I agree that it's hard to call them a failure with how much money they've made.
I think they're creatively bankrupt and ultimately pointless -- they're all apparently worse than the animated films on which they are based (the only one I've seen is Beauty and the Beast, but I have not seen many people claiming Aladdin or the Lion King are better than their animated counterparts), and they are likely to be forgotten eventually in favor of those animated versions -- but they printed money for the company and that's really all they care about.
It's not a long-term strategy, though. This live action remake thing will peter out in the next 4 or 5 years because they will run out of movies. It's incredibly unlikely they'd try to release live action versions of movies like the Aristocats or the Great Mouse Detective.