Side-by-Side Comparisons Of Disney Originals Vs. Their Live-Action Counterparts

In recent years, Disney has been taking the animated classics beloved by audiences for decades and reimagining them in live-action form. On the whole it’s worked out very well: Cinderella with a modern look, a box-office smash with Beauty and the Beast, a Tim Burton twist on Alice in Wonderland, and now a brand-new take on The Little Mermaid. Audiences young and old have delighted in seeing their favorite heroes and heroines portrayed by actors in the flesh or recreated with cutting-edge CGI. These incredible side-by-side images show the magical parallels between our favorite Disney films old and new — but also reveal how much times have changed.

Animated Maleficent vs Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent

The film Maleficent isn’t a straight-up live-action adaptation — it’s more of a new take on the Sleeping Beauty story. It stars Angelina Jolie as the titular villain-turned-heroine, and she is iconic! Jolie told the website Collider in 2014 before the film came out, “It was a crazy idea, and I was so challenged by it. My kids are now all watching all of these movies and wanting to play with mommy.” Her version of Maleficent proved to be so popular that she got a sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, in 2019.

Classic Aurora vs. Elle Fanning’s Aurora

When Elle Fanning played Aurora in 2014’s Maleficent, it was a fairy tale come true for her. Aurora was always her favorite Disney princess! She explained in a 2014 press conference, “I felt that I looked like her the most when I was little. She has the long blonde hair and wore the pink dress, and I love pink.” She added, “So this is the biggest dream of my life.” And indeed it was, because her role as Aurora helped turn her into the leading lady she is now.

Animated Alice vs. Tim Burton’s Alice

When Tim Burton did his big-budget live-action version of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, originally released in 1951, he cast the then little-known Mia Wasikowska in the title role. She 100 percent looked the part, but she told The Guardian in 2010 that she wasn’t sure about being a big star. She said, “It feels really weird seeing me on a movie poster.” She also admitted, “There’s a certain amount of anxiety that comes with playing a character so beloved by so many people.” But she nevertheless gave a wonderful portrayal of Alice.

1950s Mad Hatter vs. Johnny Depp’s “tragic victim”

In true Tim Burton fashion, the Mad Hatter got a modern, gothic glow-up for the 2010 Alice in Wonderland movie. And Johnny Depp had some thoughts about how to make him more than a one-note character. He told The Guardian, “The term ‘mad as a hatter’ actually came from real hatters when they were making these beaver-pelt top hats. The glue they used had very high mercury content which made them go nuts. I saw him as kind of tragic and a victim in a lot of ways. He was like a human mood ring to me. He represents all the extremes of the human personality, so his highs are very high, his lows are extremely low, and his rage is incredibly dangerous.”

Animated Queen of Hearts vs. Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen

What would a Tim Burton-Johnny Depp movie be without Helena Bonham Carter also in there somewhere? She was, after all, in a relationship with the famous director when Alice in Wonderland came out, and it marked the sixth time that they had done a movie together. But the fact that they were romantically involved didn’t stop Burton from casting Carter as the grotesque Queen of Hearts. She joked to The Guardian in a 2010 interview, “No, I can never rely on Tim to make me pretty.”

’90s Mufasa vs. 21st century Mufasa

When 1994’s The Lion King was remade in live-action — well, in computer animation — there was no question of recasting one of the most iconic voices in cinema. James Earl Jones returned as Mufasa, and director Jon Favreau was thrilled. He told Entertainment Weekly just before the movie hit cinemas in 2019, “He could have just as easily said no. His voice could have sounded different. There’s a lot of ways this could not have worked out. And that all of the stars aligned and there I was listening to him record… I felt something very powerful happening.”

OG Simba vs. live-action Simba

Simba the lion cub needed to sound young, so the producers cast an actual child, just as they had done with Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the original. The new actor was J.D. McCrary, who blew everyone away with his audition tape. In 2019 he told the website Haute Living, “My part was different from the original with Jonathan Taylor Thomas because he only did the acting, not the singing. It was really cool that I got to do both and really get into the mindset of Simba.”

