To be fair, Outrage Marketing does work, but it usually isn’t this obvious.
Like when Disney announced that the Snow White remake would have Seven Multicolored Normal Sized Human People? And later it turned out the final movie will indeed have dwarves?
That was just done to get bigots talking about the flick. Wouldn’t be surprised to learn Aerial being black in the newer Mermaid movie was the same thing. I mean it worked, people were too busy defending Disney from criticism for this move that they didn’t notice the movie is, like most Live Action Remakes of Non-Live Action media, shit.
Hey Disney, bring back your 2D Animation, have them do another Lion King, then dub it over with the audio for the Mufasa film. I guarantee I’ll actually consider watching the damn thing if you do that. (These Live Action remakes have got to be a Money Laundering scheme or something)
Before The Little Mermaid Disney made live-action remakes of Pinnochio and Peter Pan. Neither of them had a substantial outrage associated with them and I didn’t hear about either of them until they’d already released and flopped.
Hey Disney, bring back your 2D Animation
Disney used to churn out plenty of entertaining live action shows without issue.
The problem isn’t with the medium, it’s with the company. They’ve fired too many writers, put too much stock in CGI, and devolved too much of the editing process to the marketing department.
But the idea that the folks who brought you Tron, The Mighty Ducks, and Pirates of the Caribbean can’t make good live action cinema is crazy.