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Credit: Universal Pictures / Amblin EntertainmentA poster for Pixar’s remake of The Land Before Time remake has been circulating social media this week, but can Disney truly remake a movie that was never theirs to begin with?
Images of a Pixar variant of The Land Before Time (1988) on social media outlets like Facebook have several animation fans either ecstatic or confused. While the visuals certainly look like something the studio behind Toy Story (1995) and Up (2009), the reality of the project has been questionable at best.
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This isn’t the first time a remake of Don Bluth’s dinosaur film has been speculated, as a similar phenomenon was reported in 2022. That said, the image looks believable and even has a tagline and release year. The question is, is this firm, fossil evidence, or just an artificial imitation?
Is The Land Before Time: Back From Extinction?
The adventures of Littlefoot, Spike, Ducky, and all the rest of the Great Valley’s dinos have stretched over the course of a 14-film franchise, the last of which was released in 2016. In a season of live-action remakes and various reboots, it still feels strange that this will be the next one on the chopping block.
As much buzz as the artwork for the proposed film has generated, the image is more than likely an AI forgery designed to elicit a response, which it has. A report from The Direct goes into greater detail as to why a modern animated remake (with or without Pixar) would likely never happen.
“Currently, Universal [Pictures] still owns the rights to the franchise (as it always has)… Universal only recently stopped working on The Land Before Time franchise after it released the 14th film in 2016. While there is always the possibility the studio could eventually revisit it, perhaps with a remake, there are no plans to do so at the moment, with the franchise currently fossilizing in the annals of Universal’s IP vault.”
Although this might be a case of AI art fooling viewers on the internet, it’s equally impressive and shocking to see just how quickly this got a reaction, as well as how many actually believed its validity. Fans might never see a return to the Great Valley, but that also might be for the best.
Would you want to see a remake or reboot of The Land Before Time? Tell Inside the Magic what you think in the comments below!