Disney certainly is re-embracing their fairy tale roots with some live-action/CGI wonders coming to theaters.
First, Jon Favreau's vision of a live-action The Jungle Book is happening, with an October 9, 2015 release date set. In my opinion, Favreau can't seem to make up his mind what he wants to do for Disney, whether if its' for Iron Man, a movie based on the Magic Kingdom theme park, or this (perhaps he has though with this release date). It is a bit of an odd release date, as Disney should really be aiming for Thanksgiving here (though Pixar's The Good Dinosaur is already there). For what its worth, Disney has Alexander and the No Good, Terrible Day set for that same weekend in 2014. Perhaps October can be blockbuster territory after all (Gravity has somewhat proven that).
Secondly, Disney is going back down the rabbit hole with Alice in Wonderland 2, set for May 27, 2016 (Memorial Day Weekend). Solid move, though I wonder why Disney is straying away from the early-March release strategy. To be fair though, Disney has Maleficent and Tomorrowland opening on similar dates in 2014 and 2015 respectively, so maybe they are establishing Memorial Day as a territory they can own like Thanksgiving. Johnny Depp and Mia Wasikowska are set to return, while James Bobin (The Muppets and its' sequel) will take over the director reigns from Tim Burton. I personally am excited to hear this news, as I really enjoyed the first movie.
So Disney now has two fairy tales launching every year up until 2016, with a prevalence in live-action movies. The successes of Tangled and Alice in Wonderland ($600 million and $1 billion worldwide respectively) in 2010 has prompted Disney to pursue more live-action/CGI and animated fantasies. 2012 had Brave (from Pixar) and 2013 had Oz The Great and Powerful and next week's highly-anticipated Frozen. 2014 has the highly-anticipated Maleficent (trailer already has 8 million views on YouTube in just over a week) and the musical adaptation Into the Woods, which has Depp and Meryl Streep. 2015 has Jungle Book and Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella, while 2016 has the Alice sequel and possibly Disney's next animated fairy tale, Giants (as reported by the Wikipedia page), which is being directed by Tangled's Nathan Greno. Finally, in 2018, Ron Clements and John Musker (Aladdin, The Little Mermaid) are working on Moana, a Polynesian-themed fairy tale.
I guess you could call this a fairy tale/fantasy-enthusiast's dream in a way. I'm pretty excited. With the Alice sequel, lets see if that opens the door to other sequels. I'm still waiting for a sequel for Enchanted and I'm hoping Disney goes forward with the Oz sequel. I'm also interested in Disney Animation pursuing the classic fairy tale King of the Elves, which has been shelved for some time now. I notice some gaps in Spring and November 2017, as well as Spring 2018 (provided Moana has the Thanksgiving slot), could Disney be preparing these titles for those time periods? Hmmm. I'm not saying this is happening, but it would make sense if it did....
