Disney Irish
Premium Member
Alright, have a good night. We'll discuss other topics another time.
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Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs
- Thread starter Disney Analyst
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Let's try this. Do you think that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes will likely reach 700 million globally?
Disney Irish
Premium Member
If I'm being honest, no probably not. I think it'll probably do between $450M-$600M WW.
Everything is a competition with you… no matter what film people bring up you have to turn it around about how Disney is bad… some of us enjoy good films no matter the studio… no one ever claimed Spiderverse was a Disney movie
That's fine. The discussion before was talking about the current trends and box office relevance. It's a box office thread after all. So it is rather appropriate discussion. More than coincidence when not one Disney animated film can do what the others are doing.
So yes, a thread title that says Disney, and others at the box office will often have discussion based on competition in the industry.
Disney is not bad nor good. They are performing badly, as others perform better, at the box office.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
I realize this is a numbers thread and you are legitimately an Illumination/Dreamworks fan (I am not)... but why are we so obsessive about this.
Illumination offshores its production, pays its animators less, uses accounting practices to shift studio costs out of the film budgets and spends the same marketing as Disney by and large (which is often poorly accounted for in these discussions).
But at the end of the day... so what? Do people want Disney and Pixar to offshore? They want the companies to pay the animators less? They want Disney to "produce cheaper films"... ok, but how?
Why has this thread become the champions of destroying the Disney/Pixar culture and celebrating other studios, whom I'll leave my opinion off about their general quality of their output. Its become the antithesis of a movie fan thread and the champions of the budget minded executives thread. I'm not talking about the general box office component or reception, I'm talking about the obsession with budgets and ROI. Or celebrating Animated film sequel 4/5. Yay?
Even the head of Illumination doesn't advocate for other studios to follow his model, he comments it would destroy their culture. A cheap film studio needs to be built from the ground up.
PS: I liked Mario and Migration, the latter was a nice cute film.
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And let me guess GhostBusters has more relevance than Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Inside out despite both will more than likely gross more than Frozen Empire
I don't know how one metrics that specifically. That is a tough one in a sense. Pop Culture Zeitgeist is tricky. Relevant and box office gross are not mutually exclusive.
I think it is fair to say the newer films have not done Ghostbusters any crazy favors than earning some fan trust, but thanks to Halloween, The Real Ghostbusters cartoon many were raised with and the mega hit that the original was, I think it is safe to say that Ghostbusters has a more passionate as well as casual fanbase willing to spend money on apparel and related items that keep it relevant. Planet of the Apes as a Franchise is a classic sci fi classic.
Box office wise, I expect Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Inside Out 2 to gross far more than Ghostbusters Frozen Empire, but then again, they cost a lot more too.
Inside Out. Not sure how to gauge that one. Kids and families enjoyed the first one. We will see what kind of lasting power the sequel brings the concept. Its under ten years old vs 40 for Ghostbusters and over 60 for Planet of the Apes. So going to be hard to compare for a long while its lasting power.
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Are you under the impression that Disney as a studio in either animation or live action does none of this?
I am actually not much of a Dreamworks fan. The original Shrek and kind of Shrek 2 are the only Dreamworks films I thought were very good. Monsters Vs Aliens could have been more fun but is just odd. How To Train your Dragon is well made, but not my thing.
Movie making is a business and this is a box office discussion. I don't know if it is really obsessive as it is pertaining to the thread topic of show business.
If Disney's movies are not doing well, the parks are the first thing to get snipped and budget gutted. That is why I care more than anything else about what Disney is doing financially. I can go more into my personal tastes in film in a different thread, and critically/general public opinion, which they for sure are not really doing better than anyone else either. Which is a different discussion, but evident by box office results.
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TP2000
Well-Known Member
The First Omen is the first new movie of 2024 from Walt Disney Studios family of studios, and it is not doing well at the box office and is heading towards being Disney's first box office money loser of '24.
It has weak legs globally, and is tracking towards a global box office loss a month from now of around $20 Million.
The First Omen: Production $30, Marketing $15, Domestic $9, Overseas $9 = $27 Million Loss Currently
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The First Omen (2024) - Financial Information
Financial analysis of The First Omen (2024) including budget, domestic and international box office gross, DVD and Blu-ray sales reports, total earnings and profitability.
www.the-numbers.com
Disney Irish
Premium Member
The First Omen is the first new movie of 2024 from Walt Disney Studios family of studios, and it is not doing well at the box office and is heading towards being Disney's first box office money loser of '24.
It has weak legs globally, and is tracking towards a global box office loss of around $20 Million.
