Moana: Another Disney remake but is it too soon?

Actor Dwayne Johnson has announced that a unrecorded enactment remake of Disney's 2016 animated philharmonic Moana is successful the works.

The US star, aka The Rock, revealed the task successful a video filmed connected a formation connected the Hawaiian land of O'ahu, alongside his daughters.

Johnson, who voiced gregarious demi-God Maui successful the animation, tweeted helium was "deeply humbled" to assistance reproduce the "beautiful communicative of Moana".

Original Moana histrion Auliʻi Cravalho volition besides beryllium involved.

Set connected the Polynesian land of Motunui, Moana follows the communicative of an adventurous teenage girl, who sets sail connected a daring ngo to prevention her people, with the assistance of Johnson's Maui.

Referencing his ain family's heritage, the ex-wrestler added: "This communicative is my culture, and this communicative is emblematic of our people's grace, mana and warrior strength."

In the video, posted connected Monday evening, Johnson went connected explicate however "the tone of my precocious grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia" had "inspired" him to bring the portion to life.

He said however "honoured" helium felt to present get the accidental to enactment with Disney again to "tell our communicative done the realm of euphony and dance, which astatine the halfway is who we are arsenic Polynesian people."

The archetypal Moana animation was a container bureau hit, grossing much than $645m (£520m) worldwide portion earning an Oscar information for champion animated movie.

Since the 2010s, you'll person noticed Disney has remade a raft of container office-smashing, aged schoolhouse animated classics, utilizing existent beingness actors.

Remakes of Alice successful Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and the Lion King each grossed much than $1 billion.

And determination are plentifulness much remakes successful the pipeline too, including Hercules, Peter Pan & Wendy and Mufusa, a Lion King prequel.

Now though, with the likes of Moana and Lilo & Stitch, we are starting to spot the aforesaid exemplary being applied to modern favourites, according to movie professional Helen O'Hara.

"I deliberation Moana was a large film, it was a container bureau deed and you person these 2 incredibly likeable stars who are inactive astatine the close property and the close look to travel backmost and bash their roles again," she told BBC News.

"So successful that consciousness I get the entreaty of doing it now, but it is an antithetic 1 due to the fact that it's a much, overmuch shorter model betwixt animated movie and unrecorded enactment remake than we've ever had before."

O'Hara believes that astir unrecorded enactment remakes don't truly request to beryllium but says immoderate of the amended ones down the years, specified arsenic Cinderella, the Jungle publication and Dumbo, person genuinely added thing to the archetypal movies.

And portion the superior information for the concern is undoubtedly money, she stresses, the creatives progressive usually privation to marque the precise champion movie they can.

"There are 2 antithetic things going on: the radical who marque the decisions astir what to greenlight are each astir money," she explains. "The radical who marque the movies - the directors, the producers, the writers, the formed - are often aiming to make thing great, I think, each clip they spell out.

"They don't get a portion of what the workplace does, for the astir part. So they privation to marque a large unrecorded enactment Moana oregon a large unrecorded enactment Lion King, oregon immoderate it is.

"But the workplace suits decidedly bash marque decisions connected the ground of wealth and those decisions are made connected the ground of what is simply a acquainted sanction to people, what volition radical spell to the cinema and see? And radical volition spell to the cinema to spot The Rock and radical volition spell to the cinema to spot Moana, truthful that's beauteous overmuch the grade of the maths that I deliberation they're doing."

As good arsenic bringing successful the large bucks, leaning towards re-makes, sequels and safer franchises allows Disney - a institution which has been cutting unit aft numbers connected its Disney+ streaming tract fell - to beryllium capable to spend to instrumentality risks connected different projects.

Some of the remakes person besides enabled filmmakers to archer stories from antithetic perspectives and successful antithetic ways for modern audiences too.

Maleficent, for example. re-told the communicative of Sleeping Beauty from the position of the villainess. While Halle Bailey, the prima of the upcoming Little Mermaid remake, was near awestruck by radical sharing videos of the joyousness connected their children's faces connected seeing the trailer for a movie featuring a non-white Disney prima who looked a small similar them.

Despite wide commercialized success, Disney's remakes person not been without their critics though. Last twelvemonth the workplace had to respond to disapproval made by Game of Thrones histrion Peter Dinklage astir its forthcoming unrecorded enactment adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Dinklage, who has a signifier of dwarfism called achondroplasia, said the remake of the 1937 animated film, based connected communicative from the Brothers Grimm, was "backward".

Disney said it was going to "avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the archetypal animated film".

Now arsenic the Walt Disney Company, to springiness it its afloat name, approaches its 100th birthday, immoderate of its classic, earlier movies are nearing their copyright expiration dates.

But the company's strategy astir live-action remakes, O'Hara believes, has little to bash with extending copyright - thing which does not automatically renew by remaking thing with the aforesaid sanction anyhow - and much to bash with getting the astir retired of each and each product.

"I deliberation determination was a treatment of that with Mickey Mouse, for example, due to the fact that the copyright of that is coming up, and evidently we've seen this twelvemonth already what happened erstwhile Winnie the Pooh fell retired of copyright," said the movie critic.

"But the films that they presently person connected the slate, things similar the Little Mermaid oregon Hercules, lone spell backmost 20 oregon 30 years, truthful there's nary question that those volition travel falling retired of copyright yet.

"And evidently thing similar Moana oregon Lilo & Stitch, those person years and years to go," she added.

"I don't deliberation it's truthful overmuch astir that arsenic it is with getting everything they tin retired of the ideas that they clasp and the ideas that radical cognize them for.

"Because if you bash win with your unrecorded enactment remake, past you tin person a sequel to the unrecorded enactment remake. So possibly it's bully for 2 oregon 3 films and not conscionable one."