In the past 100 years, Walt Disney Pictures has built a collection of incredible stories and timeless characters beloved by all ages. Now, there’s nothing wrong with capitalizing on that success, but there’s certainly a line between capitalizing and capitalizing on everything. Disney used to be a pioneer in creative, original, family-friendly storytelling, but the company’s biggest projects for the rest of 2025 are almost all either sequels or live-action remakes.

On March 21, 2025, the live-action remake of “Snow White” opened in theaters, with remakes for the 2002 film “Lilo and Stitch” and the 2016 film “Moana” coming later this year. There’s also “Zootopia 2” coming out in November, and Pixar recently announced “Coco 2” to join “Toy Story 5” and “Incredibles 3” in their upcoming lineup.

This isn’t all bad, though, as sequels can still offer original stories led by already well-known characters. The “Toy Story” characters are some of the most well-known characters in movies, so it’s not shocking that a fifth film is in development.

With remakes, it’s even easier, since Disney doesn’t have to create a new story; they just have to redesign a story and its characters that fans already love. Something like this is very profitable, as shown with 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” remake and 2019’s “The Lion King” remake, which both made over $1 billion each worldwide.

Of course, these practices are nothing new for Disney, but they are new for some of Disney’s subsidiaries, especially Pixar. Since the animation company was founded in 1995, Pixar has captured the imagination of kids and adults alike with its beautiful storytelling, beloved characters, and groundbreaking animation. Pixar practiced pumping out original masterpieces on a yearly basis after “Toy Story” was as popular as it was.

However, the last ten or so years haven’t quite been the same. Pixar ended the 2010s with two of their biggest movies ever: “Incredibles 2” and “Toy Story 4.”Aside from last year’s “Inside Out 2,” Pixar hasn’t had much success, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced many of Pixar’s early-2020s projects onto Disney+ immediately, and everything else was, for the most part, considered a critical and commercial failure. Now, aside from this year’s “Elio,” three of the four future Pixar films we know about are sequels.

Here’s the main issue: Disney is entirely relying on sequels and remakes for their success, and original stories are slowing down. It’s easy to just take an already beloved story and tweak it slightly, but giving them something completely original and enjoyable is a whole different wheelhouse.

Now, at the same time, sequels and remakes are also very different things. Live-action remakes are almost like Disney’s box office cheat code, while the code for sequels sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. A good sequel can build upon what made its predecessor so great, with the added advantage of having characters that audiences already know and like. This also means the movie doesn’t need a lot of time for the exposition to introduce those characters.

However, just because a movie has characters that audiences like doesn’t mean there needs to be a follow-up movie, regardless of the original film’s success. “Coco” is a perfect example: a beautiful and imaginative adventure filled with heart that ended on a perfect note. The characters are well-crafted, but what else can you do with them for another ninety minutes?

So, of course, remakes and sequels are a common practice at Disney, as they’ve been making the company much more money in recent years than their original projects. However, there’s still something great about original stories; the 20th century of Disney was filled with iconic and original motion pictures, with any sequels typically being much smaller-scale. Now, it’s the opposite: Disney’s biggest projects are either sequels or live-action recreations of their classic stories, with most of their original projects being saved for Disney+. Sequels and remakes can be great, especially when done with lots of care, but original stories are still important and shouldn’t be overlooked.