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

[Disney Irish]

Box office numbers are in a grade inflation era. If the theatrical chains discontinued their subscription programs, those box office numbers would dive dramatically.

If you pay $25/mo for AMC, you’re likely to see things you wouldn’t be willing to pay for out of pocket. That leads to “ticket sales” that the customer isn’t actually forking over money for. That’s not acknowledged anywhere in the weekly box office numbers.

My guess is if subscription programs become unsustainable, the whole business is going to fly off the cliff.

I agree, I think its actually worse than the numbers are indicating.

I think Hollywood knows this and is why they have gone all in on DTC.

 

[Disney Irish]

Here's the interesting thing on budget. I quick checked 2019 vs 2023 for Disney (SO, open to corrections if I messed something up, like I said, I went quick with it). I believe there were 14 movies released this year so far to theaters, and I found the budgets for 12 of them. Those averaged a budget of $180.4 million. In 2019? The average was $180.4 million. SO, the top 12 movies both years cost the EXACT same amount to make. NOW, 2019 is skewed drastically. You had two MONSTER movies that were culminations of their two largest franchises that they spent a ton to make. But, you could say that about Indy as well. Also, this year, there were 7 movies that cost $200 million or more to make. 2019, that number is just 4. But it's interesting to me that the budgets may not be quite as out of hand as we believe they are. And I think it points to the idea there is a lot more in play than just "These movies are costing too much to make."

I think theater costs have risen too much (remember, I personally said no to Captain Marvel opening week cause I wasn't willing to pay the price. Well, Thanksgiving weekend, I went from like $15 a ticket to $8, and popcorn was discounted as well). I also think the way Disney retrained viewers to wait 2-3 months to watch it on D+ may be the LARGEST impact. I think if you are going to need to buy it for $30 anyways to see it within the next year, people will be much more likely to hit the theaters for it.

I think its an important point, budgets hadn't changed all that much. And add to that, what is the link between those movies and now..... Most of the movies now were greenlit back in 2018, 2019, and early 2020.

 

[celluloid]

Also I'm aware of global distribution issues in China. But they are part of the global market however, you even stated just a couple pages ago of them expanding their cinema count.

Yes, people backed the wrong horse and either have to had expected this or are ignorantly surprised by it. It is not as stable of a market and will not have the typical growth that a Free market sees. Pandemic made it even more unstable but there will always be extreme ebb and flows when dealing with the largest market in the world being communist and others that are not as stable either. They could not expect that global ride to always go that well. They saw the human count and remade all of those Disney movies and such to cater to it. Theme parks have their own struggles for the climate as well.

Now what is 2024 and 2025 going to do for them?

 

[_caleb]

They don't have to. This is a box office thread. It is not a movie review thread. Those are ancillary convos.

My comment was about discussion across the boards about all Disney's films. In my opinion, a discussion about box office should include exploration of why Disney's films haven't performed well recently. Some of us have routinely asked posters who say they don't like a film to elaborate on why they don't like it. Of course, no one is obligated to respond.

You pat yourself for some good faith and ask why I am being rude. Your post I quoted started with "You could just read the thread." You have had to delete things that were rude in the past. I don't think your good faith is as good as you think it is.

I was not intending to be rude when I posted that. I only meant that I thought my claim was self-evident. I try to be respectful here, and I do try to go back and make it right when I mess up. I'll go back and edit that post, if you'd like.

 

[celluloid]

My comment was about discussion across the boards about all Disney's films. In my opinion, a discussion about box office should include exploration of why Disney's films haven't performed well recently. Some of us have routinely asked posters who say they don't like a film to elaborate on why they don't like it. Of course, no one is obligated to respond.

I would rather they not in this thread, and you should probably not ask it here as the focus since the thread's start and title is Disney at the box office. It is not a movie review thread.

 

[Disney Irish]

Yes, people backed the wrong horse and either have to had expected this or are ignorantly surprised by it. It is not as stable of a market and will not have the typical growth that a Free market sees. They could not expect that global ride to always go that well. They saw the human count and remade all of those Disney movies and such to cater to it. Theme parks have their own struggles for the climate as well.

Now what is 2024 and 2025 going to do for them?

I honestly don't think China is all that important of a market overall. Sure it helps goose global numbers, but its one that is too volatile. I don't think any company was dumb or ignorant by going into the market, as it was untapped. But I also don't think any studios are relying on it for growth, especially at this point.