Animated Mowgli vs. a real-life jungle boy

2016’s The Jungle Book is considered one of the best live-action remakes that Disney has put out so far, and part of that was down to Neel Sethi’s portrayal of Mowgli. It’s all the more impressive when you consider he’s the only human being in the movie — and that he had never acted before! The website Polygon said in their review of the film, “Sethi is downright adorable, talking animatedly in every scene he’s in, and using his exuberance for the role to his advantage during more physically demanding scenes.”

King Louie: animated orangutan vs. CGI ape

The original King Louie was an orangutan, but the makers of the live-action The Jungle Book decided to go a different way with it. After all, there aren’t any orangutans in the jungles of India, where the film is set! So instead, they made Louie a Gigantopithecus — a massive orange ape ancestor that’s now very much extinct. Director Jon Favreau talked to Entertainment Weekly about the new Louie in 2016 and said, “It sparked my imagination and allowed me to do something tonally different and more exciting. Plus, no one knew what it looked like, so I could take some liberties and make it look like Christopher Walken.” Walken, of course, was the voice.

1951 Cinderella vs. Lily James’ modern heroine

Lily James became a Disney princess in 2015 when she was cast as the live-action version of Cinderella 65 years after the original movie. One thing that everyone would be looking for in the new version? Cinderella’s iconic ball gown. Apparently, getting into the dress required a lot of hard work! The actress told Time magazine that year, “With corsets, it’s interesting when you put them on, realizing that’s what women actually wore. They’re just so constricting. In the blue dress it was particularly tight. When I was trying to dance, I didn’t have the capacity to breathe to support the physicality, and so I had to keep taking breaks and loosening the corset.” Yikes!

Animated wicked stepmother vs. Cate Blanchett’s Lady Tremaine

Lady Tremaine is Cinderella’s wicked stepmother, and Cate Blanchett was cast to play her in the 2015 live-action Cinderella. It’s safe to say she’s a lot more beautiful than the animated version… but her character was just as evil. Director Kenneth Branagh told Den of Geek as the film was coming out, “Cate had a great physical and energetic arrival onto the set and into the movie… You could feel someone stepping into the ring, the relish for the role, for the woman who was going to come in and own the movie, own the house, own the ballroom.”

Prince Charming: OG vs. live-action

Prince Charming isn’t much of an actual character in the original animated Cinderella. He’s the dashing hero who Cinderella marries, and that’s about it. That had to be fixed for the live-action version, so Game of Thrones actor Richard Madden stepped into the ring. He told the website Collider while promoting the movie, “This was so much more interesting because I had to make a character that’s worthy of being around [Cinderella] and worthy of her affections. So, I made him someone who had a sense of humor and who is aware of his own privilege and who has compassion for everyone around him.”

Fairy Godmother: original vs. Helena Bonham Carter

Helena Bonham Carter has shown up more than once in live-action Disney movies! In Cinderella she appears briefly as the heroine’s fairy godmother, the one who transforms her into a princess. Vogue magazine asked Bonham Carter in 2015 what she had in common with the character, and she answered, “Unfortunately I can’t transform things, like pumpkins into vehicles. But the scattiness and the absent-mindedness definitely. I mean she’s obviously magical and slightly not there — and a lot of the time I’m slightly not here.”

Animated Belle vs. Emma Watson’s Belle

Emma Watson was seemingly the perfect choice for Belle in 2017’s Beauty and the Beast. She had already played a famous bookworm — Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series — and she is beloved by an entire generation who grew up with both Harry Potter and Disney movies. But unfortunately many critics thought her actual singing voice wasn’t up to scratch. After the movie came out the website Vulture stated, “Emma Watson is a good actress who looks the part of a Disney princess, but she does not have the voice of one. In her defense, few people do.”

Animated Beast vs. CGI Beast

That’s not, strictly speaking, actor Dan Stevens you’re seeing in the live-action Beauty and the Beast. He provided the motion capture and voice for the character, but CGI did all the rest. Stevens did also add a bit of new backstory to the Beast, though. In a 2017 interview he told the website Collider, “With the backstory, we decided that the prince, before he was the Beast, was a dancer. He loved to dance, so I trained myself, like a dancer, and learned three quite different dances for this movie.”

