Disney's Live Action The Little Mermaid

[TP2000]

Do we literally need to repeat the same conversation in this thread every weekend?

This is a thread for a two month old movie that failed to make itself a profit at the box office. So at this point two months later I'm just updating with the latest box office facts and data until Mermaid goes to Disney+ for free.

You can pretend they only spent $100 Million on marketing versus the reported $140 Million on marketing, and you can claim that once Disney+ sends a $100 Million payment over to Walt Disney Studios via inter-office mail that Mermaid will only lose a few million. But until that happens and it shows up on Disney+ for free, using established data Mermaid has currently lost $110 Million at the box office.

Please produce a graph for D+ revenue and demonstrate to us where exactly you think that money 'goes'. Except you refuse to do that.

I'm happy to do that, although I already cut to the chase by showing the graph from Variety of Disney's Multi-Billion losses each fiscal year.

Oops, you just edited and did that....

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When you take the revenue and then back out the costs, you come up with a net profit or loss. In the past 12 months, after accounting for all that subscription revenue shown in the graph above, Disney has lost over $2 Billion on Disney+.

That's part of The Walt Disney Company. Loss, not profit. When costs are greater than revenue, a company loses money.

 

[BrianLo]

I'm happy to do that, although I already cut to the chase by showing the graph from Variety of Disney's Multi-Billion losses each fiscal year.

Oops, you just edited and did that....


When you take the revenue and then back out the costs, you come up with a net profit or loss. In the past 12 months, after accounting for all that subscription revenue shown in the graph above, Disney has lost over $2 Billion on Disney+.

That's part of The Walt Disney Company. Loss, not profit. When costs are greater than revenue, you lose money.

Disney+ losing money is not the point of debate. You are arguing Disney+ spends money and then it just disappears and those cheques are uncashable by the studios. As you said you back out the COSTS (Which is the studios getting paid for their content). Not a magic gift card.

If you borrow 50 dollars from the bank to pay your gardener, were they never paid?

You keep wanting to conflate the semantics of D+ profitability as the Studios fault. D+ isn't losing money because it is cutting a cheque to Little Mermaid for 100 million. It is losing money because it is simultaneously cutting way too many cheques, to major losers like Artemis Fowl (125million), Willow, a bunch of Disney channel esque movies no one watches, Chapek cutting 3x the size cheques when he ran everything direct to streaming or the big ones it is cutting billion(s) of dollars in cheques for sporting rights in India or for the entire WB-Max catalogue in India. All of those things still get paid, regardless of how D+ financial health performs.

And to your point, costs are not really greater than revenue on the majority of the Disney Studio content, that's why the Studios don't report loses. Something else you remain unwilling to acknowledge.

 

[TP2000]

Disney+ losing money is not the point of debate. You are arguing Disney+ spends money and then it just disappears and those cheques are uncashable by the studios.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Disney+ has never made a profit, but it does have actual mega-millions in revenue every month via subscriptions. The $100 Million that Disney+ is going to pay Walt Disney Studios to put Mermaid on their streaming site is real money. But the $100 Million is coming from another division of the same company, and that division is losing hundreds of millions of dollars every 3 months.

That's not Disney making a profit, that's Disney using subscription revenue from one money losing division to help cover costs for other money losing divisions.

If you borrow 50 dollars from the bank to pay your gardener, were they never paid?

That seems like a wrong analogy. This is Disney's own left hand (Disney+) using monthly revenue to pay Disney's own right hand (Walt Disney Studios) themselves.

If I take 50 dollars out of my checking account with my left hand, and put it into my right hand, I still have the same 50 bucks to my name. My right hand didn't just make 50 bucks profit.

And to your point, costs are not really greater than revenue on the majority of the Disney Studio content, that's why the Studios don't report loses. Something else you remain unwilling to acknowledge.

They didn't report losses last quarter because that only went from January to March, and Mermaid and their other three summer mega-budget tentpoles hadn't been released yet. Mermaid will get mostly reported on next month for the April to June quarter, and then in November we'll get the full down and dirty details on how much their flagship studios lost this summer at the box office.

In November we'll be able to piece together the third and fourth quarters and how much money their studios lost on Indy, Mermaid, and Elemental. They made at least $50 Million on Guardians, and we'll have to see what Haunted Mansion does, or does not do.

But here's the latest quarterly report for those desperate for entertainment. Page 3 is where it gets relevant to this discussion.

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2023/05/q2-fy23-earnings.pdf

 

[BrianLo]

They didn't report losses last quarter because that only went from January to March, and Mermaid and their other three summer mega-budget tentpoles hadn't been released yet. Mermaid will get slightly reported on next month for the April to June quarter, and then in November we'll get the full down and dirty details on how much their flagship studios lost this summer at the box office.

