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

[erasure fan1]

but it doesn’t rule out some films being ONLY cynical cash grabs. Some movies, like Moana 2 and the Minecraft Movie, ARE just “cynical cash grabs” with no deeper pretensions.

100%. Minecraft was a total cash grab. It is exactly what everyone thought it was going to be. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Minecraft story. Moana on the other hand, that's not the case at all. So it's not really fair to say people just don't like Disney so there giving Minecraft a pass. Personally I expected Minecraft to be exactly what it is. So when people say giving fans what they want, they did. A dumb silly film with tons of Minecraft stuff. But I didn't expect that from Disney and an ip like Moana, one of their top properties. So that's why Minecraft gets a pass and moana didn't in my opinion.

My issue with Moana 2 — which is not a good movie — is that it should have never been a Disney Plus show in the first place.

Exactly. Why was one of your top ips not given the care it should have from the start.

 

[Gremlin Gus]

I'd be very curious to know what the behind the scenes problems were with the Tiana show that made it never be able to get off the ground or reworked into a movie like Moana 2. We probably won't know the true story till 10 years from now, when Bob Iger isn't running the company anymore. Maybe they couldn't settle on the right animation style, but I suspect it was a show that was greenlit before they had a solid idea of what they wanted it to be. You can see a bunch of different competing visions for what the Disney company actually wants to do with the Tiana character in Tiana's Bayou Adventure and I suspect the "too many cooks in the kitchen" vibe I got from the ride might have been going on in the TV show.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the Tiana series canned for a variety of reasons like how much it was stuck in development hell, the project going overbudget to justify it and overall WDAS prioritizing movies and specials over Disney+ series. I'm somewhat glad we're at least getting a Tiana special though idk if that's going to be either completely original or just an episode for that show that got reworked into a special.

Either way, maybe it was for the best at the end of day WDAS stopped doing those Disney+ series as they probably were going to end up getting the Moana 2 treatment or just canned. I'm still hoping we can still get WDAS IPs as shows perhaps from the DTVA division from the company (cough cough Encanto) but I guess we'll have to wait and see huh?

My issue with Moana 2 — which is not a good movie — is that it should have never been a Disney Plus show in the first place.

Yeah I have zero clue why wasn't Moana 2 always a theatrical movie from the start, I'm guessing the series was to dip their toes into the idea of a sequel, but then Disney saw how popular Moana is on streaming and heck even nowadays and decides to make it a movie due to how much more profitable it probably was going to be.

 

[Agent H]

You’re young, you’re supposed to know this nonsense!

I have literally anything else to do with my life.

 

[Casper Gutman]

100%. Minecraft was a total cash grab. It is exactly what everyone thought it was going to be. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Minecraft story. Moana on the other hand, that's not the case at all. So it's not really fair to say people just don't like Disney so there giving Minecraft a pass. Personally I expected Minecraft to be exactly what it is. So when people say giving fans what they want, they did. A dumb silly film with tons of Minecraft stuff. But I didn't expect that from Disney and an ip like Moana, one of their top properties. So that's why Minecraft gets a pass and moana didn't in my opinion.

Exactly. Why was one of your top ips not given the care it should have from the start.

There's no real way to tell a meaningful LEGO story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Clue board game story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful 21 Jump Street story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Dungeons & Dragons story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Barbie story (this one might be true).

 

[Tony the Tigger]

There's no real way to tell a meaningful LEGO story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Clue board game story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful 21 Jump Street story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Dungeons & Dragons story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Barbie story (this one might be true).

To state the obvious: what is meaningful to one person is irrelevant to another.

Just saw a video of the antics going on at the Minecraft movie.

No.

Now, if they make separate showings like they did with the wicked sing-along, that’s another story. But I’m not buying a ticket for jumping up and yelling and popcorn throwing.

I might dig it if I were 11 and absolutely certain I would not get in trouble.

 

[Casper Gutman]

To state the obvious: what is meaningful to one person is irrelevant to another.

Just saw a video of the antics going on at the Minecraft movie.

No.

Now, if they make separate showings like they did with the wicked sing-along, that’s another story. But I’m not buying a ticket for jumping up and yelling and popcorn throwing.

I might dig it if I were 11 and absolutely certain I would not get in trouble.

Get ready. Every single studio will be chasing that reaction.

 

[DisneyHead123]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skibidi_Toilet
Semi-related but I want to remind all of you people that Skibidi Toilet got into Fortnite not too long along and I wish I was joking when I typed that.

At least the Skibidi song is catchy as heck. My son was walking around singing “Give me some Skittles, but I don’t wanna pay for them” the other day so I was thinking “Oh fun! Another ear worm meme song!” and looked it up. Now that one? I don’t understand at all. It doesn’t even rhyme!

Kids today. I cannot figure them out.

 

[TP2000]

There's no real way to tell a meaningful LEGO story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Clue board game story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful 21 Jump Street story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Dungeons & Dragons story. There's no real way to tell a meaningful Barbie story (this one might be true).

I get your point, but I thought the movie Clue was brilliant. I remember it well 40 years later.... I was drawn in by Madeline Kahn, and a slightly lesser extent by Eileen Brennan, plus vague memories of playing Clue as a kid. But I thought it was great fun, and a great movie! And again... Madeline Kahn for goshsakes!

Barbie, similarly, was also great fun. And while I didn't play with Barbies as a child (or at least didn't dare), I thought the pop culture bullseye that movie had was fantastic. So fun, so true, so.... Barbie.

Those movies can work fabulously, and the box office is usually great. Not everything has to be War And Peace, after all.

 

[brideck]

I get your point, but...

