WIRE Buzz: Disney's remakes earn $7 billion; Titans Season 2 recruits Genevieve Angelson

It turns out, Disney movies are popular. While the studio has been on a record-breaking bender lately, those live-action remakes of its animated classics have proven to be a lucrative niche market. Since 2010, which was the year the Alice in Wonderland remake was released, these live-action retellings have brought in a total of $7 billion from across the globe. 

The Lion King, which was released in theaters a week and a half ago, just cracked the billion-dollar ceiling. Aladdin, which was released in May, passed the threshold on Friday. 

While they're all based on previous properties, there's a lot of variation from one to the next. The Lion King, for example, was basically a shot-for-shot remake with CGI animals and new voice recordings. Whereas Dumbo, which was released earlier this year, doubled the original cartoons runtime of 63 minutes by flushing out a fuller story. Then there's Maleficent, which tells the same story from an all-new perspective. 

This trend is likely to continue, as The House of Mouse has plans for 16 different projects along these lines, including Cruella, which is a retelling of 101 Dalmations, Prince Charming, which riffs off of Sleeping Beauty, as well as a live-action Little Mermaid. 

(via CNBC)

Next up, Titans is continuing to expand its roster for the upcoming second season. 

The superhero series, which airs exclusively on DC Universe, has added Genevieve Angelson to the cast. The former Good Girls Revolt star will play a research doctor at Cadmus Laboratories, the company that seems to have created the clone known as Superboy. Angelson's character is described as smart and compassionate, which means she has conflicted feelings about the nature of her work there.

Titans is expected to return for a second season sometime in the fall, with Game of Thrones' Iain Glen donning Batman's cowl. The series will still be available to DC Universe subscribers, but will also be streamable on Warner Bros. forthcoming streaming service, HBO Max. 

(via Deadline)

Speaking of second seasons, Alexis Denisof has joined the cast of The CW's Vampire Diaries spinoff, Legacies. 

Denisof will play Professor Vardemus, a recurring character who's described as a refined British sorcerer and "a bit of a dandy [who] wins over the Salvatore students with his steadfast belief in the superiority of their supernatural world." Along with roles in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Grimm, and Agent Carter, he's perhaps best remembered as sorcerer Wesley Wyndam-Pryce from Angel, which was itself a spinoff of Buffy. 

We'll see how Denisof fits in at the Salvatore School when Legacies returns to The CW on October 10. 

(via TV Line)