'Strange World' Disney's 2022 Animated Film

[Disney Analyst]

Just an FYI, no point being made either way:

Metacritic scores:
Brother Bear 48
Chicken Little 48
Home on the Range 50
Atlantis 52
Dinosaur 56
Cars 2 57
Pocahontas 58
Cars 3 59
The Black Cauldron 59
Fantasia 2000 59
Treasure Planet 60
Lightyear 60
Onward 61
Meet the Robinsons 61
Frozen 2 64
Monsters University 65
The Aristocats 65
The Good Dinosaur 66
Bolt 67
Brave 69
Emperor's New Groove 70
Luca 71
Mulan 71
Tangled 71
Ralph Breaks 71
Ralph Wrecks 72
Cars 1 73
Lilo & Stitch 73

The biggest issue to this movies success is all Disney.


How they have handled animation since Covid began and how they have marketed their animation.


Their animated musicals have less an uphill battle to be successful IMO. It's their action / adventure / dialogue only format that can get tricky, and needs to be marketed properly.

Now add in the Disney+ factor, which has only really been a player in this game since the dawn of Covid.

I know Iger is looking at theatrical and thinking "what the heck do we do?" - the market has changed, and the big question is... is that audience behaviour change permanent?

 

[Disney Irish]

I know Iger is looking at theatrical and thinking "what the heck do we do?" - the market has changed, and the big question is... is that audience behaviour change permanent?

Long term the answer is yes. The short term question is can Iger and team put a band-aid on the situation to limp along until 2024 and beyond when D+ is profitable enough to offset any theatrical shortfall, unknown at this point.

 

[CastAStone]

Ok so my kids enjoyed it, I liked it, it’s certainly a fun film. I won’t remember it in 6 months, it’s not like Frozen it Up or Toy Story or Tangled, but IMHO it’s definitely better than the Dinosaur/Home on the Range films people were comparing it to here.


I did have one issue. There’s a 3 legged dog, and it just flat out made me squirmy. Like don’t get me wrong I don’t have 3 legs and I have friends who have 3 legs, but what if my kids asked about the 3 legged dog? I wouldn’t know what to tell them. It’s not like the dog having 3 legs was essential to the plot. Clearly someone just threw that in there as like a creative choice, probably hitting some animal diversity metric.

 

[Phroobar]

I will not stand for Chicken Little slander. If you ignore the terrible dialogue and acting the story itself is sweet.

I’m at Strange World now waiting for showtime. We’re in one of the smallest theaters in the building and it’s maybe 15% full. I don’t know what gay anything has to do with the attendance for this movie but due to the lack of marketing there’s no one here.

Why on earth are the Happy Meal toys right now supporting a PG-13 movie that kids can’t see instead of the PG movie they can? Strange decisions.

Remember when they put in the Chicken Little bounce house at DCA?

I did have one issue. There’s a 3 legged dog, and it just flat out made me squirmy. Like don’t get me wrong I don’t have 3 legs and I have friends who have 3 legs, but what if my kids asked about the 3 legged dog? I wouldn’t know what to tell them. It’s not like the dog having 3 legs was essential to the plot. Clearly someone just threw that in there as like a creative choice, probably hitting some animal diversity metric.

Was the dog's name Tripod?

 

[Disney Irish]

Ok so my kids enjoyed it, I liked it, it’s certainly a fun film. I won’t remember it in 6 months, it’s not like Frozen it Up or Toy Story or Tangled, but IMHO it’s definitely better than the Dinosaur/Home on the Range films people were comparing it to here.


I did have one issue. There’s a 3 legged dog, and it just flat out made me squirmy. Like don’t get me wrong I don’t have 3 legs and I have friends who have 3 legs, but what if my kids asked about the 3 legged dog? I wouldn’t know what to tell them. It’s not like the dog having 3 legs was essential to the plot. Clearly someone just threw that in there as like a creative choice, probably hitting some animal diversity metric.

I know right, clearly someone at Disney has an agenda with 3 legged dog representation.

 

[RobWDW1971]

Ok so my kids enjoyed it, I liked it, it’s certainly a fun film. I won’t remember it in 6 months, it’s not like Frozen it Up or Toy Story or Tangled, but IMHO it’s definitely better than the Dinosaur/Home on the Range films people were comparing it to here.

