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

[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

 

[erasure fan1]

I just don't like to be reductive and say its just a "quality issue". Because its not just one thing, and certainly not just about "quality".

I'm not saying it's just quality, but it is a big part. The issue is, as You've stated, the market has and is still changing. Therefore nothing is a given. Pixar has lost that benefit of the doubt. Streaming can give people pause when it comes to going to the theater. If people think it might not be their cup of tea, they'll wait. And with Elio, as I've said, it has a few things going against it. Bad character design, trailers that just make you go meh and join that with Pixars mediocre output, it's an uphill battle.

I also really don't like to think we here on this site are some indication of anything either. We're more hardcore than the casual fan and even more than the general public.

You don't think there's a chance people here are more likely to swing more positive with Disney? I see it all the time here. And there really isn't anything wrong with that. it just needs to be factored. I've read enough here to say, yea there's a lot of sticking up for Disney when it's mediocre to bad product. So people here saying Elio is so good when I heard the same things with the acolyte, lightyear, wish... And again, I have liked plenty of movies that I can say aren't great. But people have to be able to admit that.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

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

It’s just not the right atmosphere from a cultural standpoint to go this path with every detail of every movie. It’s not gaining traction and giving more and more jet fuel to those with loud, regressive agendas
Counterproductive.

Gotta read the room and reassess

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

You don't think there's a chance people here are more likely to swing more positive with Disney? I see it all the time here. And there really isn't anything wrong with that. it just needs to be factored. I've read enough here to say, yea there's a lot of sticking up for Disney when it's mediocre to bad product. So people here saying Elio is so good when I heard the same things with the acolyte, lightyear, wish... And again, I have liked plenty of movies that I can say aren't great. But people have to be able to admit that.

Yeah…this is the not so subtle elephant in the room…and usually when the supporters of that tact develop “amnesia”

 

[erasure fan1]

I only brought up the ratings in the context of claims Elio was bad quality, when all ratings appear to counter that point.

Well to be fair, I didn't claim it was bad quality. You said unappealing brand issue isn't the problem. What I said was maybe it's not as good as some people think, with a question mark. But that was after you brought up the tomato meter. And @Sirwalterraleigh said it could be the brand isn't as appealing anymore. Maybe I missed it but I didn't see anyone say Elio was bad in that exchange.

 

[Disney Irish]

Well to be fair, I didn't claim it was bad quality. You said unappealing brand issue isn't the problem. What I said was maybe it's not as good as some people think, with a question mark. But that was after you brought up the tomato meter. And @Sirwalterraleigh said it could be the brand isn't as appealing anymore. Maybe I missed it but I didn't see anyone say Elio was bad in that exchange.

I actually brought up the RT score in response to your “maybe it’s not as good as some people think” comment, not before. As I don’t usually point to RT scores most of the time in these discussions.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Well to be fair, I didn't claim it was bad quality. You said unappealing brand issue isn't the problem. What I said was maybe it's not as good as some people think, with a question mark. But that was after you brought up the tomato meter. And @Sirwalterraleigh said it could be the brand isn't as appealing anymore. Maybe I missed it but I didn't see anyone say Elio was bad in that exchange.

I just don’t think the brand makes the movies “must see” as it once did. Very same boat as the MCU.

I think most…if not all of us as adults would go in the first couple of weeks to see the new Pixar each year…as a matter of habit
Is that the case now?

 

[Disney Irish]

I'm not saying it's just quality, but it is a big part. The issue is, as You've stated, the market has and is still changing. Therefore nothing is a given. Pixar has lost that benefit of the doubt. Streaming can give people pause when it comes to going to the theater. If people think it might not be their cup of tea, they'll wait. And with Elio, as I've said, it has a few things going against it. Bad character design, trailers that just make you go meh and join that with Pixars mediocre output, it's an uphill battle.

Just saying "quality issues" though is a huge range of things, its why I don't like to use it as the catch-all for issues. If you want to fine, but I rather delve into more nuance and discuss the other factors which include more than just what is seen on-screen. As life and the reason why things happen isn't just parsed down to one single thing, its various nuanced things that make up the whole. Now maybe that is too complex for some to have that discussion as they want a nice neat single word answer to point the finger at, but that is not reality that is just trying to be simplistic so its easier to assign blame.

You don't think there's a chance people here are more likely to swing more positive with Disney? I see it all the time here. And there really isn't anything wrong with that. it just needs to be factored. I've read enough here to say, yea there's a lot of sticking up for Disney when it's mediocre to bad product. So people here saying Elio is so good when I heard the same things with the acolyte, lightyear, wish... And again, I have liked plenty of movies that I can say aren't great. But people have to be able to admit that.

I actually think that more often than not there is more negative swings toward content by a large majority of poster, especially initially, then positive. Its why as I said I don't use us here as a barometer for what is and isn't "good". Its why I said "So that is why I look at the overall sense of the market rather than just one single piece of data."

 

[Disney Irish]

I just don’t think the brand makes the movies “must see” as it once did.

Maybe. But its many factors to why that happened, and what was on-screen is not the only or even in many cases the primary reason in my opinion.

 

[Disney Irish]

It’s just not the right atmosphere from a cultural standpoint to go this path with every detail of every movie. It’s not gaining traction and giving more and more jet fuel to those with loud, regressive agendas
Counterproductive.

Gotta read the room and reassess

We're going to go back to this again?

So when is the right atmosphere or right time professor? When everything is hunky dory? It'll never happen, there will always be a next time where someone says "its not the right time" and so on, because they don't want to be shown a light on a topic that is uncomfortable.

Again art, which movies are a part of, have always been used to shine a light on the topical issues of the day since the beginning of time, so why should now be any different. If it makes people uncomfortable or mad, good. Then its got the reaction that I'm sure Gunn probably intended when he said it.

 

[erasure fan1]

I actually brought up the RT score in response to your “maybe it’s not as good as some people think” comment, not before. As I don’t usually point to RT scores most of the time in these discussions.

You might want to double check that. You brought up the reviews first. That's why I said maybe it's not as good as people think.