The First Omen: Production $30, Marketing $15, Domestic $9, Overseas $9 = $27 Million Loss Currently
View attachment 779770
The First Omen (2024) - Financial Information
Financial analysis of The First Omen (2024) including budget, domestic and international box office gross, DVD and Blu-ray sales reports, total earnings and profitability.
We'll see what the final numbers will be, hopefully it'll continue to do well in the next couple of weeks overseas.
Here is the 3 recent horror movies that released around the same time including First Omen. Immaculate (which is a similar movie to First Omen) had a $9M budget, but didn't manage to do well before being pulled or maybe it was a limited run.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
HTTYD is my favourite of either Studios' output, I think our tastes differ, which is completely fine! Not the point as you said.
But Disney does not remotely engage in the same accounting practices. Illumination films are more cheaply produced, I am not denying that. The discrepancy in costing is completely exaggerated. We are comparing apples to oranges without the consistency in reporting. Disney and Illumination are on two extreme ends. Illumination tends to run very high marketing budgets relative to their low film costs and also excludes the costs of running the studio itself from their film budgets. The latter are absorbed by the parent company as different line items. They are still highly financially successful though. Not remotely denying that. Disney has been on an atrociously bad recent run compared to end of last decade, further exaggerated by good films being buried into D+ during the pandemic, not denying that either.
But Illumination was close to launching franchises closer to a billion dollars, their recent results across both studios (Mario excepted) have also been weaker. Despicable Me 4 and Inside Out 2 are going to be highly telling for both studios about if the Animated market is really back or just erratic.
The other comparator would be Warner Brothers claiming their DTC unit is profitable by burying their previously multi-billion dollar HBO linear unit completely under the hood. Max itself is likely still in a billion dollar a quarter hole. Sometimes when companies are participating in different accounting reporting it makes them seem better than they really are, which complicates this threads interpretation on financial performances greatly.
Animation has always been the same kind of erratic it is now. You just had the post waking Sleeping Beauty aspect to to feature good runs in the 90s post Mermaid.
And Pixar with their great legacy until Cars 2 and beyond that slowly cheapened or completely cheapened the product to where we wait for the next Toy Story sequel, other sequel or something the audiences don't care to go to theaters much for.
Why would we say it is erratic just because Disney's films are vastly underperforming? Why can't it be that one studio is making more films that people want to see? As a matter of fact, foreign animation has been smash hitting the growing American theater going Audiences. So, there is a third common release happening that has also been succesful.
Illumination has had a heck of a run post HOP, their only flop connection.
Beyond just animation. Wonka was the only successful live action family film I can think of coming off of a time where HM and others flopped. It is wild that WB, the one in the hole has had a string of success(besides spielberg Musicals not selling) from each of their last major releases Wonka, Dune and to some extent, and even Kong a success relative to the slow build up to box office.
I don't think anyone suspected Kong X Godzilla would surpass Indy's recent total.(likely by this weekend and it will keep playing) Nor that Wonka, and certainly not Dune would. Kung Fu Panda 4 has as well. Budgets aside. the films are just performing better than Disney's.
What we are seeing is when an industry leader is not fulfilling the market, another will step in, and Illumination and Dreamworks have been in a good spot to do that for years as it was the only thing close to competition.
And I would agree, How to Train your Dragon is their best made film. I just am not a fan because I am not a dragon or high fantasy/Norse theme kind of guy. Objectively, it is the best made film of theirs and I think it is clear it is the most obvious to give an entire land if any Dreamworks property has to.
To paint the struggle. How did a panned by critics mid upper budget Ghostbusters fourth installment surpass Wish and The Marvels domestically?
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BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Dreamworks films are also erratically underperforming. I think the problem is no one can accurately name the last 8 releases from memory. We just don't talk about Ruby Gilman, Spirit Untamed, The Bad Guys or Abominable.
Orion and the Dark I'd bet is the first time anyone is bringing up that film on this thread... though I'm sure we'd be all over a Pixar or WDAS direct to streamer. Instead that has quietly come and gone, despite being on the pre-eminent platform.
Throw in a lot of budget ROI massaging for diminishing franchises like Boss Baby, The Croods or The Trolls Franchise (which frankly was not a great showing for a third-quel, I don't know why we are pretending like it set the world on fire)...
Yes Last Wish and Kung Fu Panda 4 are doing well and deserve highlighting, but that's a pretty spotty positioning for not really a single massive hit. I worry that we are left with just returning to the aging Shrek and Kung Fu Panda franchises on the fumes that Dreamworks is running on.
