'The Lion King' and Disney's remakes: Playing on nostalgia

The cast for the 2019 Lion King film is truly star-studded — Donald Glover voiced Simba; James Earl Jones is the voice of Simba's father Mufasa, just like in the original animated version and the title song is by Beyonce. Unlike the 1994 movie, the remake directed by Jonathan Favreau enters the brave new digital realm of photorealism.

The 1994 "Lion King" remains to this day the highest-grossing traditionally animated film ever made. The trailer for the CGI remake of the Savannah-set story inspired by Shakespeare's "Hamlet" was viewed nearly 225 million times within 24 hours of its release in November 2018.

Filmmaker Guy Ritchie is best known for action comedies and not musicals, yet he directed the live-action version of "Aladdin." Will Smith morphs into the blue giant Genie. Canadian actor Mena Massoud (right) takes on the title role alongside Naomi Scott (left) as Princess Jasmine. The film empowers her character: She's fighting for equality and the opportunity to succeed her father as Sultan.

Along with "The Little Mermaid" (1989) and "Beauty and the Beast" (1991), the 1992 film based on a classic Arabic folk tale contributed to what is now referred to as the "Disney Renaissance." The late Robin Williams memorably voiced Genie with his signature wit. Critics praised the movie for entertaining both children and adults, and it won two Oscars.

Tim Burton, the filmmaker who's renowned for celebrating freaks and outcasts, was called to direct the remake of Walt Disney's animated classic "Dumbo," which tells the story of an elephant whose oversized ears make him the laughing stock of a circus. Frequent Burton collaborators such as the composer Danny Elfman and the actors Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito are also on the bill.

Dumbo's big ears allow him to fly, even though the baby elephant believes that its superpower comes from carrying a magic feather. Produced during wartime, the animation style of the original "Dumbo" was kept deliberately simple to reduce production costs. The 64-minute film is one of Disney's shortest animated features.

Tim Burton is not new to Disney's craze of remaking its own animated classics as live-action films; he even helped establish the trend by transforming "Alice in Wonderland" into a dark fantasy adventure. The 2010 movie starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter was such a box office hit that Disney wanted more. A sequel by a different director came out in 2016.

Disney first turned Lewis Carroll's books into an animated feature in 1951. A flop when initially released, it turned into a cult classic by the 1960s. Hippies had then recognized that the whole story of Alice eating magical substances and discovering a strange world by going down the rabbit hole reflected their acid trips.

The first Disney animated film to be remade as a live-action movie was "The Jungle Book" — back in 1994. Nearly two decades later, the tale was modernized again with the help of highly evolved computer-generated imagery. Such remakes typically include top Hollywood stars. The 2016 version features the voices of Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong'o and Scarlett Johansson.

Based on Rudyard Kipling's book from 1894, the 1967 animated musical comedy follows Mowgli, an orphan child raised by wolves, as he sets off to leave the jungle with his friends Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear. The German-dubbed version of "The Jungle Book" captured the spirit of the 1960s particularly well, which contributed to making it the best selling movie ever in Germany.

"Cinderella" gave English actress Lily James her film breakthrough in the title role, alongside Cate Blanchett as the evil stepmother. Sandy Powell's costume designs were particularly spectacular; her work was nominated for an Oscar and several other top awards. The film was praised for being faithful to the original animated work's "old-fashioned magic."

Disney was on the verge of bankruptcy when it produced "Cinderella," but the adaptation of Charles Perrault's fairy tale became the studio's greatest hit upon its release in 1950. If many people describe Cinderella as the archetype of the anti-feminist character — a young girl setting all her hopes on Prince Charming to be saved — others see her as a model of revolt against an abusive family.

With production costs of around $225 million, the live-action remake of "Beauty and the Beast" is the most expensive musical ever made. That bet paid off, as the movie also grossed over $1.25 billion worldwide. The movie, starring Emma Watson as Belle, also made headlines as director Bill Condon gave a gay scene to Josh Gad's character of LeFou — making him Disney's first official LGBT character.

This film was based on a French fairy tale that had already been adapted into a film by Jean Cocteau in 1946. It was the first animated movie ever nominated for an Oscar as Best Picture. Though it didn't win in that category, the powerful soundtrack picked up two Academy Awards and many Grammys.

Disney is not the only studio to remake beloved classics. The trend is noticeable in Germany as well, where several popular children's stories have been adapted into films in recent years. The live-action feature based on Michael Ende's novel "Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver" had a production budget of $25 million, making it one of the most expensive films ever made in the country.

With more modest means, Germany's famous marionette theater Augsburger Puppenkiste had already offered its version of the story. First filmed in black-and-white at the beginning of the 1960s, the TV movies were so successful that a remake of the adventures of Luke the steam locomotive driver and his young accomplice, Jim Button, was also filmed in color in 1976.