Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs

[Vegas Disney Fan]

As I discussed yesterday after seeing it, this is a very traditional family film. Sure, it deviates from the plot of the original, but there is nothing controversial about it. Had it been released before 2020, no-one would be decrying it as woke propaganda. (I dread to think what sort of reception the far more daring Frozen would get if released today.)

I think this is where the original comments hurt it. The first comments most of us heard about this movie was Gadot and Zegler talking about how It wasn’t going to be like the old, obviously outdated, original, she wasn’t going to be saved by a stalker Prince, she was going to find her role as a leader, etc. It sounded like a completely different, “woke” (I know people hate this use of the word but I don’t know how else to describe it), version of a movie we grew up with and love.

It sounds like the film ended up similar to the original but a ton of people will never know because the tone was set years before it actually released and that tone was mostly negative.

 

[coffeefan]

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Do you think those productions move with only a few people involved? Of course not, it takes hundreds of people.

That’s the problem, if they delay or cancel a movie because of struggles this year it affects hundreds of people next year.

I work special events in Vegas, primarily concerts and corporate events, if concerts struggle to make money this year fewer bands will tour next year, that’s just how it works, so the success of this years tours will determine if I work 150 concerts next year, 100, or 50. As a front line worker I have zero control over that, my future income is highly dependent on people buying tickets, just like the future income of front line movie workers is highly dependent on people buying movie tickets this year.

 

[brideck]

It sounds like the film ended up similar to the original but a ton of people will never know because the tone was set years before it actually released and that tone was mostly negative.

It's a shame that people aren't able to, you know, take in new information and overturn their preconceived notions. But that pretty much sums up modern society as a whole, so why would the conversation around one little movie be any different?

All right, I did some crunching based on Snow White's open, and if it gets holds like Maleficent: Mistress of Evil it'll end up around $130m domestic. If it instead gets holds like Dumbo, which performed really poorly, it'll end up around $105m domestic.

If it ends up higher than $75m after next weekend, then it'll have gotten a decent word-of-mouth bump and everything will need to be recalibrated. We'll see how much those school-age girls are talking to each other about it this week.

We've got numbers for Monday through Thursday now, so we can safely say (unless the actual weekend is miraculously significantly different) that Snow White is firmly on the Dumbo path for its holds.

ETA: You'll see news blurbs about how Snow White has held on to all of its theaters for week 2, but that's hiding that on the screening side it's down to 2 screens/theater in my area. That's where Mufasa and Brave New World were in their 3rd weeks of release. The timeline has begun to accelerate.

 

[Disney Irish]

Do you think those productions move with only a few people involved? Of course not, it takes hundreds of people.

Not only that, but when those productions move to the other locations they are good for those local economies where local productions crews are used. So if you uproot all those productions for those other location now go back to use only LA locations you just put now many thousands of local production crews out of work from all those other location, ie a bigger impact on jobs.

The Hollywood engine is global not just set in the LA area anymore.

 

[coffeefan]

 

[Agent H]

I think this is where the original comments hurt it. The first comments most of us heard about this movie was Gadot and Zegler talking about how It wasn’t going to be like the old, obviously outdated, original, she wasn’t going to be saved by a stalker Prince, she was going to find her role as a leader, etc. It sounded like a completely different, “woke” (I know people hate this use of the word but I don’t know how else to describe it), version of a movie we grew up with and love.

It sounds like the film ended up similar to the original but a ton of people will never know because the tone was set years before it actually released and that tone was mostly negative.

I agree the comments may have gone a bit too far but I think it’s just a sad remark on people these days being unwilling to look past their initial assumptions for the facts.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

It's a shame that people aren't able to, you know, take in new information and overturn their preconceived notions. But that pretty much sums up modern society as a whole, so why would the conversation around one little movie be any different?

It is a shame but also the reason there’s so many famous sayings about first impressions, I think humans are just wired that way, they say most people make their first impression of someone in the first 30 seconds and it takes 8 positive outcomes, or several months (depending on the study), to change that impression. This is why smiling is so important, a smile is one of the biggest factors in first impressions.

This isn’t a modern society problem either, many of these saying go back decades.

 

[Disney Irish]

That’s the problem, if they delay or cancel a movie because of struggles this year it affects hundreds of people next year.

I work special events in Vegas, primarily concerts and corporate events, if concerts struggle to make money this year fewer bands will tour next year, that’s just how it works, so the success of this years tours will determine if I work 150 concerts next year, 100, or 50. As a front line worker I have zero control over that, my future income is highly dependent on people buying tickets, just like the future income of front line movie workers is highly dependent on people buying movie tickets this year.

