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

[Nevermore525]

Would WALL-E bring in an audience today or has Pixar lost its relevance and sparkle in the eyes of the audience?

I’m thinking it would still do well. The character has so much expression and relatability. Trailer hooks you the moment your are introduced to him. Maybe that earlier post about the new Pixar animation is on to something. Audience doesn’t like the new style?

If everything else had been the same as far as animated releases are concerned Wall*E probably does more along the lines of how The Wild Robot performed recently.

 

[Disney Irish]

Yet at the other end of the spectrum, you have perfect scores for Toy Story and Finding Nemo. Disney has huge areas for both. Either fail with critics and get a full land or succeed with critics and get a full land. Seems like it doesn't matter what the ratings on Rotten Tomatoes is. It's how much money it makes in theaters regardless of scores.

It really does have to do with the eye candy and/or story.

Look at Jurassic World Rebirth. Not a good story but has plenty of eye candy and a loved IP. It made more in one day then Elio has in three weeks. Elio has a loved IP in Pixar but still no one showed up. Even the Disney fans.

I've argued for a long time now, especially recently, that the box office is becoming less and less an indicator of potential earnings by a franchise. Sure its a "factor" but is no longer the sole factor as it has been in decades past. Now its about engagement, clicks and views, more than any other factors in terms of potential earnings.

Take the Cars franchise that you brought up earlier. Not a particularly high earner at the box office, especially number 3. But yet its one of the best selling franchises in all of Pixar outside of Toy Story. So the box office doesn't really tell the whole story, and if Disney is pushing a certain franchise over another you can be assured its a high earner inside the company no matter what the box office numbers say.

 

[Nevermore525]

Yet at the other end of the spectrum, you have perfect scores for Toy Story and Finding Nemo. Disney has huge areas for both. Either fail with critics and get a full land or succeed with critics and get a full land. Seems like it doesn't matter what the ratings on Rotten Tomatoes is. It's how much money it makes in theaters regardless of scores.

Toy Story has the benefit of being the first and being a great franchise and at the same time a merchandise machine.

Nemo/Dory were great films that were well received and had solid box office returns.

Cars was barely profitable across its 3 films, but it did gangbusters with merchandise after the fact which is more what greenlit the additions to the parks than the movies themselves

 

[BrianLo]

If everything else had been the same as far as animated releases are concerned Wall*E probably does more along the lines of how The Wild Robot performed recently.

Agreed. Wall-E still did the worst of its trio (Ratatouille, UP) and I love Wall-E. But there is this sci-fi audience gap that seems to still plague Disney and a bit broadly.

 

[DKampy]

Exactly. And that's exactly why it was a news story for a 24 hour cycle. Because I watch a couple hours of Fox News each evening so that no one else here has to, that's precisely why it was a story and what the coverage was based in.

So then you don’t watch news…. I have heard evening fox is entertainment….

 

[DKampy]

Agreed. Wall-E still did the worst of its trio (Ratatouille, UP) and I love Wall-E. But there is this sci-fi audience gap that seems to still plague Disney and a bit broadly.

Might not be just Disney…. I can’t think of any blockbuster sci-fy animated movies at all

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Superman good, but I can see why some wouldn't like it

but I suspect most will enjoy it

 

[Agent H]

Agreed. Wall-E still did the worst of its trio (Ratatouille, UP) and I love Wall-E. But there is this sci-fi audience gap that seems to still plague Disney and a bit broadly.

I think it’s possible that in addition to being one of the all time great Pixar movies another reason could be that it’s just as much a romance story as it is a sci-fi movie.

 

[FrontierSpirit]

Might not be just Disney…. I can’t think of any blockbuster sci-fy animated movies at all

Maybe Star Wars and ET never get off the ground without John Williams

 

[MisterPenguin]

Asked Perplexity for top sci-fi animated films and got almost exclusively anime.

Asked for non-anime and got:

Wall*E
The Iron Giant
Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse
The Incredibles
Big Hero 6
9
Monsters vs. Aliens
Renaissance
Titan A.E.

