News Disney’s Boy Trouble: Studio Seeks Original IP to Win Back Gen-Z Men Amid Marvel, Lucasfilm Struggles

Stripes

Stripes

Premium Member
Phroobar said:
Maybe

Maybe Disney should stop outsourcing all their CG and do it in house with a smaller staff? I must see between 3 and 8 CG houses in the credits of big budget movies today. Illumination does it all in house.

I guess they need content fast for the D+ grinder.
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Illumination’s animation is outsourced to France, where wages are cheaper.

Dreamworks is now outsourcing their animation to Sony (Canada).

WDAS and Pixar do all their animation in-house in California. 💰💰💰
 
D

DKampy

Well-Known Member
Mike S said:
Yes, I do. Putting everything else aside and purely looking at output I thinks it’s clear the studio is missing something after his departure. I also have to wonder how truly serious all of it actually was if another studio was willing to scoop him right up and nothing more has come out in the 6 years he’s been there so far. If he was a truly terrible person no one would’ve touched him with a 10 foot pole. We all know about Hollywood’s “open secrets” these days…
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If losing Lasseter is the issue…. How come he has not been able to create that same magic elsewhere?
 
Stripes

Stripes

Premium Member
Phroobar said:
Doesn't matter how low it's production budget was. It made a large profit relatively speaking unlike Elemental. Elemental should have had the same size budget since you can't see $200million on the screen. They sure didn't put it in the script.
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Pixar’s budgets are not comparable to other studios because they include 100% of the costs of running the studio. Other companies exclude executive compensation and other overhead from their budgets.

Elemental did involve some rather expensive CG effects for each individual character.

Anyway, Iger stated the company is focused on reducing the cost per title of their upcoming films.
 
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Stripes

Stripes

Premium Member
Mike S said:
Call me crazy but a lot of Disney’s problems could be solved by lowering their overinflated budgets. Most of the time you can’t even see it on screen because of how terrible the CGI can still be. Godzilla Minus One was a lesson for all of Hollywood. Maybe you can’t get your budgets that low but you sure as heck can get them much lower than they are currently. There’s very obvious waste going on here.
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Disney made the The Creator on an $80 million budget.
 
HMF

HMF

Well-Known Member
DKampy said:
All movies are designed to make $$$$
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Yes, but good movies are supposed to make you forget that fact. The Sequel Trilogy had very little thought put into it. The Last Jedi apparently only had one draft according to what I have heard. Abrams and Johnson obviously had clashing styles and by the end it was obvious that Palpatine's return was purely done for fan service because they were backed into a corner when Johnson had Snoke killed off in the middle of Last Jedi. It reeks of studio desperation. Again they felt they could put any piece of crap out, slap a Star Wars Logo on it and it would sell no matter what.
 
Disney Irish

Disney Irish

Premium Member
Mike S said:
Aren’t they the ones that forced the change though?
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No, cord cutting started the change lead by those that didn't want forced bundles from cable. And so as a result studios were starting to create their own services to combat the cord cutting to capture that market and combat the rise of Netflix, which got accelerated by the pandemic due to the potential loss of theatrical.

So no streamers didn't force it, consumers did along with a global event that accelerated it. But no matter what we'd still be here as this is the way the market was going anyways due to consumer trends.

Mike S said:
And yet Netflix was the only one to actually pull off a profit until relatively recently, correct? We’re also going to reach a point where there’s so many streamers it might as well just be cable in a different format from how many subscriptions you’ll need and the total cost for them.
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Netflix had a decade head start in streaming, and they started out as a mail order DVD rental company. They saw the decline of DVD rental/sales and pivoted to offering the movies over the internet. And they weren't profitable right away either, it took time to get there. Netflix's current revenue today is double what total US DVD sales ever were at its height in the mid-2000s, even adjusted for inflation.

So its clear that this business model works and makes way more than previous post-theatrical markets. Not to even bring up that it actually also supplants the theatrical market itself in many ways already, but we'll save that discussion for another day and in another thread.

And no Netflix was not the only one profitable until recently, Hulu prior to Disney taking full control was also profitable for its owners (which included Disney) hence one of the reasons Disney wanted to take full control. Hulu started to achieve profitability back in 2010, shortly after Netflix. Which brings us to D+, the idea was always that D+ would take 5 years to become profitable (similar on average to Netflix and Hulu), this was noted when it was launched in 2019, and it did within that original 2024 goal. And this was outside of anything that Hulu brought in for Disney. So the combined DTC makes profit for Disney, not only as a unit but also each individual service, this was achieved earlier this year with ESPN+ being the last piece needing to reach profitability. Amazon Prime Video is the only one of the 3 top streamers that hasn't reached profitability yet, which they claim it will achieve by the end of this year.

