The most talked about scene from 'Ralph Breaks the Internet' was a crossover of key characters, so why not explore that beyond animation?

[This story contains spoilers for Aladdin] This weekend, Disney’s Aladdin will take audiences on a magic carpet ride, traversing the nostalgic sights of the 1992 animated classic and adding a few new stops along the way, courtesy of director Guy Ritchie. Aladdin is the second Disney remake in what will be a banner year for the company’s efforts to capitalize on its animated classics with Dumbo released back in March, and The Lion King, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Disney+’s Lady and the Tramp still to come. Since Disney began diving into its back catalog with Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010), the studio has glided through the realm of sequels, remakes, and reimagings of its animated classics with ease. While some films fared better than others, both critically and financially, the post-Alice lineup of Maleficent (2014), Cinderella (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Christopher Robin (2018) have proved there’s plenty of life left in this method. So far, only Alice’s sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), proved to be a true box office bomb, raising the question of these re-adaptations' sequel potential.

With Aladdin projected to bring in a healthy haul domestically for the long Memorial Day weekend, Disney is unlikely to be worried about the continued viability of its animated remakes. As if that was ever really in question. But what comes next for these characters? While we’re still a ways off from a situation where Disney has run out of animated films to adapt, the studio is moving through its library with a quick confidence that is perhaps suggestive of a larger plan. With Marvel and Star Wars at its disposal, Disney has learned the power of longevity, and telling stories that last an era. Is it possible that Disney’s remake magic, as financially successful as it is, holds more creative potential than just nostalgia? Still to come on Disney’s docket are Mulan and Cruella, both set for 2020, and there are a number in development, though the status is unclear for projects such as remakes of The Little Mermaid, The Sword in the Stone, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Lilo & Stitch. There’s still plenty left to pull from, both modern classics and the more niche titles. It seems inevitable that we’ll see announcements and releases for The Princess and the Frog, The Rescuers, The Aristocats, Hercules and my personal pick, The Great Mouse Detective, within the next decade. But Disney’s remakes and its animated films seemed destined to meet in the middle, as the time that divides their releases grows increasingly short. At the rate Disney is moving, both in terms of theatrical releases and streaming, live-action remakes of Frozen, Moana, and Zootopia don’t seem out of the realm of possibility. How long until it feels like Disney is just making animated movies to eventually remake them in live-action? Maybe it already does given how effectively Disney has managed to push nostalgia ahead. I’m sure parents everywhere are aghast at the idea of children already being nostalgic for Frozen and anticipating a live-action film, but maybe it's coming sooner than they think. Perhaps Disney has a way to appeal to their nostalgic base while also telling new stories.