Disney Movie Eras: The Revival Era
This month continues a new series of blogs for fans of popular culture. Whereas in the past explorations of Walt Disney films we highlighted individual works, we will now be talking about the larger groupings of movies, and the various artistic and commercial visions sought for and achieved from said movies.
A quick run though of the eras:
The Golden Age: 1937-1941
Wartime: 1942-1949
The Silver Age: 1950-1967
The Bronze Age: 1968-1988
The Renaissance: 1989-1999
Post-Renaissance: 2000-2009
Revival: 2010-2019
Streaming: 2020-Present
As you can see, the various eras are inspired by historical art movements over the year, as well as comic books. You can draw the parallel, for instance, between the Italian Renaissance, or between the iterated variations of popular superheroes like Batman and Superman.
We will also be covering Disney live action films. The list of films owned by the Walt Disney Corporation is quite expansive because it includes multiple studios and production companies, such as Touchstone Pictures, Pixar, and more. And for good measure, we will also cover animated films that released without the official Walt Disney Pictures branding, as well as films that only released via television or Disney +.
So buckle up everyone as we retread the Disney films of years passed:
We are gradually approaching the modern era! Hard to think that some of these films are already over a decade old! Oof! But let's get started in any case.
The Revival Era properly begins with 2009's The Princess and the Frog. This film was seen as a 'return to form' for Walt Disney Animation, featuring classic 2D animation, with a (then) modern production process. In many ways, creation of this film mirrored the process with many of the beloved 90s films like Beauty and the Beast and Pocahontas, and even features two Disney Renaissance veteran writers, in John Musker and Ron Clements, both of whom wrote for The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules. The movie itself is a more modernized retelling of the classic story, The Frog Prince, set in 1920s New Orleans. Predictably, the film became hugely popular in Louisiana, and it was with celebration that Disney promoted protagonist Tiana into becoming an official Disney Princess. Most recently, the film benefitted from theming synergy with several of Walt Disney World's resorts, as well as the new theming for the ride formerly known as Splash Mountain.
Disney hit two homeruns in a row with the release of Tangled in 2011. The film is based on the classic tale of Rapunzel, and has the distinct honor of being one of the many film ideas considered by Walt Disney back in the 1940s, that never entered production. Over fifty years later, Glen Keene pitched the idea to Michael Eisner in 1996, and again in 2001, under the working title Rapunzel Unbraided. This film was envisioned as a satire in the manner of Shrek, however Disney executives were not confident with the direction. Instead, Keene was asked to rewrite his project in 2007, the official start of the film that would release four years later.
Another curious fact about the film lies in its title. Disney executives at the time held concern that 'princess' films were not popular among school-aged boys. Even including 'princess' in the title was deemed harmful to ticket sales, after the release of The Princess and the Frog. It was decided to rename the film to the less feminine Tangled, though the writers insisted that the story was equally about both Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, so a more neutral title was appropriate. The film led to a television series and a short film called Tangled Ever After. Finally, Tangled made the list for films receiving live-action remakes, with filming starting in Spain as of August 2026.
Audiences may remember the classic film released in 1977, which remains one of the company's fondest (and most profitable) franchises. Younger viewers who haven't read our earlier blog might be surprised to learn that the 1977 film was a compilation of three earlier released short films that had been combined into a single feature (with one more addition a few years later). As such, decades later, the company determined the time was ripe to produce a true feature-length film. While Pooh and the gang had their share of direct to video and lesser releases, this 2011 film was the first (and as yet only) of the recent Pooh films to be considered an official release.
Sadly, this was the last feature film made in the 2D animation style. Though other films in the future would include 2D-elements on occasion, everything from here on out was 3D-animation.
Disney tackles video games! The world's most popular animation company decided to make a film about video games, and a great many companies were surprisingly on board. In a first for the company, Disney produced a mainline film with dozens of characters from other properties. Licensing agreements aside, many of the companies were quite happy to have their characters included. Strikingly, the title character, Ralph, and his rival Fix It Felix, bear a striking resemblance to Nintendo characters Donkey Kong and Mario, even basing the original game off of the concept for the characters and their game, Donkey Kong. Disney opted not to include either character, fearing they might distract the overall film, though many other characters did make it in, including Bowser, Zangief from Street Fighter, Sonic the Hedgehog, and many more.
Disney even went the extra mile and produced some original games of their own. For a brief time, fans could play Fix It Felix Jr. and Sugar Rush, enjoying the actual games the characters came from. The company even produced a 1980's style video game cabinet! The film's popularity of course meant there would be a sequel.
A year after 2012's Wreck it Ralph, Disney released their biggest film yet: Frozen. Those of us alive in 2013 need no reminding of the Frozen Mania that gripped the world. Disney's adaptation of The Snow Queen proved massively popular and made Idina Menzel even more of a household name than she already was. Elsa's fantastic "Let It Go" became the most popular song on the radio, and pretty soon every parent and child had the lyrics memorized. Frozen merchandise also proved incredibly popular, with parents and kids scrambling for rare items for months before Disney ramped up production.
