Disney+ Plans to Reboot Home Alone, Night at the Museum and More Franchises

Get ready for some zombie IP, returning from the clutches of the grave, because Disney+ is apparently planning on a bevy of resurrections. Disney CEO Bob Iger dropped some announcements during the company’s Tuesday earnings call, revealing a slate of upcoming reboots of properties acquired from the Fox library following the massive merger between the two companies. In specific, Iger mentioned upcoming reboots of the following: Home Alone, Night at the Museum, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Cheaper By the Dozen.

If you look at any of those titles and either think “that was just done,” or “that franchise was run into the ground with ruthless efficiency,” then you wouldn’t be wrong on either count. Home Alone was subject to some truly abominable direct-to-video and direct-to-TV sequels, while the likes of Diary of a Wimpy Kid was already rebooted as recently as 2017. But hey, Disney gonna Disney, right? According to Iger, those properties would be “reimagined” for “a new generation.” Who knew that our current generation is apparently a different one than that of two years ago?

Of course, there’s a variety of routes one might take, rather than simply rebooting these properties as feature films. One would expect Home Alone to be a movie, but perhaps we’d see Diary of a Wimpy Kid as a Freaks and Geeks-like series, or Cheaper by the Dozen as a modern Brady Bunch. These properties join other announcements such as the upcoming live-action/CGI hybrid version of Lady and the Tramp, starring the voices of Tessa Thompson and Justin Theroux.

One thing is certain: By the end of its first year in operation, Disney+ intends to have a very robust library, with much more on the way. Deadline cites numbers of 7,500 TV episodes and 400 movies, but we have to imagine that would only be the tip of the iceberg. And of course, they’ll have the exclusive rights to tentpoles such as Marvel Cinematic Universe films, or the newer Star Wars entries.