Credit: ABCDwayne Johnson is already getting prepared for a live-action remake with Disney.
Dwayne The Rock Johnson joined Disney CEO Bob Iger just a few weeks ago at the company’s annual shareholders meeting to announce that a live-action adaptation of Moana was coming to the big screen. The Rock, who voiced the character of Maui, confirmed that he would be reprising his role, but the announcement was met with much skepticism from fans. Many fans said they were tired of live-action remakes, listing off a number of recent remakes that the company has made, including The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Peter Pan, and The Jungle Book, as a few. If these weren’t already enough, Disney also has announced plans for a Lilo & Stitch live-action remake, and a Snow White live-action remake starring Rachel Zegler as the princess is set to be released next year.
More backlash came to the film following comments from Auli’i Cravalho, who announced she would not be reprising her role as Moana in the live-action remake. The actress did share, however, that she would be involved in helping find her replacement as an Executive Producer on the project.
But, Disney might not be done there.
In a recent Buzzfeed interview, Little Mermaid actress Halle Bailey was asked who she might cast as Sulley in a live-action Monsters Inc. remake. Perhaps to the surprise of many, Bailey said she’d go with The Rock. Other members of the cast threw out names like Jason Momoa, Jack Black, Colin Firth, and Idris Elba. Of course, it would be fun to see Dwayne Johnson rejoin forces with friend Kevin Hart, who could play Mike Wazowski, but that’s another story for another day.
The Little Mermaid had a solid opening weekend at the box office, bringing in $117.5 million over the four-day weekend. The movie’s performance was slightly ahead of Disney’s live-action Aladdin remake, which debuted in 2019 and went on to cross the $1 billion mark, but recent indications say the projections for this movie will likely fall short of that mark.
As far as the live-action Monsters Inc. remake is concerned, we’ll likely have to wait a long time to get such a thing. As a matter of fact, this doesn’t seem to be a movie on Disney’s radar to be remade and, depending on how the next couple of live-action remakes perform, the company could elect to go in a different direction entirely. The good news, however, is that you can stream Monsters Inc. and Monsters University on Disney+.