Walt Disney's live-action studio is on a lucrative nostalgia trip. Disney's latest reimagining, Beauty and the Beast, marks a big test of the company's strategy of using live actors to make beloved animated tales more relevant to new generations. Disney has a dozen more possible remakes in the pipeline, which it hopes will build on the success of recent films like Cinderella, The Jungle Book and Maleficent. Despite a couple of misses, the strategy proved to be a better bet for the live-action studio than trying to create new legends. Disney has generated almost $2-billion (R25.5-billion) in net profit from six remakes since 2010, according to S&P Global Kagan research unit. That success, coupled with strong showings by other Disney film divisions, including Marvel and Lucasfilm, have made the company the box-office leader. They were properties "everybody knows", said Doug Creutz, an analyst at Cowen & Co. "It's probably a safer strategy than taking all that money and trying to creat...
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