They wish it was like one of their dinosaur movies.

Pick a dinosaur movie and they are all going to do better than SW:

Dinosaur (2000): Opening 5/19/2000, opening weekend $39M ($67M in today's dollars)
The Good Dinosaur (2015): Opening 11/25/2015, opening weekend $39M ($49M in today's dollars)

And it isn't about families not wanting to take their kids to see animated films in the theaters or non-musical animated films as Minions:Rise of Gru opened in July with a $107M opening and went on to make $370M domestic.

I know, I know - But that was a sequel and this was original IP! The sun got in my eyes! The dog ate my homework!

Keep moving the goalposts to rationalize if it makes you feel better.

EDIT: Please note that this post was directed to those pushing the "happy talk" about the film's box office prospects and not personally directed at the (apparently very sensitive) person with the grumpy lizard avatar.

 

[CastAStone]

Keep moving the goalposts to rationalize if it makes you feel better.

Hi Rob! I don’t think you read my earlier comments predicting the box office or perhaps you’re just commenting in total bad faith. Hard to say!

 

[TP2000]

You're not the target audience, mate. I am.

Childless adults cannot sustain feature animation.

That's it exactly. Who are they making these animated movies for? Childless adults, or families?

Because if the box office for Lightyear, and potentially Strange World, is any indication the business plan for making animation for childless adults isn't working for them.

It still stands, the movie is not crap. This is no chicken little.

So I again question why Disney did it dirty. This is a perfect movie for parents and kids. And even more so father and son.

It sounds like at least Strange World isn't bad. It's got a 64% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, at least. Disney has put out worse, especially in the early 2000's.

But I would argue that this "family movie" is "perfect movie for fathers and sons" only in a Burbank conference room where an HR Inclusion Committee made up of childless adults thinks it is.

In the real world of 2020's America where real people live and spend real money on entertainment, the "perfect movie for fathers and sons" was the PG-13 rated Top Gun Maverick. That father and son movie made $716 Million in the US, and another $750 Million overseas. Even foreign fathers and sons wanted to see it!

 

[The Mom]

It's like all the humorless white ladies in the HR departments and Faculty Lounges of America who suddenly decided to call Latinos "Latinx". Without asking. Or without any good reason culturally or pheonetically. Because they are better people than you and I and can dictate what a minority calls itself for its own good. Like the kind and loving dictators that they are.

Until the actual Latinos said "What the...????" and they finally had to back down.

Latinx. 2SLGBTQQIAA+. Same thing, the peasants will obey us. Right?



I would like to know why the son in this three-generation family adventure story needs to have a crush on a same-sex friend and how that advances the plot and helps the storyline. No one seems to have explained that yet.

Luckily, absolutely no one in American media is talking about Strange World. It's been abandoned not just in the toy aisles at Target, but on the commercial airwaves and bandwidth in America. So I guess the good news is that the son in Strange World could have an obsessive relationship with that Splat gelatinous creature and it would still fly under the radar?

The gelatinous community would feel represented and seen at least.

Would you think it strange/not advancing the story line if he had a crush on a girl? That's pretty common in most multi -generational adventure movies.

 

[TP2000]

Would you think it strange/not advancing the story line if he had a crush on a girl? That's pretty common in most multi -generational adventure movies.

No, if the girl crush then was put in peril or some plot twist where she gets to save the day and the crush blooms into lifelong love. Or something. I'm clearly not a script writer.

Was the gay crush an important plot point or character arc? Or was it just added to satisfy the HR Inclusion Committee that are also not script writers?

My concern is when it is the latter. Which many Hollywood studios appear to now do to prove they are officially good people. That's when it gets cringey for me as a gay man.

 

[TP2000]

Apparently the reports of "full theaters" may be slightly overblown:

No kidding. It opened in 4,127 theaters. If you slash that in half for last nights opening and assume only 2,000 of the theaters actually showed it, and it made $800,000 off that run, that means that it averaged 36 people per theater at $11 per ticket.

But if it was available in all 4,127 theaters last night, that means it averaged 17 people per theater.

If there was a full theater for it somewhere last night in a hipster neighborhood full of childless adults who love animation, that means there was also an empty theater in an unstylish suburb where families with children live.

 

[GimpYancIent]

Strange World will be quietly transitioning to D+ filler soon enough then fade away to oblivion, mercifully.