So this idea that streaming cannot bring in as much post-theatrically as video or DVD sales is false. This was proven the day Blockbuster went out of business back in 2014. And in a world where theatrical is no longer exists or is scaled way back by consumers it'll still be able to be pick up the slack for any missing theatrical revenue. This is whole idea, this is one of the reasons why they exist, again another topic for another day and another thread.

As for how many streamers, we've already seen a consolidation start which includes Hulu merging with D+. So you have the 3 main streamers with Netflix, Disney, and Amazon, so the great streaming wars has it winners in those big 3, and then everyone else. And those others are either starting to be bundled with those big 3 or are starting be shuttered. For example Amazon is shuttering Freevee, Sony decided to get out streaming when their Playstation service didn't launch well, and same with Microsoft and their service, not to mention a bunch of other services going under in 2024. For bundling you can get now HBO Max bundled with Netflix or D+ as an example. Not to mention that you can subscribe to many services through Amazon Prime Video. The only one seemingly wanting to go it alone is Apple, but they appear to be ok with that as its an add-on service for their whole iDevice ecosystem. And none of this even brings up the fact that Youtube has carved out a huge chunk of the market for itself.

So this all started with consumers wanting more choice and convenience, and so they got it. And yes in many ways its starting to be cable in a different model, but that was also inevitable. I called that back in 2019 when those of us on this site started talking about the future of streaming with D+'s launch.
 
LSLS

LSLS

Well-Known Member
I'm also on the NHL reasoning (though I'm starting to care less on it thanks to the league and how they operate). But as a family with D+, I can say that aside from MAYBE seeing movies we didn't get to the theaters for, we almost exclusively use it to watch older shows (or the kids will watch Bluey if they aren't watching other older shows). I never saw Andor. Everyone says it's great, but nothing about it made me really want to see it. Marvel is a bit of the same boat with their shows to me. I watched the first 4-5 series, and my ones I enjoyed are VASTLY different than most others (Hawkeye and Loki are my bottom ones). I never even saw Loki season 2, and I don't think I watched another series after that.

So, as to what they can do, I'm not really sure. I do think how they handled Star Wars did a lot of damage for that age demographic. And not just because of if the movies were good or not. But I'm thinking the 8 year old boy doesn't want girl action figures and girls on their back packs. So now they have disassociated with the franchise growing up, so when the new shows come out, they just don't care much. But honest question as I'm not in this group (and my daughter is the end of it), what are they into? Are there shows they are watching? Is it just sports, or are they just video games, Instagram, or nothing?
 
Mike S

Mike S

Well-Known Member
Disney Irish said:
No, cord cutting started the change lead by those that didn't want forced bundles from cable. And so as a result studios were starting to create their own services to combat the cord cutting to capture that market and combat the rise of Netflix, which got accelerated by the pandemic due to the potential loss of theatrical.

So no streamers didn't force it, consumers did along with a global event that accelerated it. But no matter what we'd still be here as this is the way the market was going anyways due to consumer trends.


Netflix had a decade head start in streaming, and they started out as a mail order DVD rental company. They saw the decline of DVD rental/sales and pivoted to offering the movies over the internet. And they weren't profitable right away either, it took time to get there. Netflix's current revenue today is double what total US DVD sales ever were at its height in the mid-2000s, even adjusted for inflation.

So its clear that this business model works and makes way more than previous post-theatrical markets. Not to even bring up that it actually also supplants the theatrical market itself in many ways already, but we'll save that discussion for another day and in another thread.

And no Netflix was not the only one profitable until recently, Hulu prior to Disney taking full control was also profitable for its owners (which included Disney) hence one of the reasons Disney wanted to take full control. Hulu started to achieve profitability back in 2010, shortly after Netflix. Which brings us to D+, the idea was always that D+ would take 5 years to become profitable (similar on average to Netflix and Hulu), this was noted when it was launched in 2019, and it did within that original 2024 goal. And this was outside of anything that Hulu brought in for Disney. So the combined DTC makes profit for Disney, not only as a unit but also each individual service, this was achieved earlier this year with ESPN+ being the last piece needing to reach profitability. Amazon Prime Video is the only one of the 3 top streamers that hasn't reached profitability yet, which they claim it will achieve by the end of this year.