But again this makes the assumption that no studio is doing anything else but those delayed or cancelled movies. Most studios don't just have one or two productions going, Disney certainly doesn't, they have a pipeline of movies in various stages of production. So if one gets delayed or cancelled they fast track another into production so they have something always going. If they didn't we'd have no movies released to theaters because they wouldn't have anything in the pipeline. This is how the Hollywood engine works. No studio just completely shutdown all productions for months or years without an external force such as the strikes or a pandemic.

Again I understand your point-of-view, and empathize with your wanting to point to this movie as one that will cause strife in the industry. But I think you're being a bit over dramatic here, as this one movie isn't going to cause a cascading effect on all productions in the industry that causes thousands to lose their job because it wasn't successful. Especially when we've all fairly evenly agree that Disney is going to be alright for the year with the rest of their slate.

 

[WorldExplorer]

I agree the comments may have gone a bit too far but I think it’s just a sad remark on people these days being unwilling to look past their initial assumptions for the facts.

That's not an assumption; they were explicitly told it was going to have X and not have Y by someone who would know.

If I tell you I'm going to make a peanut butter, jalapeno, and anchovy sandwich and I would like you to buy one from me, then you leave because that sounds terrible, it's not your fault I wasn't able to sell the sandwich even if I give up the stupid plan and just make it peanut butter.

 

[LittleBuford]

I think this is where the original comments hurt it. The first comments most of us heard about this movie was Gadot and Zegler talking about how It wasn’t going to be like the old, obviously outdated, original, she wasn’t going to be saved by a stalker Prince, she was going to find her role as a leader, etc. It sounded like a completely different, “woke” (I know people hate this use of the word but I don’t know how else to describe it), version of a movie we grew up with and love.

It sounds like the film ended up similar to the original but a ton of people will never know because the tone was set years before it actually released and that tone was mostly negative.

But what is now being decried as “woke” in this context—the move towards more robust portrayals of female leads—has been standard in Disney (and other family) entertainment since the ’90s. “She’s not gonna be saved by the prince” applies just as much—and indeed more so—to Frozen. The shift in discourse has been much more extreme than the shift in actual representation. Nothing Zegler or Gadot said about the remake should have been enough to cause the kind of reaction we’ve seen. I really think some people are just looking for reasons to feel ideologically affronted.

 

[Disney Irish]

That's not an assumption; they were explicitly told it was going to have X and not have Y by someone who would know.

If I tell you I'm going to make a peanut butter, jalapeno, and anchovy sandwich and I would like you to buy one from me, then you leave because that sounds terrible, it's not your fault I wasn't able to sell the sandwich even if I give up the stupid plan and just make it peanut butter.

So having seen the movie, their statements aren't incorrect based on the movie that was released though. And this is the problem with assuming based on a few comments 2-3 years before a movies is released without even seeing a trailer.

To use your analogy it would be like saying you're going to sell a sandwich and people deciding they don't want it a full 3 years before you open up the sandwich shop and list out all the ingredients of the sandwich just because you said you might use rye instead of white or wheat bread when talking about opening the shop. Not knowing that you'd still have white and wheat bread available in your sandwich shop when it opens.

 

[Agent H]

That's not an assumption; they were explicitly told it was going to have X and not have Y by someone who would know.

If I tell you I'm going to make a peanut butter, jalapeno, and anchovy sandwich and I would like you to buy one from me, then you leave because that sounds terrible, it's not your fault I wasn't able to sell the sandwich even if I give up the stupid plan and just make it peanut butter.

Good analogy. Let’s continue with that. If you marketed to me that you had made a new sandwich with jalapeños and cream cheese (I’m changing it because I don’t like peanut butter) I would probably come back.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

But again this makes the assumption that no studio is doing anything else but those delayed or cancelled movies. Most studios don't just have one or two productions going, Disney certainly doesn't, they have a pipeline of movies in various stages of production. So if one gets delayed or cancelled they fast track another into production so they have something always going. If they didn't we'd have no movies released to theaters because they wouldn't have anything in the pipeline. This is how the Hollywood engine works. No studio just completely shutdown all productions for months or years without an external force such as the strikes or a pandemic.

You are assuming there’s a huge backlog of demand just waiting for space and crews though, which isn’t true, soundstages are struggling to stay alive from lack of demand.

https://variety.com/2024/film/features/california-production-soundstages-survive-to-2025-1236194485/

This is the newest report I can find but both on location and soundstage productions days are substantially down.