Animated Mrs. Potts vs. CGI Mrs. Potts

The design of Mrs. Potts the teapot changed considerably for the transition into live-action. And according to the visual effects artists, who spoke to the website Quartz in 2017, it was difficult. Steve Gaub said, “We struggled for a long time on Mrs. Potts. She’s sort of the calming influence on Belle. To get that sort of warmth and empathy and compassion out of a porcelain surface was challenging.” Eventually they had to change where her eyes were on her body, because the original design made her look, according to director Bill Condon, “like a pig.”

Animated Gaston vs. Luke Evans’ Gaston

Luke Evans had a lot of input into creating a live-action version of Beauty and the Beast villain Gaston. He told the website Collider on March 13, 2017, “Gaston’s costumes are some of my favorite costumes I’ve ever worn. They fit like a glove and I had a voice [in the process] when they were being made, so I had a lot of opinions on how they could create it for us, about how I liked the colors on the lapels and the stitching, the buttons with all the antlers on them. I had a ring that had an antler on it.”

Animated LaFou vs. Josh Gad’s LaFou

During promotion for Beauty and the Beast, LaFou was marketed as Disney’s first gay character — a big change from the original — but that turned out to not really be the case. Years later, in 2022, Josh Gad told The Independent, “We didn’t go far enough to warrant accolades. We didn’t go far enough to say, ‘Look how brave we are.’ My regret in what happened is that it became ‘Disney’s first explicitly gay moment’ and it was never intended to be that. It was never intended to be a moment that we should laud ourselves for, because frankly, I don’t think we did justice to what a real gay character in a Disney film should be.”

Original Aladdin vs. live-action Aladdin

Mena Massoud was an unknown actor before he was suddenly cast as the lead in one of Disney’s biggest live-action remakes. Unfortunately, it didn’t lead to a career boost for him, despite the movie pulling in billions at the box office. Massoud told the Daily Beast in 2019, months after the film debuted, “I want people to know that it’s not always dandelions and roses when you’re doing something like Aladdin. ‘He must have made millions. He must be getting all these offers.’ It’s none of those things. I haven’t had a single audition since Aladdin came out.”

Animated Jasmine vs. live-action Jasmine

One thing was clear about the Aladdin live-action remake: Princess Jasmine would need to be aged up. She was, after all, only 16 in the original. Naomi Scott explained in a 2019 interview with Vogue, “I saw her as a young woman, not a teenager, with a mature strength that can cut you down. So I said to them, ‘Just to let you know, I want to play her strong, and if that’s not what you’re looking for, that’s okay, but it’s not for me.’”

Robin Williams’ Genie vs. Will Smith’s Genie

Will Smith had big, big shoes to fill when it came to playing the Genie in Aladdin. After all, the iconic character had previously been played by the late Robin Williams — and it was one of his most beloved roles. So Smith went in a different direction. He told Reuters on May 9, 2019, “Robin Williams... took his essentially stand-up persona and just infused his stand-up persona into the Genie… I was like I could just use the extreme version of almost my Fresh Prince persona to be able to infuse that into this wild character. I felt I’d be able to capture the nostalgia while at the same time being able to make something new.”

Animated Jafar vs. live-action Jafar

Disney made a huge change to their famous baddie Jafar when they translated him into live-action. He was no longer an old man, but a young one… and an attractive one. Kenzari soon learned about the viral “Hot Jafar” phenomenon and in 2019 he told Entertainment Weekly, “I have to admit, we’re all human beings so it’s always flattering when people show love and I can only be very, very humbly grateful and thankful… I have friends who changed my name in their phones to Hot Jafar, so they tease me with that and that’s what they call me now. I see it as a compliment, I really do.”

Animated Elliot vs. CGI Elliot

Mostly, Disney has been making their past big blockbuster hits into live-action films, but in 2016 they turned a more forgotten film into one. This was Pete’s Dragon, the story of a small boy who befriends a dragon called Elliot. Disney completely overhauled the story, turning it into a drama rather than a musical, and Elliot the dragon became a CGI creation instead of an animated one. This all paid off, because critics gave the new film a 88 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Animated Dumbo vs. CGI Dumbo

Dumbo was another live-action remake where Disney changed virtually the entire story. Pretty much the only thing retained from the original 1941 movie was the fact that the flying elephant Dumbo was separated from his loving mother and used as a circus exhibit. Even the other animals were gone! Dumbo was rendered in CGI this time rather than animation, and unlike the original film he never talked. Instead, everything he was feeling was expressed through the eyes and body language.