Then it started listing TV shows.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Cars was barely profitable across its 3 films, but it did gangbusters with merchandise after the fact which is more what greenlit the additions to the parks than the movies themselves

Likely as much due to permeation into culture as actual sales (which go hand in hand.) Grandparents to kids are at least aware of Cars. If you haven’t seen the movie: talking cars - what more do you need to know?

 

[Disney Irish]

Asked Perplexity for top sci-fi animated films and got almost exclusively anime.

Asked for non-anime and got:

Wall*E
The Iron Giant
Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse
The Incredibles
Big Hero 6
9
Monsters vs. Aliens
Renaissance
Titan A.E.

Then it started listing TV shows.

Well given that 3 of those are super hero movies, don't know if they should count.

And the rest, all except Wall*E and Monsters vs Aliens were considered either box office disappointments or outright bombs.

 

[TP2000]

So then you don’t watch news…. I have heard evening fox is entertainment….

It's only slightly more newsy than MSNBC, which I also watch for an hour whenever Rachel Maddow is holding court.

 

[TP2000]

Don't be that guy. Don't assume to know what an immigrant would think about this. I'm sure there are plenty on both sides of the topic that would both agree and even disagree.

Says the kid who thinks ALF is an "immigrant".

Seriously, you're putting ALF in the same category as James Gunn's illegal immigrant maid? That seems weird.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Got it… so what is working… live action remakes and sequels…. Prepare for much more of that…. Sounds like the branding is not the issue…. as people are seeing recognizable brands

Hey I don’t love it. But if the way it works on this planet isn’t measuring up…there’s always Venus…

And I’d say the live action remakes are failing…as is the MCU…and they bombed a couple of lucasfilms and basically put their movie cameras on ice for years…but who’s counting?

As far as Pixar goes…they probably went too far with trying to do sequels to monetize the core characters AND do originals at the same time. Diluted the studio product…a bit

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Says the kid who thinks ALF is an "immigrant".

Seriously, you're putting ALF in the same category as James Gunn's illegal immigrant maid? That seems weird.

Yeah that Alf thing was weird…I tried to ignore it.

We are talking about a puppet alien that crashed his spaceship into the garage and then tried to make the cat into a sandwich every episode, right?

Practically Kunta Kinte

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I'm not the one to usually bring them up like I mentioned. But I just thought its interesting that for all this "well maybe its just not good" stuff, its actually a fairly high rated movie with both critics and audience, which is unusual these days.

So those ratings don’t translate to tickets sold (again)?

Well we always have those online trailer views to put into the bank, right?

Or maybe they should run ads hinting that elio gets bit by a spider and joins the “new avengers”?

That’ll do it for sure

 

[Disney Irish]

Says the kid who thinks ALF is an "immigrant".

Seriously, you're putting ALF in the same category as James Gunn's illegal immigrant maid? That seems weird.

We’re talking about fictional characters here. Why do you really care what some people want to call them, they aren’t real. The moment we have a real extraterrestrial coming to live here as an immigrant then maybe you can have an issue, until then this is really getting silly.

Also DC, Marvel, and even Disney for that matter, has been full of stories going back decades of aliens, both humanoid and non-humanoid alike, immigrating (both legally and illegally I might add) to live here among the habitants of planet Earth. So again I don’t see why you have an issue with ALF or even Superman being called an immigrant.

 

[Disney Irish]

So those ratings don’t translate to tickets sold (again)?

Well we always have those online trailer views to put into the bank, right?

Or maybe they should run ads hinting that elio gets bit by a spider and joins the “new avengers”?

That’ll do it for sure

I think you have me confused with others, as I never made a claim that ratings or really even trailer views equated to ticket sales. So not sure why you’re trying to call me out on this.

I only brought up the ratings in the context of claims Elio was bad quality, when all ratings appear to counter that point. Yes it doesn’t matter in terms of ticket sales. But I never claimed it did.

Remember I’m the guy who keeps trumpeting the decline of the box office and how it’s declining in relevance, which has been proven true at almost every turn.

 

[DKampy]

Geez…. All of this stemmed from a thought that Superman began as an immigrant story…, well guess what there are plenty of stories across all formats of media that has more meaning then the straightforward telling… it is all art… and up for interpretation