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Disney has no less than 21 live-action movies in the works right now. Some appear to be faithful remakes of the original, like this summer’s “Aladdin,” while others are diverging from their source material, like the non-musical “Mulan.”
But there have been a fair few Disney live-action remakes already, like “Alice in Wonderland,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Cinderella.” We took a closer look to find the biggest changes Disney made when turning their animated classics into live-action blockbusters.
Keep scrolling to learn more about Disney’s biggest alterations.
In 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast,” Disney featured its first gay character, LeFou, though his sexuality was not discussed in the animated classic.
LeFou’s “exclusively gay moment” in “Beauty and the Beast” consisted of him dancing with another man at the end of the film, when everyone gets their happy ending.
This was a departure from the animated movie in which – while LeFou seems to have a crush on the villainous hunk Gaston – his sexuality is never made entirely clear.
Also in “Beauty and the Beast,” there’s an addition of a magical book that can take the reader anywhere they want to go — and it gives Belle’s mother a much-need back story.
The magical book lets Belle – and viewers – visit her first home in Paris, when she was just a baby. She learns that her father moved her to her “provincial life” after her adventurous mother died of the plague.
Belle’s mother is barely mentioned in the 1991 film, and it’s never explained why Belle and her father live in such a small town, which clearly makes Belle miserable.
Belle’s not just a voracious reader in the live-action version, she’s an inventor as well.
Not content to just sit and read like her animated counterpart, 2017’s Belle is also an inventor, and frequently creates gadgets to help her with her daily chores. However, this make her even more of an outsider in her community.
2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” also features an entirely new character, Maestro Cadenza the harpsichord.
Cadenza, in his human form, is married to the wardrobe, a character from the animated movie.
Read more:
31 of the biggest differences the live-action ‘Beauty and the Beast’ makes from the animated movie
The 2016 version of “The Jungle Book” has a few key differences to the 1967 original, the main one being that it isn’t a musical.
The 2016 version manages to include “Bare Necessities,” “Trust In Me,” and “I Wanna Be Like You,” but the vocals are decidedly more natural and less polished than in the original.
Director Jon Favreau explained on Twitter that the songs were taken out because “[I] wanted to include enough music to satisfy people who grew up [with the 1967] film, but not make it a musical or betray action tone.”
Sinister snake Kaa was played by a woman, Scarlett Johansson, in 2016, unlike the original Kaa played by Sterling Holloway, a man.
“The original film was a little male-heavy so we changed the character of Kaa,” said director Jon Favreau.
In the original King Louie was an orangutan, but to make the film more geographically accurate he was changed to the now-extinct Gigantopithecus.
He’s still just as obsessed with figuring out how to make fire, though. And Christopher Walken gets to perform a much darker version of Louie’s song, “I Wanna Be Like You.”
The original version ends with Mowgli leaving the jungle to live amongst humans, while the 2016 movie keeps him with the animals, probably to set up the upcoming sequel.
Mowgli ends the 1967 version leaving the jungle behind to live with his own kind: humans. However, to keep the possibility of a sequel open, in the live-action remake Mowgli defeats terrifying tiger Shere Khan, and continues to live in the jungle with his animal family.
This gambit worked – a “Jungle Book” sequel is in the works.
The remake of “Cinderella” gave Prince Charming a name: Kit.
His only name is in the 1950 original is Prince Charming. He received a big upgrade in the 2015 remake by getting a real name: Kit.
In the remake, Cinderella and Prince Charming also meet before the ball, in the woods.
In the original, the Prince and Cinderella first meet at the ball, when she’s all dolled up and wearing her famous glass slippers.
In the 2015 version, the two meet in the woods while they’re both pretending to be other people – Kit says he is a palace apprentice, and Cinderella essentially doesn’t reveal anything about herself. It gives their love story some much needed back story, so it makes sense for Kit to persuade his father to let him essentially stalk every girl in the kingdom by making them try on a shoe.
The Grand Duke, in the 2015 version, teams up with Cinderella’s evil stepmother to keep Cinderella and Kit apart.
The Grand Duke is a minor character in the original, whose only purpose is to help the Prince find Cinderella.
He has ulterior motives in the 2015 version, however. It comes to light that he already promised Kit to another princess, so Kit’s new love interest really throws a wrench into his plans. Lady Tremaine overhears his predicament and offers to smash Cinderella’s remaining slipper – if she can be made a countess.
Lady Tremaine, the evil stepmother, also gets a tragic back story of her own.
In the 1950 animated classic, Lady Tremaine hates Cinderella because she’s jealous of her – and that’s about it.
In the 2015 remake, she reveals an intriguing backstory: that she loved her first husband, who died, and then married Cinderella’s widowed father to support her two daughters. She then had to compete with the ghost of Cinderella’s mother, to once again be left to support three daughters when her second husband dies.
We get to meet Cinderella’s mother in the live-action version, and see how she instilled her values into Cinderella.
Cinderella’s mother is barely even discussed in the 1950 original, but in the 2015 version she can be seen telling Cinderella to “Have courage and be kind” – something Cinderella takes to heart for the rest of her life.
Another big difference? There are no talking mice like Gus and Jaq in the 2015 version of “Cinderella.”
The mice are in the movie, they just don’t speak to Cinderella and help her create a dress. They’re simply there to get transformed into coachmen by the Fairy Godmother.
And finally, the new version of “Cinderella” isn’t a musical, which means no iconic songs like “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” and “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.”
Screenwriter Chris Weitz explained that the reason there’s no music in the remake is because he simply couldn’t fit it in. He told ScreenRant, “I don’t know how to write that kind of thing really, and I think that that’s something that for me, it’s much easier to do that with an animated film.”
