exceedingly guilty of this frustrating 2020s cinema trend, but that doesn't mean they have to continue perpetuating it.

"What would Walt do?" was a question that every corner of the Disney empire followed after Walt Disney passed away in December 1966. Following those four words ended up cursing the Mouse House empire, since everyone became obsessed with trying to emulate Walt rather than taking any risks. A similar trepidation and obsession with the past have infiltrated Disney's live-action movies in the 2020s. Walt Disney Pictures so often cranks out live-action titles emulating past animated hits (albeit with less visual pizzazz and energy). Even Walt Disney Animation Studios has succumbed to this problem, as seen by bombs like 2023's "Wish," which was annoyingly obsessed with referencing yesteryear Disney productions.

Returning to Disney's live-action movie endeavors, clinging to the past with titles like "Snow White" and "Moana" has produced some of Disney's biggest box-office bombs of all time. Going forward, Walt Disney Pictures needs to embrace and release family-friendly titles that might not immediately strike audiences as being "Disney" fare. Rather than reheating up '90s animated musical leftovers, find young filmmakers under 35 and support their stories, even if they don't instantly conjure up visions of theme park adaptations.

Taking these risks has often benefited Disney in the past. Walt Disney Pictures had never released a non-Touchstone/Hollywood Pictures PG-13 movie, for instance, before 2003's "Pirates of the Caribbean." That smash hit upended people's expectations of what Disney movies looked like. It's time to capsize those perceptions again and leave "What would Walt do?" thinking behind.