 

[CastAStone]

Was the gay crush an important plot point or character arc?

No. A main character/hero had a crush on a tertiary character that was irrelevant to the main plot, just like in any of 100 other movies.

this one happened to be a teenage boy and another teenage boy.

 

[TP2000]

Strange World cost $180 million to make, BTW, not counting promotions.

Did it really? I thought I saw it cost $120 Million to make, but I could be wrong. Either way, that's a heckuva lot of money. What do they spend all that on??? Minions Rise of Gru cost Universal $80 Million to make.

If Strange World really did cost $180 to produce, even with its bare bones marketing budget, it's going to require at least $360 Million in box office to simply break even.

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Turkey Day Eve to you and everyone!

TP2000 Turkey Tip: Bring a bottle of an Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir for your hostess tomorrow! And tell her she should save it for Friday for turkey sandwiches as she recovers. Oregon's Willamette Valley Pinots are absolutely fabulous even at modest price points and go beautifully with turkey. And for those of you east of the Rockies, impress your hostess by pronouncing Willamette correctly; Wuh-la-muht, stressing each syllable the same as the crystal clear dialect of the Pacific Northwest does so nicely.

 

[Disney Irish]

No. A main character/hero had a crush on a tertiary character that was irrelevant to the main plot, just like in any of 100 other movies.

this one happened to be a teenage boy and another teenage boy.

Actually in my opinion I think it was part of the son's arc, as he goes from nervous unsure teen to confident young adult. A story arc that many teens in the world face everyday, its relatable.

 

[TP2000]

Actually in my opinion I think it was part of the son's arc, as he goes from nervous unsure teen to confident young adult. A story arc that many teens in the world face everyday, its relatable.

Okay, that's good to hear.

I'll take your word for it, and others here, that this was handled well and not cringey.

I said it earlier, but perhaps Burbank's script writers are getting better at including the Gays into their family films as they get more practice with it?

Now all they have to do is get the 32 year old dad of a 6 year old boy in suburban America looking for a movie to see to go along with it.

 

[Magenta Panther]

This is a bit of a digression, but I liked Chicken Little. Still do (watched it with my nephew the other day). True, not all of the jokes landed, and Runt the pig was TOO fat, but Little's relationship with his father and with Abby (Ugly Duckling) is so heart-warming that it makes up for a lot of the film's shortcomings (I do think that the "feminization" of Foxy Loxy at the end was a bit much, but she and Runt seem to be enjoying themselves and each other so much that I find it easy to overlook). The handling of the real reason why the sky was falling was clever too, IMO, and the "movie version" of Chicken Little's story at the end is flat-out hilarious. And incidentally, the movie was a box-office hit, earning over 317 million worldwide. So anyway, if you guys haven't seen it, give it a chance. It's a fun family movie your kids will probably love (and maybe you will too...).

 

[RobWDW1971]

Hi Rob! I don’t think you read my earlier comments predicting the box office or perhaps you’re just commenting in total bad faith. Hard to say!

Edited above for clarity.

 

[TP2000]

@Magenta Panther, you are right! Strange World did cost $180 Million, per Variety this afternoon.

What's also interesting is how Variety's tone turned on this one in just a day.

"The well-reviewed film grossed a disappointing $800,000 in Tuesday previews, which likely means that initial estimates that “Strange World” would pull in between $30 million to $40 million over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday may prove to be overly optimistic."

Box Office: Disney’s ‘Strange World’ Grosses Disappointing $800,000 in Previews

Disney's "Strange World" is starting slow, earning a poor $800,000 at the box office in Tuesday previews.

variety.com

 

[TP2000]

If you use the standard "Three times the box office" formula for a movie to break even, Strange World needs to make $540 Million in global box office before it earns profit for Burbank.

But the marketing on this one is nearly non-existent, so they're saving some money there. And yet this movie doesn't exist in the toy aisles and kids clothes department at Target, that shelf space has all been taken up by Wakanda Forever, so Burbank can't count on merchandising to help much.

Using a conservative and eternally hopeful estimate of merely double the box office before it breaks even, Strange World needs to make $360 Million at the global box office. Otherwise, Burbank just kissed a hundred million dollars or more goodbye on Strange World.

Which is not a good thing when Burbank is in corporate turmoil and financial problems this winter.