Disney is probably the biggest box office draw for general audiences. Between the Star Wars and Marvel franchises, Disney has been dominating the box office for almost a decade now. However, they've had very mixed responses to their "live-action reimaginings," where they recreate classics like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin with famous actors and CGI.
This year, Disney released The Little Mermaid, a remake of their 1989 classic, which performed well at the box office and had a second surge in streaming. From remakes like The Lion King to reimaginings like Cruella, Disney's live-action offerings have turned into a cash cow for the company and have done impressive numbers at the box office.
Updated by Fawzia Khan on 19th September, 2023: Disney has been reimagining many of its classic movies lately, with enhanced animation, top actors, and beautiful new sound. Seeing how the original movies were so popular, Disney fans can't help but wonder which live-action Disney movie made the most money. The most successful Disney remakes have excelled emotionally and artistically, as well as at the box office. This list has been updated with the newest entrant The Little Mermaid and other Disney live-action films based on their performance.
14 102 Dalmatians (2000) - $183.6 Million
A sequel to the 1996 remake of 101 Dalmatians, Cruella De Vil returns in 102 Dalmatians, albeit in a reformed avatar. Atoning for her sins from the last movie, Cruella starts seeing Dr. Pavlov who makes her a kinder, gentler person. However, when Cruella hears the piercing chime of Big Ben, she reverts to her original, evil self and goes after the newest puppies, Domino, Little Dipper, and Oddball.
With a budget of $85 million, 102 Dalmatians did not perform too well at the box office. The movie earned $67 million in the USA and $116.7 million overseas, totaling up to $183.6 million.
13 Cruella (2021) - $233.5 Million
After 20 years, Disney brought back the iconic villain Cruella De Vil in a well-deserved origin story, titled Cruella. The movie revolves around Estella, a young orphan who is wildly talented in the fashion department, but has a traumatic past and an uncertain future to look forward to. Starring Emma Stone, this Cruella isn't like her 101 Dalmatians counterpart, the biggest difference being her lack of animosity towards the dalmatians.
The movie is a visual extravaganza and the addition of the punk rock movement and a real personality to Cruella fleshes the movie out beautifully. Despite positive reviews, Cruella did not perform as well as expected. It earned $86.1 million in the USA, and $147.4 million internationally. The gross collection was $233.5 million.
12 Alice Through The Looking Glass (2016) - $299.5 Million
Alice Through the Looking Glass was released six years after Alice in Wonderland's success and is not a remake of any source material created by Disney. However, the film is a sequel to a reimagining of a classic Disney animation, transporting Alice back to Wonderland to save the Mad Hatter's life. In order to help her friend, she has to travel in time to the event that turned the Mad Hatter into the man he is today, thwarting Time himself in an evil scheme.
Alice Through The Looking Glass didn't break its predecessor's box office numbers. With half their revenues going to cinemas, films typically need to make back more than twice their budget to really make a profit. With a budget of $170 million, according to Box Office Mojo, the almost $300 million box office revenue was not enough to consider Alice's sequel much of a success.
11 101 Dalmatians (1996) - $320.7 million
Based on the 1961 animation, 101 Dalmatians gave fans a live-action look at Roger and Anita's love story, which was impelled by the meeting of their lovely dalmatians, Pongo and Perdita at the park. However, Roger and Anita's marriage, and Pongo and Perdita's bond fall into jeopardy as Anita's fur-obsessed boss, Cruella De Vil, sets her sights on Perdita's puppies for a fur coat.
101 Dalmatians became the sixth-highest-grossing film of the year 1996. With collections of $136.2 million in the USA and $320.7 million internationally, it was a box office success against a budget of $67 million. Glen Close's performance as the animal-hating vamp was praised unanimously.
10 Dumbo (2019) - $353.3 Million
Released in 1941, the original Dumbo is one of Disney's shortest films. It follows the famous big-eared elephant as he learns to fly, gets drunk, and looks for his mother. At the time, the film made about $1.3 million at the box office, over $20 billion, adjusted for inflation. For the remake, Tim Burton took the original film and expanded it to include a circus family that befriends Dumbo but cut his mouse friend, Timothy, out of the story.
Dumbo was a hard sell for Disney since audiences were beginning to fall out of love with Tim Burton. However, it had a respectable box office run coming in with around $350 million on a budget of $170 Million. Tim Burton has developed a number of dark fantasy films, but for some reason, audiences weren't interested in an uplifting one.
9 Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil (2019) - $491.7 Million
Angelina Jolie returns to the role of Maleficent in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. This time around, her life has gone very well, but evil threatens the proposed peace between Maleficent's realm and Aurora's. With Aurora, the original Sleeping Beauty, about to be married, Maleficent learns that her people are descendants of the great Phoenix.
With a budget of $185 million, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil was a marginal financial success. Audiences just weren't that interested in returning to the weird world of Maleficent. It's not as familiar as classics like The Jungle Book and even with Jolie's star power audiences just didn't respond.