In November we'll be able to piece together the third and fourth quarters and how much money their studios lost on Indy, Mermaid, and Elemental. They made at least $50 Million on Guardians, and we'll have to see what Haunted Mansion does, or does not do.

But here's the last quarter's report for those desperate for entertainment. Page 3 is where it gets interesting.

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2023/05/q2-fy23-earnings.pdf

Remember a few pages ago when I told you Disney had lost easily double in fiscal 2022 what they are on track to lose in fiscal 2023? Like in excess of 2+ billion theatrically last fiscal year. And barely reported a loss. Honestly, well in excess of 4x the theatrical loses since this fiscal year does indeed include the full performance of Avatar.

Yes they are passing a lot of money from their left (D+) to their right (Studios) hands. But that does not negate the Studios are now rightly holding the money after the transfer.


Frankly, I'd even be content with me bringing you around to accept D+ brings in 8 billion of revenue in a year and spends 10 billion, so its cheques to the Studios are 80% real money and 20% Disney bucks. That's not right still, but at least it's somewhat more intellectually honest than you claiming it's all fake money and both divisions are losing money, when they are in fact not.

 

[TP2000]

Frankly, I'd even be content with me bringing you around to accept D+ brings in 8 billion of revenue in a year and spends 10 billion, so its cheques to the Studios are 80% real money and 20% Disney bucks. That's not right still, but at least it's somewhat more intellectually honest than you claiming it's all fake money and both divisions are losing money, when they are in fact not.

It's fake money in the sense that it didn't come from net profits.

Disney is paying itself with real revenue that still adds up to losses.

$2 Billion in losses per year is a big deal. Or at least it should be. How much longer are they going to be able to let their Parks keep their Media afloat?

And more importantly to me, how much longer does the Parks division have to keep cutting back on services for their customers and their CM's while the Media divisions get another few hundred million to waste on catering and chair massages for the Burbank cubicle army?

There's no night parade in either Castle park in this country, but they spent $300 Million to de-age Harrison Ford and $250 Million on a Mermaid remake that foreigners hated?

 

[BrianLo]

It's fake money in the sense that it didn't come from net profits.

But the majority of it did come from real revenue.

$2 Billion in losses per year is a big deal. Or at least it should be. How much longer are they going to be able to let their Parks keep their Media afloat?

And more importantly to me, how much longer does the Parks division have to keep cutting back on services for their customers and their CM's while the Media divisions get another few hundred million to waste on catering and chair massages for the Burbank cubicle army?

Fiscal 2024 supposedly, which I'm going to be a hard-a\ss and keep them to the fiscal year which ends 3 months earlier than the calendar year. That's what Iger has been promising for years. Trust me, he will be gone if he cannot deliver, that's his promise, not Chapek's. I'm decidedly in the camp that says he will do it and probably way sooner than that benchmark. We're already seeing Netflix majorly turn the corner into profitability.

For that reason I also agree, 'nothing' will start getting spent in the parks until October 1, 2024 onwards.

 

[Disney Irish]

But the majority of it did come from real revenue.



Fiscal 2024 supposedly, which I'm going to be a hard-a\ss and keep them to the fiscal year which ends 3 months earlier than the calendar year. That's what Iger has been promising for years. Trust me, he will be gone if he cannot deliver, that's his promise, not Chapek's. I'm decidedly in the camp that says he will do it and probably way sooner than that benchmark. We're already seeing Netflix majorly turn the corner into profitability.

For that reason I also agree, 'nothing' will start getting spent in the parks until October 1, 2024 onwards.

And on top of that, and what some aren't realizing here, once this strike is over that money being spent by D+ and streamers will be legitimized and counted as real revenue toward a movies profitability (not that it isn't now by the studios) as it will be part of profit sharing for actors/writers/etc.

 

[MisterPenguin]

That's the part that makes me chuckle.

Disney applies a magical Disney+ Gift Card of $100 Million to Mermaid and it covers most of its box office losses.

Does Disney now buy $100 Million Disney+ Gift Cards for all of its movies? Or does only Mermaid get a free gift card to cover its losses?

And if so, where do they get all that money for all those gift cards? And is that why Disney+ loses at least a Billion dollars every year?

Again you display your ignorance or willful ignorance that Disney+ has money coming in from revenue that pays for content, even for acquiring content from their own sister-divisions within the corporation.

D+ is currently in the red. But that doesn't mean it's just pulling money from a bank account. It's pulling from NEW REVENUE from subscribers. And that, in turn, is paying the studios for their content.

The corporation's other divisions are floating D+'s losses until it's in the black. It's a purposeful investment and loss-leader until it's fully profitable.

I'm surprised that someone who fancies themselves allied with the corporate elite has such a poor understanding of basic finances and math.

