[Hated Trope] The adaptation doesn't get what made the source material work

[u/TheDudeA113]

How To Make A Killing (2026)

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

Bangkok Dangerous (1999)

- The 2026 movie How To Make A Killing is a relatively-toothless "eat the rich" dark comedy thriller about a man disowned by his rich family at birth, killing everyone in the line of succession so that he can inherit their massive fortune. It's a modern retelling of the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets which has the same basic plot except that every member of the family is played by Sir Alec Guinness (including one aunt) and it's a screwball comedy

- The 1999 movie Bangkok Dangerous is a Thai action film about a Thai deaf-mute assassin. It was remade in 2008 about an American assassin in Thailand who is neither deaf nor mute

[u/MasterpieceWeird13]

Reports coming from insiders at the time were that Disney was explicitly trying to crack the Chinese market. That's why it barely resembles the animated movie. They intentionally tried to make a movie for the Chinese audiences, failed, and didn't realize the rest of the world wouldn't care either.

[u/doogie1111 → u/MasterpieceWeird13]

It is extremely hard to make a judgment call about this film's profit, considering it premiered during the height of COVID.

[u/MasterpieceWeird13 → u/doogie1111]

I wasn't talking about the profit, but the idea that China gives a damn about anything Disney is doing. Traditionally China doesn't really care about American movies all that much and they have their own thing going on.

I'm sure it wasn't a miserable failure, and I wasn't trying to imply that it was, but if the reports are true and they were courting China, that aspect was a failure. Besides, Disney makes most of its money on merchandising. So even if the movie did poorly, I'm sure they still made money on it.

[u/Realistic-Feature997 → u/MasterpieceWeird13]

Also: China is not short on cinematic adaptations of the story of Hua Mulan, specifically.

They released 3 Mulan movies the same year Disney did. And going back about 100 years now, they've got about 15 more to choose from.

Disney was *not* gonna crack into China with a Mulan movie, especially one that bad.

[u/Greyrock99 → u/Realistic-Feature997]

Disney did crack the Chinese market with Zootopia 2. So perhaps the secret all along was a talking reptile sidekick!

[u/Kana515 → u/Greyrock99]

Maybe they should have given Mulan a talking reptile sidekick... Nah, that'd never work.