Illumination is much more the American exception. It's only not as erratic because 40% of its films are from one franchise.
Bad Guys did not underperform. It met its range. That is why it is getting a sequel.
Ruby Gillman definitely bombed.
The others are supporting ventures that reach their fatigue and were not great films. Yet they still made money theatrically. No one is saying Dreamworks does not have movies that perform less. The issue is, they have reached the only relevant choice where another studio has all of their animated movies bombing.
Shrek May be aging, but it is also in a prime spot since it took a long break and used the great storytelling for a spin off of Last Wish to hype it up.
It is evident as Shrek 2 of all things was just rereleased with some healthy cash, in a world where people say streaming is so common.
Pixar's theater releases could not even top what Shrek 2 is making. I think it is clear who is leading animation currently.
Only one animation studio has two films playing top ten in theaters right now that have already made their profits more than four times over. Just raking in millions more now.
I don't think anyone can name Pixar or Disney's last 8 releases without having to think much about it...except for a few on a Disney site but it is hard with the pandemic.
Whether we can remember them or not. Outside of Ruby Gillman, they made money to a lot of money in the theatrical box office alone.
Your last statement is funny. Illumination for sure latched on to Despicable Me, but dang it always does well. Even their spin offs do crazy well theatrically.
And here we are, we can say that most of Pixar's recent hits in the last ten years were sequels, and even a spin off, they could not get right. So I won't say I can see them as a higher standard right now.
Disney's fumes are live action remakes and sequels of Princess films that were meant to go to tv.
Pixar is giving us another sequel yet with Inside Out getting one and Dreamworks is taking risks with The Wild Robot film and it will be the third animated release of Uni this year.
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BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Disney Live Action is a hot mess express. Always has been. No argument from me!
Pixar in the last 10 years still has Inside Out, Coco, Turning Red, Luca and Elemental as legitimate franchises that it is or could be motivated to add to the parks. For an industry that is IP obsessed and kills originality, that's actually pretty good. Pixar is still a content engine, until they officially kill it.
Dreamworks has given us Trolls, maybe Boss Baby? Illumination - Sing and Secret life of Pets. Though all four have been diminishing returns.
I'm not purposefully trying to diminish Mario, that deal basically makes up for literally everything else for the sake of their theme parks.
To your first bold. That is a big issue when you purchased acquisitions likes crazy. Not the same as The Happiest Millionaire and Shggy Dog sequels making some coin in the 60s or family comedies of the 90s being miss or mega hits.
Nah. Sing 2 was a HUGE hit across the globe. Look at when it premiered. It performed twice as well as Encanto both domestic and worldwide. If not for pandemic rockiness, it would have made a bit more. And we would not really be seeing much more than the average give or take of sequel performance.
If you say Sing 2 was a diminish return, that came out near the same holiday season as Encanto, then you have to admit that Encanto was as severe underperformer theatrically that later found its audience good for it, but a disappointment in theaters for the company that has been a part of the same trend to this day.
I think Moana 2 and Inside Out 2(really more likely the former) could surpass what Despicable Me 4 will do, but not likely, and if it is even close, isn't that sad that a sixth theatrical movie would even be something we are unsure of.
How it is changed.
Uni is the leader of animation for audiences.
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The wife and I don't get to many movies lately but we really wanted to get out. She was not happy with my pick but went with it. She thought it was going to be some sort of a left vs right movie. I have always liked his sci fi stuff. We were both just blown away. What a great flick from so many angles. I hope it sees a large slate of awards. If more movies would take this neutral line so many would have so much less bad press from either side. You can make a movie without catering to the left or the right.
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Neon stuff never seems to stick around that long (2-4 weeks before being cut substantially), so the 4-week run here was about the best possible outcome. It's already out on pVOD as of this week, which matches other recentish releases like Ferrari or Infinity Pool.
Interestingly, this should ultimately end up on Hulu alongside The First Omen yet again.
To your larger point, the horror audience continues to not really turn up in 2024. Maybe Abigail will be the one to light the screen on fire. It certainly looks like fun. ETA: Industry projections apparently put it at $12m-$15m for this weekend, which puts it... barely ahead of Night Swim. So, more of the same...
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It will be hard for it, against a split audience across many Rated R releases including non-horror.
The last few weeks after Kong X Godzilla have been Rated R releases.
However, don't fret for Night Swim. It was financially a hit. Horror may not bring in the most, but it also typically has a smaller investment.
Abigail will need to perform better, as it has a 32 million budget.