Cinderella: Disney's fairytale bonanza

Disney's live-action remake of Cinderella starring Lily James has rocketed to the top of the US box office. Photo / AP

More live-action adaptations are on the way after Cinderella’s warm welcome.

In these days of Hunger Games, Avengers and 50 Shades of Grey, it may seem improbable that a traditional family fairytale should top the US box office charts. But that's what happened this month when Kenneth Branagh's US$95 million ($125 million) live-action remake of Cinderella arrived in American cinemas, almost 65 years to the day since the release of the Disney animated classic.

The new film, starring Lily James as Cinders and Cate Blanchett as her evil stepmother, has also spent two weeks at No1 in China, the world's second-biggest film market. As it opens around the world, the film validates Disney's latest lucrative, long-term creative plan: to dust off its back catalogue of beloved animated films - the foundation on which the studio was built - and turn them into modern CGI spectaculars.

It's an idea Disney floated to good effect in 1996, with its live-action remake of 101 Dalmatians, starring Glenn Close as the dastardly Cruella de Vil. But it was the unexpected and staggering success of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 2010 that persuaded the House of Mouse to pursue its slate of remakes with the enthusiasm of a superhero franchise.

Burton's film broke the US$1 billion barrier at the worldwide box office, a feat achieved by fewer than 20 films. In 2013, though, it was surpassed by Disney's mega-hit Frozen, the most successful animated film. Though Frozen was an original story, and indeed a cartoon, it proved the fairytale genre could still find a vast audience.

Last year Maleficent, with Angelina Jolie as the villainess of 1959's Sleeping Beauty, grossed US$758 million despite middling reviews - and there's plenty more where that came from. Next year Disney will release its remake of The Jungle Book, with an all-star cast including Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson and Idris Elba, as well as the Alice sequel, Through the Looking Glass. They'll be followed in 2017 by Beauty and the Beast, with Emma Watson and Dan Stevens in the title roles; and then, probably in 2018, by Burton's latest project: a live-action remake of Dumbo.

Disney's animated family classics provide a galaxy of familiar characters. "It makes perfect sense for Disney to sift through their vault and repurpose, reimagine and retool the classic tales that audiences know and love," says film industry expert Paul Dergarabedian, of Rentrak, which measures trends in the entertainment business.

"Maleficent and Cinderella prove that there is a huge appetite for these stories as realised in a live-action context. If this strategy enjoys continued success [which seems assured at this point], Disney could enjoy fairytale results that are as dynamic and profitable for the long term as any of the Marvel superheroes, Pixar characters and Star Wars brands within their stable of properties."

After executives announced plans for a sequel to Frozen at the company's annual shareholder meeting this month, Disney shares skyrocketed. Of course, the classic fairytales may not lend themselves to sequels and spin-offs quite so easily as do superheroes or Star Wars. But then, why would Disney need sequels, when it already has theme parks?

- Independent