I'm not sure you did. He was listing movies that had care put into a meaningful story despite originating as shallow merchandising tie-ins as opposed to just compiling together a series of gags from Zoomer/Alpha spaces online, like Minecraft does.

Indeed, none of those listed were War and Peace, but they all had coherent stories with meaningful stakes or messages at their core.

 

[brideck]

This coming weekend will be interesting. At my local theaters, Minecraft is keeping all of the screens that it had for its opening, which almost never happens. What will the dropoff be? Angel Studios goes big into the animated space with King of Kings -- my spouse has been getting all sorts of ads on YT for it this week, and it's getting 2+ screens/theater here. Also opening are Drop, Warfare (a new war flick by Alex Garland), and 20th Century's The Amateur. Each of them gets a full screen and steals a handful of premium screen showings as well. I don't think I expect any of those three to make a real impact with audiences.

 

[Disney Irish]

This coming weekend will be interesting. At my local theaters, Minecraft is keeping all of the screens that it had for its opening, which almost never happens. What will the dropoff be? Angel Studios goes big into the animated space with King of Kings -- my spouse has been getting all sorts of ads on YT for it this week, and it's getting 2+ screens/theater here. Also opening are Drop, Warfare (a new war flick by Alex Garland), and 20th Century's The Amateur. Each of them gets a full screen and steals a handful of premium screen showings as well. I don't think I expect any of those three to make a real impact with audiences.

There is a bunch of small and mid range movies opening between now and when Thunderbolts opens up on May 2nd.

It'll be interesting to see how many of them do, I'm not expecting any to make huge box office but a couple may do relatively well. So we may be heading into a new era of small to mid range movies again, which many here claim we need for the variety. Lets hope audiences so up otherwise Hollywood will shut the door on the theatrical for many of them again in favor of pushing to streaming.

 

[Baloo124]

Kids today. I cannot figure them out.

I'd agree, but honestly can't, at least without seeming hypocritical.

When I was a kid, our big thing was Vanilla Ice rapping as 4 turtles turned ninjas danced hip-hop. We ate it up like candy.

 

[Disney Irish]

For every dark cloud there is a silver lining as they say. As much of a bomb disaster Snow White has been at the box office it has officially broke into the top 40 musicals highest grossing of all time, currently sitting at 32 for WW and 38 for domestic.

All Time Worldwide Box Office for Musical Movies

This chart contains the top 100 Musical movies based on the cumulative worldwide box office.

www.the-numbers.com

https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/domestic/all-movies/genres/musical

With the last couple years seeing a few musicals coming out and doing relatively well it'll be interesting to see if Hollywood makes a revival of the movie musical in a bigger way.

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

I'd agree, but honestly can't, at least without seeming hypocritical.

When I was a kid, our big thing was Vanilla Ice rapping as 4 turtles turned ninjas danced hip-hop. We ate it up like candy.
View attachment 852441

While I've always felt Turtle Power was the better song, no one can deny Ninja Rap was the greatest moment in cinematic history.

 

[Baloo124]

While I've always felt Turtle Power was the better song

Heck yes, what a great earworm that song is! Powerful, catchy, and the good parts make you forgive the one big flaw: the lyrics mistakenly calling Raphael the "leader of the group" when we all know it meant to say Leonardo.

And now that song is stuck in my head again. No complaints whatsoever.

 

[erasure fan1]

There's no real way to tell a meaningful LEGO story.

You can tell any story you want with lego, by design. A space story? Yup. A fantasy story? Yup. A ninja story? Yup. Any story you want.

There's no real way to tell a meaningful Clue board game story.

Why not? It was just a murder mystery. They've been telling those for a long time.

There's no real way to tell a meaningful 21 Jump Street story.

So there's no way to tell a meaningful police drama about undercover cops?

There's no real way to tell a meaningful Dungeons & Dragons story.

The plethora of novels and stories going back decades would say differently.

I'll amend my statement that it's not "there's no way". But in my opinion there's very little there to work with outside of the very distinct look of the world and some mobs. So there's a whole lot less to work with than those other films. So they gave us the basic aspects of the game with a basic story over top. It was never ment or billed as high art.

The reason I questioned Moana was I expected more from Disney than Minecraft. I didn't question it's success like you implied.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

You can tell any story you want with lego, by design. A space story? Yup. A fantasy story? Yup. A ninja story? Yup. Any story you want.

Why not? It was just a murder mystery. They've been telling those for a long time.

So there's no way to tell a meaningful police drama about undercover cops?

The plethora of novels and stories going back decades would say differently.

I'll amend my statement that it's not "there's no way". But in my opinion there's very little there to work with outside of the very distinct look of the world and some mobs. So there's a whole lot less to work with than those other films. So they gave us the basic aspects of the game with a basic story over top. It was never ment or billed as high art.

The reason I questioned Moana was I expected more from Disney than Minecraft. I didn't question it's success like you implied.

I think you missed Casper's sarcasm.

His point was that you CAN make a good movie based on the flimsy premise of a board game.

Oddly, he excluded Battleship...

 

[Casper Gutman]

I think you missed Casper's sarcasm.

His point was that you CAN make a good movie based on the flimsy premise of a board game.

Oddly, he excluded Battleship...

I thought about is. At least it sort of TRIED, even if it failed. I fell back on ones I thought ended up being genuinely good.

 

[erasure fan1]

I think you missed Casper's sarcasm.

His point was that you CAN make a good movie based on the flimsy premise of a board game.

Oddly, he excluded Battleship...

No, I got it. You missed the point. Those are bad examples because you absolutely can tell a good story with those examples. It was just thrown out to be a gotcha.

 

[LittleBuford]

Those are bad examples because you absolutely can tell a good story with those examples.

That was his point!