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

[Disney Analyst]

Doctor’s signature film series is essentially a big “therapy session” so I’m willing to assume he’s carrying water here for the company’s top execs but it’s a really disappointing series of comments. It’s also a very odd time to make these comments. If he’d made them in early ‘25, when the cultural pendulum had seemingly swung to an extreme and Pixar was coming off a string of underperformers, the comments would make a certain craven sense. Now, with a critical and box office success in theaters and the cultural pendulum swinging hard in the other direction, the comments are baffling.

Yeah his “reasoning” makes no sense given some of the big successes at Pixar are stories that do require therapy after (the UP opening segment still traumatizes me… Coco?! Oh god).

But I guess he can’t also really say the true reason why it’s currently untenable for Disney to continue being inclusive in their animated films … lest they become the next targets of you know who.

Sad. The world is sad these days. Complete regression.

 

[Pizza Moon]

Yeah his “reasoning” makes no sense given some of the big successes at Pixar are stories that do require therapy after (the UP opening segment still traumatizes me… Coco?! Oh god).

But I guess he can’t also really say the true reason why it’s currently untenable for Disney to continue being inclusive in their animated films … lest they become the next targets of you know who.

Sad. The world is sad these days. Complete regression.

Interpret it however you want, but his point went over your head.

I don’t buy the argument that Disney hasn’t been inclusive for a long time.

Mulan, Aladdin, Brother Bear, Princess and the Frog, Lilo and Stitch, Emperor’s New Groove.

More recently I thought Encanto, Moana, and Coco were awesome, so no one in this conversation is against diverse stories. It is a straw-man to keep making that assumption.

I thought Strange World, Lightyear, Wish, Snow White remake were flaming hot garbage.

It’s like they were more inclusive when they were trying not to be.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Interpret it however you want, but his point went over your head.

I don’t buy the argument that Disney hasn’t been inclusive for a long time.

Mulan, Aladdin, Brother Bear, Princess and the Frog, Lilo and Stitch, Emperor’s New Groove.

More recently I thought Encanto, Moana, and Coco were awesome, so no one in this conversation against diverse stories.

I thought Strange World, Wish, Snow White remake were flaming hot garbage.

It’s like they were more inclusive when they were trying not to be.

I absolutely agree that Disney has been inclusive in many ways for many many many years (decades).

But it’s now, in this current time, that it’s being scrutinized and torn apart more than ever.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

They’re making crap…and it’s treated as such
The last couple of offerings that were good did very good BO…so come up with more anti Disney global conspiracy theories, please?

 

[Pizza Moon]

They’re making crap…and it’s treated as such
The last couple of offerings that were good did very good BO…so come up with more anti Disney global conspiracy theories, please?

I’m totally lost what’s the conspiracy you’re referring to?

 

[Disney Analyst]

They’re making crap…and it’s treated as such
The last couple of offerings that were good did very good BO…so come up with more anti Disney global conspiracy theories, please?

Both things can be true simultaneously, and I think conflating them is where we get stuck.

Disney has produced many stinkers past and present. Strange World, Lightyear, the Snow White remake. Audiences and critics rejected them, which the box office proves. There has been a clear failure of storytelling and filmmaking at play. Objective fact.

And — there were also many (many many many) coordinated campaigns against films before they even had a chance to succeed or fail on their merits. This is also objective fact.

There’s a massive ecosystem online built around manufacturing outrage. Reaction channels, culture war accounts, rage-bait YouTube essays. A same-sex kiss in a Pixar film isn’t a story to them, it’s $$$. The more dramatic and doomsday the framing — ‘Disney is grooming your children,’ ‘woke agenda destroys another classic’ — the more clicks, the more watch time = more $$$. People are wired for conflict and tribal threat, and it’s exploited ruthlessly. The sky is always falling because a falling sky is a business model.

Bringing it back to what started this conversation, Doctor’s comments in that article… again his reasoning does not make sense when looking at Pixar’s past (and very successful) films. Up’s opening sequence is a masterclass in grief. Coco is a meditation on death and memory. Inside Out is about emotional dysregulation. Nobody called those ‘therapy.’ They called them masterpieces. And parents navigated those conversations just fine.

So when Docter says they cut a gay storyline because they don’t want to make ‘therapy’ — that's really just a clumsy and inauthentic way to say that the studio is making decisions under political pressure it isn’t willing to name.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I’m totally lost what’s the conspiracy you’re referring to?

Disney has been bombing the majority of it’s releases for 5+ years

And that’s why I don’t pay too much attention to this discussion anymore…

Everyone that suggests It was being rejected because it was…in fact……

…Was accused of being anti- everything under the sun

So now they get even decent movies bombing…because trends and reputation works that way…

Just like Pocahontas was the biggest movie of 1995. It’s was so dull they had to hand out pillows and blankets in the theater…but rep carried it.

Works both ways

 

[Disney Irish]

 

[Disney Irish]

LOL Brave is an awful movie.

Please stop playing the victim, I don’t consider her a Disney princess because her movie sucks, just like Raya’s, I wasn’t commenting on anything else, if anything I was saying that it’s offensive that they would remove one of two Disney princess redheads. That to me is what’s wrong…

Mulan, Little Mermaid, Jasmine, Belle, Tiana, all princesses to me at least.

I'm not playing victim, projecting much.... As I said you can not like the movie, but Disney has officially made her a Princess so you don't get a say on the matter.

Its their IP and they get to do whatever they want with it. You get to choose whether you like it or not. That is the deal, its consumerism at its finest. You however don't get to dictate whether a specific character is part of the Disney Princess line or not, you have no control over that.