8 Cinderella (2015) - $542.4 Million
Arguably the movie that kicked off this whole trend, Cinderella is a pretty straightforward retelling of the fairytale/Disney animation. The original film was released in 1950, audiences enjoyed the film, and it ended up making around $96 million when all the rereleases were added up, impressive for a budget of $2.2 million. The new film sticks pretty close to the original but expands the role of the prince and adds motivation for the traditionally evil stepmother.
Overall, audiences were pretty happy with the Kenneth Branagh-directed version of Cinderella. With a small budget of $95 million, the movie was definitely profitable at over $540 million.
7 The Little Mermaid (2023) - $569 million
The breathtaking, watery world of Ariel, Triton, and her seven sisters came to life in The Little Mermaid. Considered a top Disney live-action movie, it stayed faithful to the original, detailing the story of how Ariel, curious about the human world, gets tricked by Ursula into losing her fins as well as her voice.
Her love story with Prince Eric is as riveting as it is tender-hearted, and the movie did a stellar job in recreating fan favorites in live-action with the help of a brilliant cast and beautiful visual effects. The Little Mermaid grossed $298.2 million in the USA, and $271.3 million overseas, reaching a large worldwide total of $569.5 million. After being released on Disney+, the movie amassed 16 million views in the first five days.
6 Maleficent (2014) - $758.4 Million
Maleficent sports an incredible performance from Angelina Jolie who is pitch-perfect as the titular villain from Sleeping Beauty. A brand-new take on the 1959 film that created one of the most iconic Disney villains of all time, it makes Maleficent the hero, by revealing that she and the king were in love until he violated her trust by stealing her wings. Now she haunts the land as a sorceress until she takes a liking to Princess Aurora.
While it's often forgotten when people talk about Disney live-action films, Maleficent did very well at the box office. A $185 million budget is tough to make profitable, but the film ended up making almost $800 million. It's hard to argue that it wasn't a success and that it appealed to audiences successfully.
5 The Jungle Book (2016) - $966.5 Million
Originally released in 1967, Disney's Jungle Book made almost $74 million, $672 million in today's dollars, in its original release and went on to gross more than $200 million after subsequent rereleases. While darker than the original, the remake remains faithful to the original story of Mowgli trying to escape the evil Shere Khan. While they may be out of place in the darker story, the film still includes many of the original songs that made the original so beloved.
For a movie that pioneered a new filmmaking method, it's kind of impressive that the live-action Jungle Book has a budget under $200 million. Audiences really responded to this one as it sports a popular voice cast and very impressive CGI. At over $900 million, it didn't quite make $1 billion, but it got very close.
4 Alice in Wonderland (2010) - $1.03 Billion
On its surface, Tim Burton and Alice in Wonderland make a lot of sense together. His style matched the themes and imagery Lewis Carroll created in this dark and whimsical new take on the classic story. Unlike others that Disney produced, this film has very little in common with the original 1951 animated film of the same name. It acts more like an adventure that runs parallel to the original narrative.
The first of Disney's live-action remakes to crack $1 billion, Alice In Wonderland kicked off an odd partnership between Disney and Burton. Much of its financial success could have sprung from the fact that it was the second major theatrical release in Avatar's 3D style. Inflated ticket prices and the hype of seeing a brand-new version of 3D provided the perfect storm to catapult the film past the $1 billion mark.
3 Aladdin (2019) - $1.05 Billion
Aladdin, the classic story of a "street rat" who frees a powerful Genie from a magical lamp, originally came out in 1993 and grossed $500 million at the box office. The new film is an almost painfully faithful adaptation of the original film, with Will Smith in the late Robin Williams' shoes as the Genie.
Will Smith was more than up for the challenge of taking on Williams' most iconic role and the film was a massive success. With great new talent and fun renditions of classic songs, audiences fell in love with Aladdin and made it Disney's next billion-dollar hit.
2 Beauty And The Beast (2017) - $1.3 Billion
The original Beauty and the Beast was released during Disney's Renaissance era. Audiences in 1991 really enjoyed the film and helped it make almost $450 million in box office returns and snare it a Best Picture nomination. For the remake, it casting Emma Watson as Belle was a sharp start. Through Watson, the film reimagined Belle as more resourceful and less of an ingenue.
Audiences fell in love with this magical retelling of this "tale as old as time." While fans have debated Beauty and the Beast's overall quality since, once a film hits the $1 billion mark, it's hard to argue it's not a hit.
1 The Lion King (2019) - $1.6 Billion
The Lion King was released in 1993 and continues to be one of the strangest retellings of Hamlet ever put to screen. Originally making more than $700 million, the film has collectively grossed more than $900 million, thanks to rereleases from Disney. Even with 30 extra minutes of footage, the remake largely reprises the animated film's story.
The Lion King is Disney's most financially successful remake by far, making well over $1.6 billion. Sporting the most photorealistic CGI available at the time, The Lion King once again let Disney push visual effects technology to a new threshold. While the CG animals aren't as expressive as their hand-animated counterparts, audiences were enthralled by this new version of a beloved classic.