Yes, Lilo & Stitch definitely falls into a different category as one of their most profitable franchises even before this remake. Apparently it brought in $2.6 billion for them in 2024, which is pretty remarkable.
Well, there wasn't a big bump for merchandise sales for Lightyear or Wish when they hit physical media/streaming, so I think Disney might be hedging their bets these days when it comes to anything that they absolutely don't see as a "known" quantity like Lilo & Stitch is.
Yeah, Moana 2 had a pretty modest selection of new toys and such - although that may have stemmed from it not originally being intended for theaters and the deals for new merch having to be inked late in the game. Again, I think Wish's failure really spooked them in this regard, because they went all out on that one.
I agree, as I noted previously they do targeted merch releases still, like to the Parks or exclusive merch releases to specific stores but huge merch pushes to wide spread release not happening until they are sure it'll be a seller.
Is this just a post-Wish phenomenon, though?
Agreed, and even then the box office can be misleading due to many factors that have been discussed in this and other threads over the last 5 years.
Cars is just one of those franchises that seems to transcend a particular generation and appeals to many across the generational divide. I think Disney has enough data over the last almost 20 years since its release to know if its still a "seller" or not. For example you hardly ever see Cars Land in DCA empty, and RSR is one of the Parks top performers in terms of wait time. So it made sense to add the franchise with a new experience to WDW, avoiding the specific location debate, even if your particular child's peers aren't into the franchise now. As it doesn't mean they won't be into the attraction once it opens, which leads to merch sales down the line, thus completing the circle of life as it were.
Off topic so I’ll keep it brief but - yeah, there is a definite disconnect between what Disney must see with their streaming data and what I see with my own eyes. I’m around kids all the time and I rarely see so much as a Lightning McQueen shirt. I’m not doubting their data, I honestly just don’t get it. Ten years ago I heard kids talking about Cars frequently. Now it’s almost never.
To bring this back to the topic at hand. They obviously have enough data saying its still a viable franchise that there have been rumors of a Cars 4 coming for a long time, with an update as recently as Dec 2023. Now this may not go anywhere as with all movies. But with the new land coming to MK, and potentially a new movie in the works, I think its safe to say that Disney believes that Cars is still and will continue to be a money maker for a long time to come.
What's the Canada pavilion like?
And what do all those toys have in common that you found, they have decades upon decades of sales behind them before their most recent movie. How many new franchises are you seeing with major toy pushes?As I'm certainly no expert on children, I could buy into that if there were no other movies belching out huge amounts of plastic crap in the Target toy aisles.
But that's not the case at all. Jurassic Park and Superman both have huge end caps of displays, and Bluey is for sale all over. In 2019, Disney entered into a much ballyhooed partnership with Target in order to market and sell their IP merchandise.
But Elio (and several other recent mega-budget movies like Snow White, Elemental, etc.) are not worthy of so much as a t-shirt and a coloring book this month? That seems weird, and almost self-defeating.
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