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Disney’s ‘Mulan’ Live-Action Remake Gets A Release Date

By Jeffrey Totey
Published on: 09:34 PST, Oct 4, 2016

A new live-action remake of Disney’s 1998 animated film Mulan has just been given a release date while Disney is actively looking for a Chinese actress to play the lead role, reports Yahoo. The new movie will be released in 3D and is set to arrive in theaters on November 2, 2018. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, who worked on Jurassic World, have been called upon to rewrite the spec script that has floated about the Walt Disney Studios since 2015. The pair are also working on the sequel to James Cameron’s Avatar. As of yet, the film has not attached a director to the project.

Like the original film, Mulan is based on the Chinese folklore tale of Hua Mulan, a daughter of an older warrior who disguises herself like a man so that she can take his place in the army and to great success. Mushu, the tiny but trustworthy dragon, is expected to make an appearance in the new film as well.

News of the new Mulan movie comes just weeks after Disney announced that the studios would be working again with director Jon Favreau on the life action re-telling of The Lion King. Favreau also directed the uber-popular live action remake of The Jungle Book and has already signed on to a sequel to that film as well. The new Lion King is expected to feature songs from the original animated film.

In other live-action remake news, Disney has just released new photos of Belle’s yellow ball gown featured in the upcoming Beauty and the Beast movie which comes to theaters on March 17, 2017. The movie stars Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as the Beast.

So why is Disney re-imagining all of the company’s animated hits into live-action remakes? Disney’s first foray into recreating one of its original animated tales came way back in 1996 with 101 Dalmatians that starred Glenn Close as Cruella De Vil. While hardcore fans were afraid of what Disney might do to their childhood memories of the classic film, they were quite surprised by the result. Made with a budget of $75,000,000, 101 Dalmatians had a gross of $136,182,161. However, fans were not as supportive in 2000 when the studio released the sequel, 102 Dalmatians. Built with a higher budget of $85,000,000, the film only made a gross of $66,941,559. However, Disney plans yet another Cruella movie with Close serving as executive producer. The new dog-hating-but-fur-loving villain movie will feature Emma Stone as the lead and will be directed by Kenneth Branagh.

There was a 10-year gap between 102 Dalmatians and Tim Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland, which came out in 2000 and was wildly successful with a gross of $334,185,206 vs. a budget of $200,000,000. However, it too suffered a similar fate earlier this year when Disney released the sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass which lost about $100,000,000 in the process. However, it should be noted that the Alice movies were not true remakes of the original animated tale.

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In 2014, Disney attempted to retell the Sleeping Beauty story from the perspective of Maleficent who turned out to be a much more charitable person than most of us had been led to believe. It too has made some money with its $180,000,000 budget. Maleficent made $241,407,328 gross. The film has a sequel planned as well.

Other successful live-action remakes include Cinderella (2015) with a budget of $95,000,000 and a gross of $201,148,159 and Pete’s Dragon which has had a budget of $65,000,000 and gross of $74,743,643 so far.

And there is even more live-action remakes to join Mulan in the near future including The Little Mermaid and Dumbo.

[Featured Image by Tomacco/iStock]

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