From cartoon to live-action film: A brief glance
- kaitlynbivens
- Jul 19, 2022
- 2 min read
It seems that over the last several years, there's become a trend of Disney making live-action remakes of previous films. Other companies have started to do this as well. Some will claim that Disney and others companies are running out of ideas, being lazy on their projects, or playing off of nostalgia. While these claims may have some elements of truth to them, this concept is far from new. In this blog, we're going to look at the first instances of what I'm going to call the "cartoon made into live-action" concept. I'll also be excluding comic strips, books, etc. turned into movies/shows.
The very start
The first example that I came across was "Popeye", which was based on the cartoon, "Popeye the Sailor" which was released in 1933. The film "Popeye" was released in 1980. Before researching this topic, the 1987 film "Masters of the Universe" was one example of the "cartoon made into live-action" movie concept that came to mind. You know, He-man had a cartoon, and "Masters of the Universe" was live-action, right? Well, upon further research, the "Masters of the Universe" film was actually based on the toy line, not the cartoon. (I've only watched the movie once). I don't think it counts here in this blog, but it's definitely an honorable mention because technically, He-man does have a cartoon. The next movie was "The Flintstones", released in 1994. "The Flintstones" film was based on the cartoon produced by Hanna- Barbara in 1960. These were the earliest films I've seen that had the "cartoon made into live-action" concept and most other live-action films were based on comic strips and book characters, so I think this idea was fairly new at the time.
In conclusion...
The most recent"cartoon made into live-action" adaptation, I believe, was Mulan in 2020. I hear more are in the works. Though it may seem like this was a new thing following the success of "Alice in Wonderland" in 2010, this has pretty much been a thing since the 80s (and probably earlier). Don't get me wrong, this idea is definitely becoming more common and there's no doubt this is a play on nostalgia and definitely overused at this time, my point here was to show that this idea has been around for a while. I hope this was interesting and I sincerely hope you enjoyed this blog.
Disclaimer: I didn't do thorough research because this is just for fun. If you have anything to add please feel free to email me at my Gmail linked on this website, use the chat option built into this website, or comment below.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flintstones_(film)
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