Animated Mulan vs. Liu Yifei’s Mulan

Actress Liu Yifei seemed like the perfect person to bring Mulan to life, but that wasn’t enough to turn the movie into a success. Critics were baffled by the changes to the story, the cast and crew were dogged by controversy since the beginning, and audiences in China thought that the film gave a poor depiction of their culture. All that, plus it was released during the 2020 pandemic, ensuring that in the end, it grossed less than the money Disney had spent on the film. Fans praised it for its stunning visuals and beautiful scenery, though.

Animated Pinocchio vs. CGI Pinocchio

One of Disney’s most poorly received CGI remakes was the 2022 version of Pinocchio. The studio seemed to have a bit of an internal debate as to whether it should be released theatrically or on Disney+, so eventually it dropped on the streaming service only and was absolutely mauled by critics. Variety magazine wrote, “There may be no strings on this Pinocchio, but there isn’t much of a heart in him either.” The new version of the character was well-animated but seemed so much less alive.

Original Gepetto vs. Tom Hanks’ Gepetto

Tom Hanks’ performance as Gepetto didn’t escape the wrath of the critics who hated Pinocchio. The website IndieWire said of him, “Casting Hanks as Geppetto is one of those creative decisions that makes perfect sense on paper, but his performance is just another addition to his recent cold streak… It’s not good, by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s also hard to blame Hanks when he was given so little to work with.” Alas, he even ended up being nominated for a Razzie “Worst Actor” award.

Animated Blue Fairy vs. Cynthia Erivo’s Blue Fairy

Oscar-nominated actress Cynthia Erivo showed up in Pinocchio as the Blue Fairy, an important role although a small one. Director Robert Zemeckis specifically asked her to take part. Erivo remembered to Entertainment Weekly on September 8, 2022, “I asked him what he wanted her to look like. He was like, ‘Well... you!’ At the time I had bleach-blonde hair but still very short. I had my nails. As you can see in those clips [from the film], I’ve got the wonderful ear ornaments on. They really injected this character with parts of me that already exist, which I really appreciate.”

Animated Cruella vs. Glenn Close’s portrayal

Before the current rush of Disney live-action adaptations, there was the 1996 version of animated classic 101 Dalmatians. In that, Glenn Close’s Cruella de Vil was the leading lady everyone loved to hate. Close absolutely relished playing such an evil character, and returned for a sequel in 2000. She also got to keep all of Cruella’s incredible costumes from both movies! She told Pete Davidson in 2021 during a Variety interview, “I got in my contract that I got to keep all my costumes that I wore in the movie. Then when they found out how expensive they were, they were unhappy that it was in my contract. They wanted to make another copy, another set, for me. I said no.” Pure Cruella.

Animated Ariel vs. Halle Bailey’s Ariel

Halle Bailey got lots of racist backlash when she played Ariel, since the original version was a white character. But she continued to prove she was the best person for the job. When the reviews dropped, plenty of critics were cynical about the need for a new Little Mermaid movie, but enthusiastically praised Bailey herself. Variety magazine said, “Halle Bailey is all the reason that any audience should need to justify Disney revisiting this classic. Director Rob Marshall found his Ariel, and together, they’ve made a keeper.”

OG Ursula vs. Melissa McCarthy’s Ursula

Melissa McCarthy always loved Ursula the Sea Witch and was thrilled to get to play her in live-action. She told Variety magazine just before the movie came out, “I’ve seen The Little Mermaid more than any other movie, hundreds of times. We literally watched it every night. I’ve always thought Ursula was the dishiest, most incredible part. My hope was to give all the love I have for Pat Carroll’s original. And then put my own spin on it.” She did.

