In mid-November, photos surfaced of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on set of the live-action “Moana” dressed as Maui, the character he voices in the animated movie. “Moana” is one of several animated children’s movies getting the live-action treatment.

For about a decade, Disney has steadily released one live-action remake movie every year, such as “Cinderella” in 2015 and “The Little Mermaid” in 2023. In 2025, that pace speeds up with multiple live-action releases and several in the works.

Disney will close out 2024 with the release of a live-action prequel, “Mufasa: The Lion King,” and will open 2025 with the long-awaited release of “Snow White.” That pace keeps up throughout 2025 and will continue in oncoming years.

Here is a look at the growing live-action remake trend taking over theaters starting in 2025.

What is a live action remake?

A live-action remake is a film that recreates an existing animated movie through the use of real actors and physical sets instead of animation.

Disney is responsible for the bulk of recent live-action remakes, but the film studio prefers the label “reimagining,” per Vox.

“A reimagining is basically a remake, but with a fancy new hat: Something’s been added to or changed from the original film that alters it in a major way,” writes Vox. “In Disney’s case, at least lately, that means appending the term “live-action” to any given successful animated film … or shifting the focus to a different character in the story.”

In the last decade, Disney has released a slew of live-action remakes, including “Cinderella” (2015), “Aladdin” (2019) and “The Jungle Book” (2016).

What live action remakes are coming out?

There are four live-action remakes set to release and several others that will begin production in 2025.

Here are four upcoming live-action remakes:

‘Snow White’

In wake of years of controversy, Disney’s live-action “Snow White” will come to theaters in Spring 2025.

The movie, which is directed by Marc Webb (”500 Days of Summer,” “The Amazing Spider-Man”), stars Rachel Zegler as Snow White and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen.

According to Zegler, the upcoming remake will separate itself from the original story and present a more modern take on the princess fairytale.

“She’s not going to be saved by the prince. And she’s not going to be dreaming about true love. She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be, and the leader that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave and true,” Zegler told Variety in a 2022 interview.

“Snow White” comes to theaters on March 21, 2025.

‘Lilo & Stitch’

News that a live-action remake of “Lilo & Stitch” was in the works broke in 2018 from The Hollywood Reporter. The movie was expected to begin filming in 2020 but was put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic until Spring 2023.

The long-anticipated remake is set to star Zach Galifianakis as Agent Wendy Pleakley and introduce Maia Kealoha and Lilo. A first look at CGI-constructed Stitch was revealed during Disney’s D23 panel.

“The live-action version of the popular animated film will follow the same storyline as the original,” reported The Hollywood Reporter.

“Lilo & Stitch” comes to theaters on May 23, 2025.

‘How to Train Your Dragon’

Universal Studios will follow in Disney’s footsteps with its own live action remake, found in “How to Train Your Dragon.”

The project was a costly endeavor, a total of $53.5 million was spent making the upcoming movie, reported Forbes. It might pay off. Combined, the “How to Train Your Dragon” trilogy has earned the film studio more than $1.7 billion.

“How to Train Your Dragon” comes to theaters on June 13, 2025.

‘Moana’

On the heels of an animated “Moana 2″ comes the live-action remake of “Moana.”

The project stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Maui, the character he voices in the animated original. For Johnson, his connection to the franchise “runs very deep.”

“I wear this culture proudly on my skin and in my soul, and this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reunite with Maui, inspired by the mana and spirit of my late grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia, is one that runs very deep for me,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

“Moana” was originally scheduled to release in 2025, but delays in filming pushed the release into 2026, per Yahoo Movies.

There are several additional live-action remakes expected to begin production and release in upcoming years. According to The Week, the following live-action projects are already in the works.

• “Hercules”
• “Bambi”
• “The Aristocats”
• “The Jungle Book 2″
• “Tinkerbell”
• “Cruella 2″
• “The Sword in the Stone”
• “Hunchback of Notre Dame”
• “Alladin 2″
• “Tangled”

Live-action remakes are profitable

Live action remakes are largely panned by critics, but they gross big bucks at the box office.

In 2024, sequels, prequels and remakes were the most profitable movies — the top 12 highest grossing films of 2024 were all franchise films, per Box Office Mojo.

“Recently the industry has seen a solid string of success born out of rebooting or upgrading content from the past. This is a risk-averse strategy. You bank on content where people already have a sense of the characters, they have a sense of what the plot is, what the story is,” said Walt Hickey, a pop culture expert at FiveThirtyEight, per ABC News.

Disney’s live-action remakes have made impressive earnings at the box office. The live-action remake of “The Lion King” raked in $1.6 billion globally and was the second-highest grossing film of 2019 domestically, per Box Office Mojo.

Live-action remakes of “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” “The Jungle Book,” “Alice in Wonderland” and others also earned big, providing Disney with more reason to keep at the profitable trend.

Despite box office success of live-action remakes, they are often panned by critics for failing to capture the same appeal as an original film. Disney’s most recent live-action release, “Mufasa: The Lion King,” fell into that same trap — it does not measure up to the original animated movie.

Rolling Stone said the live-action prequel “can’t escape the shadow of the Disney animated classic.” The BBC said the movie was a “pointless” and “contrived cash-in.”

“Critically, Disney’s remakes have consistently been given a lukewarm reception besides the odd few. From a cinematic powerhouse like Disney, the run of critically average movies should arguably not be accepted or continued,” ScreenRant wrote in 2023.

ScreenRant continued, “However, the critical opinion has not impacted the box office of the Disney remakes and most have still done well financially. Especially since four managed to break $1 billion, with ‘The Jungle Book’ not being far off. The last five remakes have been the poorest performing, but the success of earlier ones has meant Disney has been able to largely ignore them.”