Hacker Cinema
Aladdin
2019 · Film · 127 min
Directed by Guy Ritchie
A kindhearted street urchin named Aladdin embarks on a magical adventure after finding a lamp that releases a wisecracking genie while a power-hungry Grand Vizier vies for the same lamp that has the power to make their deepest wishes come true.
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11 comments on Hacker News
> And of course, the depressing string of live-action remakes which, if they're all quickly forgotten, often hit the 1 billion mark
Live action Aladdin was surprisingly good—it was best went they stepped away from the original animated movie, and switched to remaking Hitch.
2019 remakes or sequels: Lion King, Spider Man, Jumanji, Frozen, Avengers, Toy Story, Aladdin, Dr Sleep, Godzilla, Terminator, John Wick, Zombieland.
There were a few good movies in 2019 like every year.
Hollywood overall has become extremely derivative and market focused.
> the Will Smith shameless money grab
I have yet to come up with any explanation besides racism for why the live action Aladdin, and specifically the casting of Smith as the Genie, is the thing among all the recent live-action Disney remake films and TV recyclings that is disproportionately singled out for this treatment. I mean, sure Disney is a particularly aggressive money making machine and this description is accurate for basically everything they ever do, but why this one gets singled out above all others?
> but there's a lot of diminishing returns
Disney disagrees. Have a look at the box office of their live action remakes:
- Beauty and the Beast: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=beautyandthebeast2017.htm
- Aladdin: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=disneyfairytale22019.htm
- The Lion King: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=lionkingliveaction.htm
Why wouldn't they keep making the same movies over and over with billion dollar returns like that?
I wish Hollywood studios would create more new original stuff. There was a meme circulated around a few weeks back with a movie theater sign with Childsplay, Toy Story 4, Godzilla, Aladdin and Men in Black on it with the title, "The 90s called and want their movies back."
I get that older movies with established franchises can be secure bets to bring in money, but there's a lot of diminishing returns. I feel some people just see these releases in the theaters because there's nothing else released.
You are right in regards to building on stuff that they already own. All the movies this year that have grossed over $100 Million have been based on older content.
1 Avengers: Endgame
2 The Lion King (2019)
3 Captain Marvel
4 Toy Story 4
5 Aladdin (2019)
6 Dumbo (2019)
They're pretty much everyone else. New releases of these "same games" bring better graphics, or animations, or gameplay, or story, or any combination of the previous. FIFA, in addition I assume they also include the new players and trades that happened since the last version (but I don't play FIFA so I could be wrong here).
Nostalgia is also a big factor, with so many reboots and adaptations of source material to new media, today's adults will pay to see all the Marvel blockbusters because they read the comics or saw the TV show as kids. I'd bet many people that bought MK9 - which rebooted the saga - did it for nostalgia. The same probably happened with the new Tomb Raiders, also a reboot of the series. Have you heard of the new The Lion King? Or Dumbo? Or Aladdin? Or any of the 500 new remakes Disney wants to make? Same thing.
>But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping.
Yes, but I think it's safe to say that there were a lot more original movies a few decades ago than there are now. Hollywood used to take more risks.
>According to Wikipedia, Aladdin grossed "$923.7 million, against a production budget of $183 million". So despite you and your nephew, Disney seem to manage OK.
Exactly. People are bemoaning the current state of Hollywood, but it's extremely profitable, and that's all that really matters to them. There's no shortage of paying customers willing to see the latest sequel/prequel/remake/reboot. Sure, they might lose a few ticket sales from people like me and this OP and his nephew, but it's more than made up for by countless others who just don't care and want entertainment. And yes, they might make more profit on a really great original movie (like the original Star Wars in 1977), but that's also a big risk and it might flop and be a giant loss, so they tend to shy away from such things now and make safer movies that have an almost guaranteed profit, even if it isn't as much.
> everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought.
But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc.
"catching on to the fact" suggest that this is some secret insight which undermines the enjoyment of the movie. But I'm pretty sure most people who goes to the Disney remakes go because it is remakes of movies they already know and love. They want to see the same thing in a new way.
According to Wikipedia, Aladdin grossed "$923.7 million, against a production budget of $183 million". So despite you and your nephew, Disney seem to manage OK.
Hollywood does have problem, but it is not due to lack of originality. Hollywood produces plenty of original stories still, but it is the remakes and franchises which grosses the most. Because the consumers likes this stuff.
Hollywood is hanging itself by its own velvet rope. Remakes are seen as an excellent investment because, so long as they are properly stylized and full of dazzle, they are low-risk and have reasonable returns. Usually.
This won't work for them forever, and I think everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. The other day, my cousin's 11 year old son was over and we were trying to figure out what movie to go see. We asked him if he wanted to go see the live-action Aladdin remake. He told us he didn't want to see it because they(Disney) were just taking a 2D movie that he'd already seen and are just doing the same thing again with actors to make more money. I gave him a fist-bump. He's not even a cynical kid, either. We ended up not even going to the movies because everything that was out was either a remake or n-th sequel, ridiculous looking, or rated R.
If kids who weren't even around when Aladdin or The Lion King first came out are catching on to the fact that corporations are just recycling their parent's generation's culture, it's a sign that Hollywood has gotten completely full of itself and is in early-stage apoptosis.
> But when compared with some of his earlier “core” stories, such as the eerie “City of Brass,” the 1712 “Aladdin” comes across as lackluster and unexciting. Disney’s two screen versions, the 1992 animated feature and this spring’s live-action film, are actually much more satisfying.
It's also worth noting that regardless of the provenance of Galland's Aladdin, Disney's movie is basically a rip-off of the 1940 film The Thief of Baghdad, which combined the Thousand and One Nights elements with the plot of the earlier silent movie it was a remake off.
> Although it was a remake of a 1924 silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks, this film has been highly influential on later movies based on The Book of One Thousand and One Nights setting. For example, the Disney film Aladdin borrows freely from it, particularly the characters of the evil Vizier and the Sultan, both drawn with a marked similarity to the characters in The Thief of Bagdad. The villian Jafar is named after Jaffar. The thieving monkey Abu in the Disney cartoon is based on the boy played by Sabu.[12]
(from wikipedia)
Galland's Aladdin was set in China, so actually the entire middle-eastern setting comes from The Thief of Baghdad.