All one has to do is look the last several $1B+ movies over the last couple years, all of them would have still gotten over $1B without China, even the Disney ones like Avatar 2.

 

[celluloid]

I honestly don't think China is all that important of a market overall. Sure it helps goose global numbers, but its one that is too volatile. I don't think any company was dumb or ignorant by going into the market, as it was untapped. But I also don't think any studios are relying on it for growth, especially at this point.

Yes, here we agree on.

But in fact that is what Disney did bet on. The remakes of Disney classics as an entire consistent trend was not just for the easy bankability in the states. That was a bonus. It was to introduce these characters and sell to China. They don't have Dumbo, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast and even Lion King connections like the states do. That was all intentional.
It was good while it was good, but then it all soured. They were also invited into helping Star Wars and Marvel bank more and make Marvel a thing in China. They cared changes so movies would do well there as a mandate and priority. The last couple of years sucked becuase China regulation changed what was acceptable for their people, particularly from American films.

Disney still went forward with Lion King remake sequel and Snow White.

2024-2025 will be rough. Maybe Kingdom of The Planet of the Apes will do well there?

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I honestly don't think China is all that important of a market overall. Sure it helps goose global numbers, but its one that is too volatile. I don't think any company was dumb or ignorant by going into the market, as it was untapped. But I also don't think any studios are relying on it for growth, especially at this point.

All one has to do is look the last several $1B+ movies over the last couple years, all of them would have still gotten over $1B without China, even the Disney ones like Avatar 2.

I disagree, China is a hugely important market, in 2019 they accounted for $9 billion of the $39 billion total.

Hopefully the studios aren’t relying on them, because it is so volatile, but without China, and their 25% market share, it’s going to be hard to ever return to the consistant billion dollar box office glory days.

 

[Disney Irish]

Yes, here we agree on.

But in fact that is what Disney did bet on. The remakes of Disney classics as an entire consistent trend was not just for the easy bankability in the states. That was a bonus. It was to introduce these characters and sell to China. They don't have Dumbo, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast and even Lion King connections like the states do. That was all intentional.
It was good while it was good, but then it all soured. They were also invited into helping Star Wars and Marvel bank more and make Marvel a thing in China. The last couple of years sucked becuase China regulation changed what was acceptable for their people, particularly from American films.

Disney still went forward with Lion King remake sequel and Snow White.

2024-2025 will be rough. Maybe Kingdom of The Planet of the Apes will do well there?

I disagree that the primary premise of the live action remakes was to sell to China, sorry but that is a bridge too far for me.

 

[_caleb]

I would rather they not in this thread, and you should probably not ask it here as the focus since the thread's start and title is Disney at the box office. It is not a movie review thread.

Oh, I'm not asking for movie reviews in this thread. I am asking for discussion about some of the reasons why Disney's films aren't doing well at the box office. Obviously there may be a bit of overlap there, but these aren't the same thing.

Which is why I brought up that I've seen many negative "reviews" (in threads dedicated to individual films) that, upon follow-up questions, many are not even based on content of the films themselves.

If this is a widespread trend (as I think it is), it may have direct impact on Disney's overall box office performance.

 

[Disney Irish]

I disagree, China is a hugely important market, in 2019 they accounted for $9 billion of the $39 billion total.

Hopefully the studios aren’t relying on them, because it is so volatile, but without China, and their 25% market share, it’s going to be hard to ever return to the consistant billion dollar box office glory days.

I don't disagree that it helped get 2018 and 2019 to where it was in terms of global box office. But I think the operative word you're looking for is "was". I think it was important, but as has been shown the global box office is not what it was in 2019, and may never get back there again.

I think if you look today, China may not even account for 25% of the global box office in 2023, heck I don't even know if they ever will again.

 

[celluloid]

If this is a widespread trend (as I think it is), it may have direct impact on Disney's overall box office performance.

A little late to make that assumption.

 

[celluloid]

I don't disagree that it helped get 2018 and 2019 to where it was in terms of global box office. But I think the operative word you're looking for is "was". I think it was important, but as has been shown the global box office is not what it was in 2019, and may never get back there again.

I think if you look today, China may not even account for 25% of the global box office in 2023, heck I don't even know if they ever will again.

Just because China and others were not a stable market, does not mean everything else is given up on.

Other Studios figured it out.

 

[LSLS]

My comment was about discussion across the boards about all Disney's films. In my opinion, a discussion about box office should include exploration of why Disney's films haven't performed well recently. Some of us have routinely asked posters who say they don't like a film to elaborate on why they don't like it. Of course, no one is obligated to respond.