It was the first Disney animated film to earn over $1 billion outright, and a sequel was quickly greenlit, to be discussed later this article.
Hey, this seems familiar! We previously covered Big Hero 6 in Part 2 of our Marvel Cinematic Retrospective: Animated Films, opens a new window. For those of you who didn't read that 2021 blog entry, Big Hero 6 was a manga produced by Marvel Comics for Japanese audiences. The imprint was so successful, Disney and Marvel decided to produce an animated film based on the manga, released in 2014. The film earned over $600 million in theaters, and was by far the most successful of the animated films produced by Marvel Comics.
Personally, my favorite film of the era! Zootopia is a breath of fresh air for the storied company. It's the first film since Robin Hood to feature fully anthropomorphized animals as main characters, the film is a huge homage to the "Buddy cop" film genre, and the detail to the film is insanely huge. Viewers have to look really close to find the kinds of monotone, repeated errors found in Dinosaur and other early CGI animated films. Released in 2016, it's evident how far Disney's animation teams have come in a relatively short time.
One of the most interesting trivia about the film is the localization efforts. Midway through the film, a newscaster covers the growing story presented in the film. One of the newscasters, Peter Moosebridge is replaced in several different nationalities; in the UK he is named Moosos Alexander after a famous radio host, while in Australia he is replaced by the koala David Koalabell, jaguar Oncardo Boi Cha in Brazil, and tanuki Michael Tanuyama in Japan, to name a few. Yay references!
The film's success meant a sequel was all but guaranteed, and eventually released late 2025.
Another film that's a decade old! Moana hit shores in 2016 with some of the best computer animated water in cinema. The entire film is heavily themed after Polynesian culture and features a cast almost entirely composed of ethnic Polynesians: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is Samoan, Temuera Morrison and Jemaine Clement are Maori, Auli'i Cravalho and Nicole Scherzinger are both Hawaiian. More, several of the cast dubbed their characters in their respective languages, and Moana was in fact the first film fully dubbed in Tahitian. Several such versions of the film were made, though most of these were only available locally.
Moana was yet another film that became hugely popular, earning itself a full sequel in 2024, and a live action remake, recently released on July 10!
Six years after release of the first film, Ralph Breaks The Internet smashed into theaters after pretty much immediate production of the film following the original's release. The sequel follows Ralph and Vanellope as they journey into the internet in an effort to save Sugar Rush, now under threat of being turned off forever following Ralph's predictably accidental interference.
Even more video game characters find references in the sequel, as well as internet and general media references. A ton of time is spent exploring Disney's media universe, with gratuitous cameos by Marvel, Star Wars, and the Disney princesses. Several real life websites are also visited or referenced, including Ebay, BuzzFeed, Youtube, Twitter, and more. This film was also a huge hit, earning another $550 million for the company.
Frozen was such a monumental hit for the company, there was little doubt there would be a sequel. Almost before the first film was out of theaters, plans were already underway with Frozen II, primed to be Disney's biggest blockbuster yet. Upon release, the film made a staggering $1.4 billion dollars, making it the most successful animated film of all time for a short while. It remained the highest grossing one by Walt Disney Animation until the release of Zootopia 2 in 2025. And of course, Disney greenlit yet more sequels, with Frozen III and Frozen IV both in production.
The film follows our two heroines as they leave on an adventure to learn more about Elsa's powers, as well as what befell their parents. No spoilers here though, even if statistically quite a few people have all seen what happens in theaters by now! The whole cast returned for the film (those characters who returned at least. Sorry Hans!) with a few new friends and enemies as well.
Though the public debate is ongoing, a consensus of Disney films have essentially agreed that The Revival Era of films is over. RIP! Where that cutoff lies, however, remains in some contention.
There are a few arguments about where to draw the line, picking between one film or another. The author, however, has a different suggestion to posit, and which shall be discussed more in our next segment. Moreso than any one film or decision, the big dividing line of the decade looms bright and large, for better or worse: 2020. 2020 was such a chaotic year, between the Corona19 Pandemic, the dramatic closing of world travel and borders, a significant shrink in the economy, new political shifts, and whole months of time where most of the population remained stuck indoors. So many things happened!
The biggest change, for The Walt Disney Company at least, was the advent of their new service, Disney+. Disney+ is an online streaming program that allows viewers to have whatever content available streamed directly to their device for viewing. 2020 began a seismic shift in how the company operated, and the beginning of their content pipeline where more and more content was being put on Disney+, including exclusive new content that appeared there only, never gracing movie theaters, DVD releases, or the Disney Channel. In fact, some films that were planned for release wound up going straight to Disney+ first.
With that in mind, we shall cut off The Revival Era and pick up with The Streaming Era starting in 2020.
Happy reading!
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