Live-Action Movies That Should Be Remade in Animation

Disney has built a cottage industry taking their classic animated features and remaking them in live-action. They do it so often and with so much financial success, it makes you wonder … why hasn’t anyone tried to do the reverse?

Sound ridiculous? Maybe it is. But it also sounded ridiculous when Disney decided to make The Lion King — a movie with no human beings — in “live-action.” That “ridiculous” idea wound up grossing $1.65 billion worldwide. (Disney then made a Lion King prequel, and that grossed another $700 million.)

It’s a stretch to say any of these movies “should” be remade in animation. But no movie of any kind “should” be remade. If a film was great the first time around there’s almost never a valid reason to redo it (besides, as a wise Yogurt once said, da search for more money). That said, if studios are going to remake things, it’s odd that they only ever do it one direction. Converting a live-action film into the medium of animation could not only be an opportunity to make more money, it could give some talented artists an opportunity to do something genuinely new with an old favorite.

That brings us to this list of great movies I think would look great in animation. Keep in mind that I excluded any franchise that has already produced any significant animated content in the past. The Matrix seems perfectly suited to an animated movie — which is why they made The Animatrix in 2003. The same goes for Star Wars and Tron and Blade Runner and The Lord of the Rings.

It hasn’t happened for the titles below. At least not yet.

READ MORE: 12 Remakes That Were Drastically Different From the Original Movie