Animated Prince Eric vs. Jonah Hauer-King’s Prince Eric

None other than Harry Styles was up for the role of Prince Eric in the remake of The Little Mermaid, but as it turned out the role went to newcomer Jonah Hauer-King. And it changed his life. In May 2023 he told the Evening Standard, “There’s some pressure. We really want to do it justice. The original film is such a special film, which I fell in love with growing up, so personally I wanted to make sure it was done right.”

Animated Flounder vs. CGI Flounder

People were not very impressed with the design of Ariel’s fishy friend Flounder in The Little Mermaid remake. He looked just plain uncanny, and social media had a field day mocking a fish. CNN reported on April 28, 2023, “Certainly, there is an implicit leap that Disney is asking viewers to make when watching a live-action version of a beloved animated classic, but the end result when it comes to these aquatic animals and crustaceans may be, for some, too realistic to take in.”

Animated Wendy vs. Ever Anderson’s Wendy

Do you recognize Ever Anderson from Peter Pan and Wendy, Disney’s live-action remake of Peter Pan? You should, because she’s the daughter of Milla Jovovich and looks just like her! And she also so happens to look like Disney’s version of Wendy. She was actually only 12 when filming started on Peter Pan and Wendy, but the pandemic interrupted things, and she was ironically worried that by the time filming restarted she’d have grown up too much to play the role.

Animated Tinkerbell vs. Yara Shahidi’s Tinkerbell

Yara Shahidi jumped at the chance to play a different version of Tinkerbell in Peter Pan and Wendy. She told the website Narcity on May 1, 2023, “The casting was one part of a very intentional shift in what this remake was doing. That made it feel like we have the chance to do something impactful while not losing the whimsy and the joy of the original fairy tale.” She added, “The changes that were made didn’t just start and stop with casting people that look different from the original characters. It was really just one small part of trying to figure out how to make a story more honest, more authentic and resonant with all of today’s kids.”

Animated Captain Hook vs. Jude Law’s Captain Hook

Jude Law is definitely more of a looker than the original Captain Hook, but he was determined to prove he was more than capable of being mean. He remained in character the entire time on the Peter Pan and Wendy set, even when the cameras weren’t rolling, right up until the end of the shoot. Then, he hired an ice cream van and drove it around the set giving out ice cream to all the kids who’d been so scared of him as Hook. Awww.

Lady and the Tramp: animated vs. live-action

Did you know that Lady and the Tramp remake cast actual dogs to play the main characters instead of building them in CGI? Some computer animation was used, but the dogs were the main stars of the show. Lady was played by a pup called Rose and Tramp by one named Monte, and they spent a lot of time in extensive training for the movie. The famous spaghetti scene is all real! Though the filmmakers did opt for colored licorice instead of actual spaghetti to make it easier on the dogs.

Julie Andrews’ Mary Poppins vs. Emily Blunt’s Mary Poppins

For many people, Julie Andrews is the Mary Poppins, and she can never be replaced. But Emily Blunt stepped into the role for the long-awaited sequel Mary Poppins Returns, and she did a practically perfect job of it. Andrews had also given Blunt her blessing to take over as the famous nanny, and that relieved the younger actress tremendously. The film itself got very good reviews from critics, and Blunt scored a nomination at the 25th Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Animated Winnie-the-Pooh vs. CGI Winnie-the-Pooh

A team of people worked super hard to make a computer-generated Winnie-the-Pooh for the movie Christopher Robin. One of these was Chris Lawrence, who spoke to the Digital Trends website in 2019 about animating Pooh and co. He said, “Creating a bear that had the feel of an Edwardian-era stuffed toy, but also was able to be a key character in his story and be appealing enough that people would be drawn into it — those were the challenges we talked about early on.”

Animated Cruella vs. Emma Stone’s Cruella

Emma Stone played the infamous Cruella de Vil in a 2021 prequel simply titled Cruella. This told the story of how a fashionable young girl named Estella ended up becoming a dog-napping villain, and Stone got great reviews for her performance. The website ScreenRant said, “Stone is the absolute epicenter of Cruella, and she owns the role completely, immersing herself within the dual roles that flesh out the nuances of an emotionally driven backstory. Estella’s transformation into Cruella de Vil is neither rushed nor forced, as she embraces her new, devilish alter-ego with great panache, albeit pushed forward by unbearable pain.”