 

[Disney Irish]

You are assuming there’s a huge backlog of demand just waiting for space and crews though, which isn’t true, soundstages are struggling to stay alive from lack of demand.

https://variety.com/2024/film/features/california-production-soundstages-survive-to-2025-1236194485/

This is a strawman. That has nothing to do with Snow White bombing, or Disney potentially cancelling other live action films. That has to do more with a shift by Hollywood to do productions in other states and countries. One that is hopefully helped by CA upping its tax credits to bring productions back to CA. But nothing to do with studios cancelling a future movie because a previous one bombed.

So lets play this out, Snow White bombs, this causes Disney to cancel the Tangled live action which was going to have its production in Pinewood Studios in the UK, instead because they already rented out the production space they spin up production on another movie that was ready and take up that spot in Pinewood Studios. No jobs were lost. And none of that has anything to do with the soundstages sitting empty in LA waiting for a production that never booked it in the first place.

 

[erasure fan1]

It's a shame that people aren't able to, you know, take in new information and overturn their preconceived notions. But that pretty much sums up modern society as a whole, so why would the conversation around one little movie be any different?

But why should they? It sounded like a trainwreck. The trailers looked like a trainwreck. And funny enough the majority of people think it's bad. Plus with the comments, why would they want to give it a chance?

I agree the comments may have gone a bit too far but I think it’s just a sad remark on people these days being unwilling to look past their initial assumptions for the facts.

I don't get this line of thinking. If your favorite store or restaurant said they hate you and they don't need your business, are you giving them your money? I highly doubt it. So why should the 10s of millions of people she insulted give the movie a chance? Especially since nothing they showed or said about the film looked good. Maybe, as I've said, more people give it a chance if this all stopped at, weird weird. But it didn't.

 

[WorldExplorer]

So having seen the movie, their statements aren't incorrect based on the movie that was released though. And this is the problem with assuming based on a few comments 2-3 years before a movies is released without even seeing a trailer.

To use your analogy it would be like saying you're going to sell a sandwich and people deciding they don't want it a full 3 years before you open up the sandwich shop and list out all the ingredients of the sandwich just because you said you might use rye instead of white or wheat bread when talking about opening the shop. Not knowing that you'd still have white and wheat bread available in your sandwich shop when it opens.

If what she said sounded like a "might" to you then I don't know what to tell you because you're clearly not arguing in good faith. She clearly said this is going to happen and this isn't; the only "might" was that they might cut her costar entirely (which just reinforces the comment about not being saved). People are not wrong to take information presented to them as something confirmed as confirmed. And you intentionally shift the analogy to bread choice instead of filling to make it seem more inconsequential: she's talking about the main character of the film. If that's the bread, what's the filling?

Dozens of movies open every year and Disney has to compete for their attention. People have this weird idea that people are obligated to give Disney more attention than normal; normally, when you see a film that is clearly heading in a direction you don't like, you stop paying attention. You don't keep watching it to see if it might turn around into something you like. Huge, visible changes can change minds (e.g. Sonic), sure, but that's not what happened here.

If Disney's marketing plan is to hope people give them a bunch of chances and keep checking in on the press releases to see if the movie has entirely changed course, then good luck to them.

Good analogy. Let’s continue with that. If you marketed to me that you had made a new sandwich with jalapeños and cream cheese (I’m changing it because I don’t like peanut butter) I would probably come back.

If their marketing was supposed to contradict what was said wasn't going to be in the film/was going to be in the film then I definitely missed it. I definitely didn't see anything indicating a guy saving her or indicating they dropped the leadership thing.

Maybe if you're really following closely it was there, but I have no reason to do that when there are dozens of other films to pay attention to and it's already been made clear to me that this film is not going to be something I want.

 

[Disney Irish]

This is the newest report I can find but both on location and soundstage productions days are substantially down.

View attachment 850554

You're trying to conflate a bunch of things together that have nothing to do with each other.

Look I'm all for having more local productions here in California. But you're doing a lot of heavy lifting trying to pin this on Snow White and it bombing and some domino effect that its going to have on the local LA region.

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

So how many of Zegler's peesonal thankyou cards said "I hope you never feel peace" in them?

 

[Tha Realest]

So how many of Zegler's peesonal thankyou cards said "I hope you never feel peace" in them?

I’m wondering how many had “From the river to the sea”