 

[TP2000]

D+ is currently in the red. But that doesn't mean it's just pulling money from a bank account. It's pulling from NEW REVENUE from subscribers. And that, in turn, is paying the studios for their content.

Disney+ is eternally in the red because it apparently has to pay their fellow company divisions big money for their products that didn't make a profit in the free market they were initially designed for. Like Disney+ giving Walt Disney Studios a check for $100 Million for a movie (Mermaid) that didn't break even at the summer global box office.

I've said many times that my pea-sized and gin-addled brain can't figure out how Disney+ ever makes money.

But if Disney+ also has to use their monthly subscriber revenue to now subsidize money losing tentpoles with $250 Million budgets, then I suddenly realize I might be smarter than I thought. Yet I still acknowledge my brain is gin-addled. And I won't apologize for that.

I'm surprised that someone who fancies themselves allied with the corporate elite has such a poor understanding of basic finances and math.

Allied with the corporate elite? You clearly have never read any of my posts from the past 20 years here where I mercilessly skewer clueless and idiotic TDA and Burbank elites alike, with a few random dalliances into making fun of TDO elites and Celebration cubicle wannabe elites.

I may still insist on wearing shoes with a defined heel and a nice sport coat to dinner just as a show of respect to restaurant employees and my fellow diners, but that doesn't mean I'm an elitist snob. Far from it, if you'd ever read my posts here. Or ever dared asked me out for a drink.

 

[TP2000]

Also, for the record, both Castle parks in the United States still don't have a night parade.

But Disney+ is paying hundreds of millions of dollars for box office mistakes. Your subscription dues at work, folks.

 

[LittleBuford]

Disney+ is eternally in the red because it apparently has to pay their fellow company divisions big money for their products that didn't make a profit in the free market they were initially designed for. Like Disney+ giving Walt Disney Studios a check for $100 Million for a movie (Mermaid) that didn't break even at the summer global box office.

As I understand it, Disney+ would pay that amount for Mermaid regardless of whether the latter made a profit or not, so your framing, which suggests that the money is designed to cover some sort of shortfall, is misleading.

 

[TP2000]

As I understand it, Disney+ would pay that amount for Mermaid regardless of whether the latter made a profit or not, so your framing, which suggests that the money is designed to cover some sort of shortfall, is misleading.

I get that. But the money transferred from one money-losing division to another money-losing division has still lost money for the company.

That company, as a reminder, is called The Walt Disney Company.

So Disney is losing money on their tentpole summer movies, even when they're subsidized by monthly subscription revenue from long term money-losing divisions like Disney+.

Once Disney+ starts earning at least some profit for at least two fiscal quarters in a row (Dream Big), we can then discuss how much money Disney is making on their movie business.

Until then, Disney's summer has been disastrous at the box office and Disney+ is still losing at least a Billion dollars per year.

 

[LittleBuford]

I get that.

I know you do, which is why it’s so unfortunate that you’re continuing to play this game.

 

[TP2000]

I know you do, which is why it’s so unfortunate that you’re continuing to play this game.

Once Disney actually makes a couple movies in a row that make money at the box office, we can stop "playing this game".

Until then, Disney keeps losing big money via their Studios and Disney+, while jacking up prices and cutting benefits at their Parks division.

And that's dumb of them, so I'll keep commenting with facts and data about box office performance of these movies. Or at least until just one of the parks in America gets a new night parade. Cause that's apparently too hard and too expensive for them now.

 

[LittleBuford]

Once Disney actually makes a couple movies in a row that make money at the box office, we can stop "playing this game".

Until then, Disney keeps losing big money via their Studios and Disney+, while jacking up prices and cutting benefits at their Parks division.

And that's dumb of them, so I'll keep commenting with facts and data about box office performance of these movies. Or at least until just one of the parks in America gets a new night parade. Cause that's apparently too hard and too expensive for them now.

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I had a long response to this but thought better of it. The wiser thing to do would be to minimise my part in the game, which is what I’m going to endeavour to do from now on. I wish we could have a straightforward, good-faith discussion, but it seems that simply isn’t possible.

 

[Ayla]

Warner Brothers did a bait and switch. They marketed it as a mad cap fish out of water toy adventure suitable for kids and it turned out to be something very different. I wonder when the word gets out how it will affect sales.

It has never been marketed towards kids. It's PG-13.

 

[Phroobar]

It has never been marketed towards kids. It's PG-13.

Like kids don't see PG-13 movies.
The subject matter of the Barbie toy implies marketing to children.

 

[Phroobar]

It isn't like the movie is rated R with a pile of naked Barbies like the way most girls would store their dolls. My sister always keep the clothes in a different box.

 

[LSLS]

LOL, what in the world did I miss that makes Barbie controversial?

 

[Ayla]

LOL, what in the world did I miss that makes Barbie controversial?

I'll give you one guess...it's all manufactured, faux outrage.