So this idea that streaming cannot bring in as much post-theatrically as video or DVD sales is false. This was proven the day Blockbuster went out of business back in 2014. And in a world where theatrical is no longer exists or is scaled way back by consumers it'll still be able to be pick up the slack for any missing theatrical revenue. This is whole idea, this is one of the reasons why they exist, again another topic for another day and another thread.

As for how many streamers, we've already seen a consolidation start which includes Hulu merging with D+. So you have the 3 main streamers with Netflix, Disney, and Amazon, so the great streaming wars has it winners in those big 3, and then everyone else. And those others are either starting to be bundled with those big 3 or are starting be shuttered. For example Amazon is shuttering Freevee, Sony decided to get out streaming when their Playstation service didn't launch well, and same with Microsoft and their service, not to mention a bunch of other services going under in 2024. For bundling you can get now HBO Max bundled with Netflix or D+ as an example. Not to mention that you can subscribe to many services through Amazon Prime Video. The only one seemingly wanting to go it alone is Apple, but they appear to be ok with that as its an add-on service for their whole iDevice ecosystem. And none of this even brings up the fact that Youtube has carved out a huge chunk of the market for itself.

So this all started with consumers wanting more choice and convenience, and so they got it. And yes in many ways its starting to be cable in a different model, but that was also inevitable. I called that back in 2019 when those of us on this site started talking about the future of streaming with D+'s launch.
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I guess the only question left would be how much an individual title can make from streaming if it was previously a box office bomb and I’m not referring to titles with big attachments like Disney Animation. Plenty of stories I’ve seen of movies we consider classics these days that were actually bombs but were saved because of video/rental/DVD. They could get very lost in all the noise.
 
phillip9698

phillip9698

Well-Known Member
LSLS said:
So, as to what they can do, I'm not really sure. I do think how they handled Star Wars did a lot of damage for that age demographic. And not just because of if the movies were good or not. But I'm thinking the 8 year old boy doesn't want girl action figures and girls on their back packs. So now they have disassociated with the franchise growing up, so when the new shows come out, they just don't care much. But honest question as I'm not in this group (and my daughter is the end of it), what are they into? Are there shows they are watching? Is it just sports, or are they just video games, Instagram, or nothing?
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My boys, 8 and 6, like SpongeBob, Phineas and Ferb, Minecraft, Nintendo, and Mr. Beast.

The oldest likes Star Wars except the new trilogy. He does not like anything to do with the new trilogy at all. Rey is a hard no for him. He likes Darth Vader, Luke, General Grevious, Darth Maul, Obi Won, and Mace Windu. Pretty much all the characters they wrote out of Galaxies Edge. Hence Disney's problem. He does like Mando though.
 
D

DKampy

Well-Known Member
HMF said:
Mostly because very few people have heard of the studio he moved to.
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Most people do not care about animation studios outside of Disney/ Pixar…. How many times have we heard can’t wait to see the new Illumination or Dreamworks movie

Even if that was correct…. Those that saw the movies were not blown away like Pixar…. With critics ratings on both sitting at 48%…. And audience score being not much better… so who thinks those had magic?
 
LSLS

LSLS

Well-Known Member
phillip9698 said:
My boys, 8 and 6, like SpongeBob, Phineas and Ferb, Minecraft, Nintendo, and Mr. Beast.

The oldest likes Star Wars except the new trilogy. He does not like anything to do with the new trilogy at all. Rey is a hard no for him. He likes Darth Vader, Luke, General Grevious, Darth Maul, Obi Won, and Mace Windu. Pretty much all the characters they wrote out of Galaxies Edge. Hence Disney's problem. He does like Mando though.
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So the question is, what is it about the new trilogy he hates, and what would it take to get him invested (assuming he's a teenager)? I have a 6 year old, but he's outside the range for what Disney is looking at here I believe. My daughter LOVED The Force Awakens, she was then bored by Last Jedi and had basically grown to not care much when Skywalker came out. BUT, she was already into Disney movies/shows, and Star Wars is pretty far down her list even though she liked Rey (which is who that character was really built for). So, what can Disney make to bring those boys back. Is it as simple as do some action movies with just strong male leads?
 
Stripes

Stripes

Premium Member
Sirwalterraleigh said:
The train tipped off the railway when you started defending Acolyte. Which is one of the most putrid things ever made…right up there with the vanilla ice movie
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I’m afraid you are confused. The post you are referring to, I was confused by the timeline the poster shared. However, it made sense to me after he shared that he had an annual subscription, which I forgot Disney+ still offers if you don’t have a bundle.

I never even watched the Acolyte, and never defended it. Andor, however, is one of the best TV shows ever made.
 
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