The biggest change to “Sleeping Beauty” in “Maleficent” is, of course, changing Maleficent from villain to sympathetic hero.
Maleficent, in the the 1959 version, is just a one-dimensional villain. The only thing that happens to her to make her evil is not getting invited to Princess Aurora’s christening – which is enough to get her to curse Aurora to die at age 16.
In “Maleficent,” the titular character has a history with Aurora’s father, King Stefan, whom she was in love with. Clearly, their love doesn’t work out, and Maleficent spends the rest of her life nursing that heartbreak.
However, she grows to care for Aurora and even tries to reverse her own spell to no avail.
In the new version, it’s also Maleficent’s true love’s kiss that breaks the spell, not Prince Philip.
In “Maleficent,” the traditional love interest Prince Philip tries to awaken Aurora with true love’s kiss, but is unsuccessful. It’s Maleficent’s motherly devotion to Aurora that breaks the sleeping curse and wakes her up.
Princess Aurora is taken in by three fairies in both “Sleeping Beauty” and “Maleficent,” but their names are different.
In “Sleeping Beauty,” the bumbling, well-meaning fairies are named Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. “Maleficent” changes them to Knotgrass, Thistlewit, and Flittle, and makes them even more incompetent, demonstrating that Maleficent was behind Aurora’s childcare all along.
“Maleficent” is also not a musical, though Lana Del Rey was enlisted to record a track from “Sleeping Beauty” for the soundtrack.
“Once Upon a Dream” is an iconic song in the Disney canon, which is why it was chosen to be included on the “Maleficent” soundtrack. But the movie itself isn’t a musical like its predecessor was.
The 2010 version of “Alice in Wonderland” has a few new characters, including Anne Hathaway’s White Queen.
The White Queen is a character from the sequel to the original “Alice in Wonderland” book, called “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There,” written by Lewis Carroll in 1871.
This White Queen is similar to her book counterpart in name only, and doesn’t even appear in the 1951 movie.
The Red Queen from the 2010 movie is an amalgam of the Queen of Hearts from “Alice in Wonderland” and the Red Queen from “Through the Looking Glass” — the original 1951 version is just the Queen of Hearts.
While Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen from the 2010 remake is called the Red Queen, her personality is taken directly from the Queen of Hearts from the 1951 animated version, down to her penchant of cutting off people’s heads.
The only thing she has in common with her book counterpart is her relationship to the White Queen, a figure that doesn’t appear in the animated version at all.
Alice’s main objective in the 2010 movie is to defeat the Jabberwocky, a creature that doesn’t appear in the animated film at all.
The Jabberwocky is another creature that appears in Caroll’s books, but never makes an appearance in the 1951 original film. Alice’s main objective, in that movie, is to escape Wonderland and make it back home.
She has more of a hero’s journey in the Tim Burton remake, and slays the Jabberwocky to save Wonderland and all of its residents.
Alice is aged up considerably for the live-action remake.
The original Alice is a young girl, whereas the live-action Alice is 19 years old and attempting to escape an arranged marriage.
There’s no Unbirthday Party in the 2010 film.
The Unbirthday Party is one of the most beloved scenes from the original 1951 movie, in which the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse are celebrating their “unbirthdays” – any day that’s not your birthday. It’s cut out completely from the 2010 movie.
And the Mad Hatter gets more of a back story in the live-action version, ultimately becoming a close friend of Alice’s.
Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter is much more sympathetic than the original Mad Hatter, who is just there to annoy Alice when she attempts to speak.
The new Mad Hatter works alongside the other creatures of Wonderland to help Alice on her quest to defeat the Jabberwocky and the Red Queen, a plot that doesn’t exist in the 1951 movie. We learn that he has a family in the sequel, “Alice Through the Looking Glass.”
And like so many of its live-action brethren, 2010’s “Alice in Wonderland” is not a musical.
Count out “The Unbirthday Song” and “All in the Golden Afternoon.”
The “101 Dalmatians” remake keeps most of the plot the same, except that it changes the time period it takes place in from the ’50s to the ’90s.
“One Hundred and One Dalmatians,” the original movie from 1961, is based on the 1956 novel of the same name. The 1996 remake keeps the general plot the same, but does bring Anita, Roger, and Cruella into the ’90s, with Roger being a video game designer instead of a musician.
While the animals are the main characters of “101 Dalmatians,” they don’t speak at all in the remake.
The dogs are still a huge part of the remake, they just don’t get to speak and express themselves like their animated counterparts do.
The 2019 live-action version of “Dumbo” changed almost everything from the original, especially by removing Timothy Q. Mouse.
This fast-talking mouse is completely left out of the movie, even though he’s Dumbo’s closest pal in the 1941 film. There are no talking animals at all in the 2019 version.
In a positive change, the remake leaves out the problematic Jim Crow character.
Jim Crow laws were designed to enforce segregation in the South following the end of the Civil War, and were enforced until the mid ’60s. In other words, these laws were firmly in place when Disney decided to include a black crow, called Jim Crow, voiced by white actor Cliff Edwards, in its 1941 original.He was not missed from the 2019 version.
Another welcome change was the removal of the downright terrifying pink elephant scene.
In the original movie, Dumbo, a child, drinks so much alcohol that he hallucinates pink elephants tormenting him. Kids the world over were scarred by this frightening scene.
The additions of Holt, Max Medici, Vandevere, Milly, Joe, and all the other humans were new.
There were almost no human characters in the original “Dumbo,” besides the unseen ringmaster.
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