The Decline of Original Live-Action Children’s Films in Modern Cinema.

[Dr.Kisaragi]

From the 40s to 2000s, live-action children’s and family films like Matilda, Madeline, The Goonies, The Little Rascals, Home Alone, The Sandlot, Annie, and Oliver Twist often featured child protagonists driving the story. These films combined adventure, humor, and heart in ways that appealed to both children and adults.

In contrast, modern live-action family films are increasingly dominated by reboots, sequels, franchise entries, or CGI-heavy productions, and original child-led stories seem rarer.

What economic, cultural, or creative factors might explain this decline in original live-action children’s cinema? Are there contemporary films that successfully capture the spirit of these classics, or has the genre fundamentally shifted?

Yesh I miss those kind of flims.

 

[Tonberry]

I don't want to sound cynical, but this is one of those instances where it automatically turns me cynical because I completely agree with you.
I think there's a reocurring trend that sometimes loops back where people/execs think kids are explicitly brainless idiots, so there are certain time periods where they don't feel like making stuff specifically geared towards them, which is just a colossal shame.

There's a part in my brain also that suggests that superheroes (which would fall under franchise entries as you said) sort of bridged a demographic gap in a new way that kind of let people of most ages to share in one big thing. It's happened before with things like Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Carribean (not to mention Star Wars), but those were self-contained universes that didn't take 15 years to realize (except for Star Wars but it's different still).

Then the other reason might be that, as with so much nowadays due to ballooning production costs, executives are afraid of putting a lot of money where they're not sure if it'll work. That imaginary friends movie made by John Krasinski was apparently a massive flop, but definitely qualifies for "original live-action childrens' film" so I'm not sure what the solution might be.
Computer-animated movies are getting a sort of resurgence because Spiderverse showed that it's worth it to actually make movies with a lot of artistic freedom, but I wonder if that makes them more expensive to make too, they certainly look the part.