It’s OK — within reason — to see similar themes, visuals, etc. in movies. For example, a lot of princess movies, rom-coms, and slashers are all fairly similar. However, directly ripping off a movie is pretty frowned upon.
While ripoffs can happen in any genre and to any production studio, Disney has dealt with quite a few of them. Several smaller studios have released major ripoffs of Disney classics over the years. Sometimes it’s just stealing the general premise of the original movie; other times it’s a direct scene-by-scene ripoff. A lot of these “mockbusters” don’t get the attention that the movies they stole from do, but they’re still out there. Here are six of the biggest Disney movie ripoffs, ranked.
6 The Reef (2006)
The Reef (also called Shark Bait) was released in 2006. It's about a fish named Pi (Freddie Prinze. Jr) who tries to win the heart of another fish named Cordelia (Evan Rachel Wood), all while dealing with Troy (Donal Logue), a tiger shark that antagonizes all the fish in the reef. The movie very clearly rips off ideas from Disney's 2003 hit Finding Nemo, the 2004 DreamWorks picture, Shark Tale and even Disney's The Little Mermaid. Despite being an obvious mockbuster, The Reef features a cast of well-known actors including Rob Schneider and Fran Drescher, and was followed up with a sequel in 2012 featuring Frankie Jonas, Drake Bell, Busy Phillips and Jamie Kennedy.
5 Aladdin (GoodTimes Entertainment) (1992)
Aladdin by GoodTimes Entertainment, was released direct-to-video in 1992 — the same year as Disney's Aladdin. Both movies are based on the classic Arabian Nights story. The GoodTimes Entertainment ripoff stole just about everything from Disney's movie. From character names to concepts, it's almost the same movie. The real notable differences are the animation style, poor voice acting, and different character designs and colors. For example, the genie isn't blue in the GoodTimes Entertainment version, but it's still clear where they drew their inspiration from.
This mockbuster resulted in a lawsuit, as Disney claimed GoodTimes Entertainment's VHS packaging deliberately imitated the style Disney used to promote their movie, which deceived customers into thinking they were buying the Disney movie when they really weren't. However, the suit was thrown out because the story of Aladdin is public domain.
4 A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure (2006)
A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure was released in 2006 and is about an adventurous car named Sparky as he essentially tries to find himself. There have been several movies that ripped off Disney's 2006 movie Cars, but A Car's Life is by far the worst. From the voice acting to the animation and the general lack of a plot, it's a bad movie all around. It's only a little over 40 minutes long, but it's a painful 40 minutes. It could be a fun movie to watch with friends if you enjoy laughing and giving commentary about bad movies, but that's about it.
3 Ratatoing (2007)
This 2007 movie is all over "awful movie lists" across the internet. Ratatoing is about a rat who is a chef and owns a restaurant, and he has to steal ingredients from human restaurants to ensure his dishes are the best. If this sounds slightly familiar, that's because it is. Ratatoing is a direct ripoff of Disney's 2007 movie Ratatouille. Ratatoing is not very good. The animation and voice acting combined is pretty lackluster. The movie lacks a meaningful story, and even though it's a Ratatouille ripoff, it doesn't even come close to competing. In terms of mockbusters, Ratatoing is one of the cheapest imitations by far.
2 Beauty and the Beast (GoodTimes Entertainment)
The Disney classic Beauty and the Beast premiered in 1991 and a year later GoodTimes Entertainment released their imitation of the Disney hit, also titled Beauty and the Beast. The GoodTimes Entertainment version is almost identical to Disney's, despite differences in the animation style and slight character changes. The GoodTimes entertainment mockbuster is probably the most obvious direct ripoff of Disney's movie, but the general plot of Beauty and the Beast has been recreated in a variety of ways. The trope of falling in love despite a person's looks or general situation has been seen many times in movies like Beastly, Penelope, Twilight and Edward Scissorhands.
1 Homeward (2020)
Homeward was released in 2020 and is about an elf and orc brother duo who have to work together to stop and evil group of orcs from taking over the world. While the plots have their differences, when you place Homeward next to Disney's 2020 movie Onward, the movies look identical. Even the names are similar. Homeward is very cheaply animated, slow moving and lackluster when compared to the source material it's ripping off. Even though the storylines are different, Homeward is far too similar to Onward, and with the glitchy, low-quality animation it's hard to watch.