I was not intending to be rude when I posted that. I only meant that I thought my claim was self-evident. I try to be respectful here, and I do try to go back and make it right when I mess up. I'll go back and edit that post, if you'd like.

I've said multiple times why I haven't gone to see a lot of the Disney movies (including the Marvel ones, which I would go to all the time at least once for about a 5 year stretch). Of course I can't say why I like or dislike a lot of these movies as I have not seen them, but that's not the issue either. The question is why are people like me NOT going, or why we THINK it's not worth going to or bad.

But to reiterate my reasons, the costs are out of control enough that we as a family aren't going to go to 3-4 movies every month or so (not that we have time to do that anyways). So, we pick and choose. And quite honestly the Disney movies have not grabbed the attention like others have, and they have not felt like can't-miss movies that we absolutely can't wait 2-3 months to see in our house. We all had interest in Haunted Mansion. But, between getting ready to go back to school/end of summer sports/trying to get our last bit of pool time in, we had a tough time finding the time to go to the movie. And the fact we could wait and watch it around Halloween instead made it an even better option for us. The rest? I can't stand the live action remakes, so immediately out for me. GotG are my LEAST favorite MCU franchise, so I didn't care enough to blow money there (in fact I STILL haven't seen it, mainly because I don't feel like missing it changes anything in the MCU at this point). Ant Man, we chose Mario cause it seemed more fun (and again, don't feel like I was missing the story of Marvel at this point). Indy, I had my reasons and got completely attacked by people defending it, so I'll leave that alone. Wish we actually were considering going to til a friend had something come up, and had to cancel. Ended up seeing the Marvels instead (just me and the daughter since the rest of the family weren't really interested, and she REALLY wanted to see it).

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I don't disagree that it helped get 2018 and 2019 to where it was in terms of global box office. But I think the operative word you're looking for is "was". I think it was important, but as has been shown the global box office is not what it was in 2019, and may never get back there again.

I think if you look today, China may not even account for 25% of the global box office in 2023, heck I don't even know if they ever will again.

The recovery in China will be interesting to watch, they were still in lockdown until the end of Jan 2023 which puts them about 2 years behind the recovery of the rest of the world.

I wouldn’t expect a huge box office in 2024 but by 2025 they may be a major player again in worldwide box office again.

 

[Disney Irish]

Just because China was not a stable market, does not mean everything else is given up on.

Other Studios figured it out.

Did I say its a market that should been given up on? No, I didn't. I just didn't think its 25% of the global box office anymore, nor do I think they are as important as they once were.

If you look at the top 10 highest grossing US releases in China for 2023 they are, notice 3 are Disney films:

Chinese Box Office For 2023

www.boxofficemojo.com

Certainly not blowing the global box office out of the water, and not accounting for 25% either.

 

[Disney Irish]

The recovery in China will be interesting to watch, they were still in lockdown until the end of Jan 2023 which puts them about 2 years behind the recovery of the rest of the world.

I wouldn’t expect a huge box office in 2024 but by 2025 they may be a major player again in worldwide box office again.

Possible, I just don't think they are going to be that a major player. I think most of Hollywood has just come to terms with China being in the global market, ie some releases will make it there, but just not as major a player as it was previously thought to be.

 

[Willmark]

For heaven’s sake, I’m not suggesting they make offensive movies! Someone earlier posted some crazy stuff about people being offended by just about anything. If that’s the case, I would rather Disney produce interesting and compelling content without worrying about stepping on toes.

Let’s try a different way: who’s toes should they step on without worrying about it?

 

[celluloid]

Did I say its a market that should been given up on? No, I didn't. I just didn't think its 25% of the global box office anymore, nor do I think they are as important as they once were.

If you look at the top 10 highest grossing US releases in China for 2023 they are, notice 3 are Disney films:

.

You keep stating that because of the global dip since 2019's mega year(rememer, China has had serious lockdowns and the entire global market is volatile.) that theatrical box office is fading and the studios need to figure it out due to streaming.

It is not the case. No major shifts or call to action for the industry needed.

 

[Disney Irish]

You keep stating that because of the global dip since 2019's mega year(rememer, China has had serious lockdowns and the entire global market is volatile.) that theatrical box office is fading and the studios need to figure it out due to streaming.

It is not the case.

There is no guarantee they will recover fully, if ever, back to prepandemic levels. That is an assumption that cannot be made.