Also Disney didn't remove one of the two redheaded Disney Princesses, redheaded Ariel is still there, she was never removed so you can stop clutching your pearls. Disney just decided to also make another version of her, that is all, just like many other characters in history have different versions of them. It doesn't make the redheaded version of Ariel any less valid or somehow removed, it just makes yet another variation of the original Hans Christian Andersen character.

 

[Disney Irish]

I'd like to remind some people that Hollywood is the land of make believe, there are literally hundreds of thousand of movies made where the actors are playing characters they have no actual connection to either in looks or heritage, and its been going on for over a 100 years, since the beginning of the industry.

 

[Disney Irish]

I wasn't saying that she's not a Disney princess, I'm just saying for me personally, she's so uninteresting I couldn't care less whether Disney pushes her or not, sorry that was lost over text.

If I buy a toy princess for a cousin, am I buying Merida or Jasmine? Am I buying Tiana or a Merida one? Ariel or Merida? Just personal preference, nothing more, move along, unless like the kid was unusually obsessed with Merida, I guess. I'm also not going to buy the new merch for Ariel, I'd buy the OG, the remakes are just lazy rip-offs, I couldn't care less what they try to force on us, both character designs and bad writing in movies themselves.

Again, if you got mad at me for a misinterpretation, yet are okay with Ariel not being a redhead, you are the one who is not being logically consistent lol.

My niece who is a redhead was OBSESSED with Merida growing up, even dressed as her for Halloween on numerous occasions, even to this day at 21 she uses her picture as her avatar for everything. She couldn't careless about Ariel, because that was before her time, that isn't her princess. Merida is HER princess, because she looks like her and has a similar heritage as her, and that is the point. You can not like some character portrayal for whatever reason, but you have no idea who on the flip side might actually love it because they see themselves in that character. So even if you don't like the remakes or current Disney characters for whatever reason, you have to leave open the possibility that some little boy or girl might actually love them because they see themselves in those characters. And that is really what Disney is trying to do with all these characters, make them all available to everyone.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Anyway - this thread is really about the box office so I think this conversation needs to end here. We are wading into territory that leads to thread shutdowns.

 

[Pizza Moon]

While Wakanda is fictional, Black Panther was explicitly created to represent Black African identity in a space that had none — his race isn’t a costume, it’s the entire premise. That’s very different from Ariel, a fish who lives underwater in a made-up kingdom, or Snow White, a Brothers Grimm fairy tale character whose story has nothing to do with European ethnic identity. Being ‘from a European fairy tale’ isn’t the same as being culturally or racially defined.

One of these is genuinely about cultural representation, the others are fantasy characters whose race was never the point.
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This is where I disagree with you, I believe fundamentally Brothers Grimm fairy tale characters ARE European, just like the Lord of the Rings is European too, it's also one thing to create a new story, rather than remake your old films only to actively mock it during its run like Snow White remake's did.

Anyway - this thread is really about the box office so I think this conversation needs to end here. We are wading into territory that leads to thread shutdowns.

Fair! So what's going to happen with Mando. That's the blackbox for Lucasfilm for a while

 

[TP2000]

Oh, Lord.

I leave this thread to sit quietly during a sociable weekend and on Sunday night I find we're back to The Hate NetworkTM again?

In other slightly annoying news, The Numbers website is still down for maintenance. Boo! I don't like this format at all, but here's the list from Box Office Mojo for this weekend's first pass at domestic box office. Pixar's Hoppers did well! Not sure it can get to the $350 Million globally it needs to break even, but if it gets strong legs through March and the Spring Break season it could easily break even by Easter Sunday!

Still, hopefully The Numbers site is back up tomorrow. Their maintenance screen says they are doing a major rework of their site, and to be honest it was looking dated graphically. Here's Box Office Mojo instead. For now.

 

[Stripes]

Oh, Lord.

I leave this thread to sit quietly during a sociable weekend and on Sunday night I find we're back to The Hate NetworkTM again?

In other slightly annoying news, The Numbers website is still down for maintenance. Boo! I don't like this format at all, but here's the list from Box Office Mojo for this weekend's first pass at domestic box office. Pixar's Hoppers did well! Not sure it can get to the $350 Million globally it needs to break even, but if it gets strong legs through March and the Spring Break season it could easily break even by Easter Sunday!

Still, hopefully The Numbers site is back up tomorrow. Their maintenance screen says they are doing a major rework of their site, and to be honest it was looking dated graphically. Here's Box Office Mojo instead. For now.

View attachment 911106

 

[Pizza Moon]

If Encanto 2 happens it’ll make over a billion.

I just hope it has Lin’s involvement unlike Moana 2.

Encanto is such a banger.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Coming in just under the weekend estimate. Still above projections.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Coming in just under the weekend estimate. Still above projections.

I don't think there's any major competition between now and Mario (April 1) so it has a chance to gain word of mouth and hold well over the next few weeks

 

[BrianLo]

We’ll certainly see how it holds up! Naturally, it has already been labeled a failure by our strongest prognosticator. I’m not quite ready to start up that argument yet.

 

[MisterPenguin]

WBDiscovery: "We're going with Netflix because they got the money and Paramount-Skydance doesn't.​

Paramount-Skydance: "We do indeed have the money!!!!!!!!!!! We removed foreign investors and Daddy liquidated stuff, so, we have the cash!!!!!"

WBDiscovery: "OK then, we'll go with Paramount-Skydance because they've shown they have the money."​

Also Paramount-Skydance.... <sad trombone>

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