Disney has found a great deal of success with all its live-action remakes over the last few years. There are several more on the schedule of upcoming Disney movies. The trend shows no signs of stopping, which has caused some to wonder if we might see Pixar films get similar treatment at some point. There has even been a fan campaign to try and get a live-action version of Ratatouille, one of the best Pixar movies, made for actor Josh O’Connor, who is a massive fan of the film. Unfortunately for those fans, Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer has little interest in remaking their films.
In a recent interview with Time, Pete Docter learned of Challengers star Josh O’Conner’s near-obsession with Ratatouille and the campaign for the remake. When asked what he thought of the idea, Doctor admitted that he doesn’t care for the practice of remaking animated films as live-action. The Pixar chief said…
No, and this might bite me in the butt for saying it, but it sort of bothers me. I like making movies that are original and unique to themselves. To remake it, it’s not very interesting to me personally.
It certainly might bite him in the butt. Docter doesn’t just say that he’s not planning on doing remakes, but he indicates he doesn’t like the practice of what Disney has been doing with its own animation catalog, saying it “bothers” him. Disney might not love to hear one of their executives saying that, though the fact that he’s willing to do so certainly indicates there have been no discussions of remakes at Pixar.
Of course, a remake of Ratatouille would have a lot of its own problems. Not the least of which, as Time points out, is that making a CGI rat character that looked like a realistic rat wouldn’t exactly make it the cute and fun character that Remy was in the movie. Docter agrees that making Remy work in a live-action setting would be quite difficult, saying…
It would be tough. So much of what we create only works because of the rules of the [animated] world. So if you have a human walk into a house that floats, your mind goes, ‘Wait a second. Hold on. Houses are super heavy. How are balloons lifting the house?’ But if you have a cartoon guy and he stands there in the house, you go, ‘Okay, I’ll buy it.’ The worlds that we’ve built just don’t translate very easily.
We’ve actually seen evidence of this in Disney’s own live-action remakes. The recent The Little Mermaid remake, while it had a lot going for it, weirded out many on social media when we saw what Flounder and Sebastian were going to look like as realistic creatures. It was something about The Little Mermaid that worried me back when the project was announced, and I turned out to be right.
So if you were actually hoping for a Ratatouille live-action movie, or were hoping that Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt would reunite to play Buzz and Woody, you’re out of luck. But don’t worry too much, as there are still plenty of upcoming Disney remakes to enjoy.
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