Disney's Live Action Revolution

Disney’s Live Action Revolution

Yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter announced Disney’s plans for a live-action Dumbo remake, the most recent project in a series of animation-turned-combined-CG/live-action films by Disney. Dumbo will feature the beloved flying elephant from the 1941 classic in addition to a new family story as parallel. No release date has been set, but it will be produced by Tron: Legacy and Oblivionalumnus Justin Springer and features a script by Transformers screenwriterEhren Kruger. 

Since 2010’s $1 billion success with Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Disney has tried its Mickey-Mitt gloved hands at several live-action adaptations of beloved animated films:

• Maleficent, a retelling of the studio’s most risky [and arguably most beautiful] animation, Sleeping Beauty, is in theaters now. 
  
• Coming soon is Cinderella, everyone’s favorite rags to riches romance (judging by the number of versions of the story fairytale fans can already enjoy). I should warn you, the teaser trailer is quite the tease, but you can catch a first look at Lily James’s reprise of the role from First Showing. Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella hits theaters March 13, 2015.
  
• Up next will be The Jungle Book. Unlike the original live-action flick from 1994, this one is directed by Jon Favreau and features Idris Elba as Shere Khan. Expect it later in 2015. 
  
• Beauty and the Beast is also on the list of remakes, presumably thanks to the brilliance of the 1991 animated film, its successful 3D premiere in 2012 and its smash Broadway production. Twilight's Bill Condon will direct. 

Also purportedly in the works are Cruella (the first second third live action version of my favorite Disney film, 101 Dalmatians; read more here and here), Through the Looking Glass (sequel to Alice in Wonderland, based on Lewis Carroll’s sequel book of the same name) andpossibly Pinocchio, whose script (co-written by Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller and revised by X-Men: First Class writer Jane Goldman) is being eyed by Tim Burton and could star Robert Downey, Jr.