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

[_caleb]

What do you envision with this?

Disney's been working on deeper integration of shopping and streaming. Last year, they did a test of Special Access to Shop Disney from within Disney+. It basically just allowed users to scan a code on their TV to shop for merch related to whatever they were watching.

Connecting streaming to shopping is an industry-wide thing. I think Shop The Scenes has been a big success in getting people to buy the furniture featured in Paramount's Yellowstone.

The key is tapping into that second screen Disney knows people are staring at while streaming. The scarce resource at play in Direct-to-Consumer is the consumer's attention, so if Disney can be on both your TV and your mobile device(s) though shopping, games, commentary, fan-generated content, etc., they're going to be much more likely to get more money out of you.

Disney has talked about setting up a membership service, which would provide members with discounts on Parks and Resorts as well as merch. Watch Behind the Attraction, book a discounted vacation package right then and there. This is more than just add-ons and merch sales, it will tap into consumer behavior analytics to connect with fandoms in some pretty interesting ways.

There are other things in the works; Disney's Next Generation Storytelling team was laid off back in March (it was a Chapek thing), but they were working on metaverse-type gaming and AR/VR integration w/D+. But just last month, Disney announced Disney Pinnacle, a digital pin search and collection platform that could be integrated into D+ to integrate a sort of meta scavenger hunt game experience across Disney+ content (and the parks).

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Second weekend of Wish for some key global markets is coming in:

China: Down 64%, cumulative $4.3M
UK: Down 40%, cumulative $5.5M
Mexico: Down 44%, cumulative $3.6M

Just as a spot comp to another Disney Thanksgiving Day release, Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018, not inf. adj.), cumulative dollars for those markets after 10 days:

China: Down 87%
UK: Down 41%
Mexico: Down 71%

We'll have more of a full picture next week as the next wave of markets has their second week, but note Ralph only got to $328M in the international markets, so Wish doing significantly less in these key markets so far is not a great sign.

It flopped hard…

And isn’t a good movie at all by any measure available…

So we might be beating Mr Ed here

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

And God help Disney if those perform terribly

I think they all could “underperform” based on burbanks standards…

Don’t think it can’t happen.

 

[BrianLo]

Tony the Tiger…
Why do you feel the nation is rolling their collective eyes at Disney movies? Why has Disney lost its golden touch? What has changed with Disney since Covid?
Why has Oppenheimer, Barbie, Mario pulled in audiences?

Far more than any other company, Disney has converted its legion of fans directly into their streaming platform. Then trained them to see their first-run content on said platform.

Disney massively devalued their content in the race to acquire streaming numbers. We don't even need to adjust for inflation, if you were to roll back 6.99 a month for Disney's entire back and future catalogue to the 90's, people would lose their minds over such a deal.

Which is why my outstanding question with Wish is, does the D+ audience watch it reasonably aggressively, or is it like Strange World? Does their audience actually want to see this movie in any form, or is it something intrinsically wrong with the movie. Strange World for example was rejected by their audience, whereas Encanto, with technically poor theatrical numbers, was clearly not.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Far more than any other company, Disney has converted its legion of fans directly into their streaming platform. Then trained them to see their first-run content on said platform.

Disney massively devalued their content in the race to acquire streaming numbers. We don't even need to adjust for inflation, if you were to roll back 6.99 a month for Disney's entire back and future catalogue to the 90's, people would lose their minds over such a deal.

Which is why my outstanding question with Wish is, does the D+ audience watch it reasonably aggressively, or is it like Strange World? Does their audience actually want to see this movie in any form, or is it something intrinsically wrong with the movie. Strange World for example was rejected by their audience, whereas Encanto, with technically poor theatrical numbers, was clearly not.

….breaking news…

Wish is a bad movie.
Suck = suck.

So are all their movies this year - frankly. You can’t really watch them. I think I saw most in the theaters. They’re bad

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Tony the Tiger…
Why do you feel the nation is rolling their collective eyes at Disney movies? Why has Disney lost its golden touch? What has changed with Disney since Covid?
Why has Oppenheimer, Barbie, Mario pulled in audiences?

You mean the

“What planet are you on?!?” Phrased 3 different ways?

…the one where money rules/drives everything and ideals are conceptual…unfortunately

No answers. Again. Noted.

 

[Phroobar]

Honestly I think it's dumb. I still subscribe to the idea that people know to wait a few months to watch things. Pull the band aid and wait like 9 months to stream this, reprogram your viewers.

No one will remember it in nine months. They don't remember it now three weeks after release.

 

[Phroobar]

Second weekend of Wish for some key global markets is coming in:

China: Down 64%, cumulative $4.3M
UK: Down 40%, cumulative $5.5M
Mexico: Down 44%, cumulative $3.6M

Just as a spot comp to another Disney Thanksgiving Day release, Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018, not inf. adj.), cumulative dollars for those markets after 10 days:

China: Down 87%
UK: Down 41%
Mexico: Down 71%

We'll have more of a full picture next week as the next wave of markets has their second week, but note Ralph only got to $328M in the international markets, so Wish doing significantly less in these key markets so far is not a great sign.

Where is south Korea when Disney needs them?

 

[Phroobar]

And God help Disney if those perform terribly

Fifteen will get you twenty on that.

 

[Phroobar]

Far more than any other company, Disney has converted its legion of fans directly into their streaming platform. Then trained them to see their first-run content on said platform.

Disney massively devalued their content in the race to acquire streaming numbers. We don't even need to adjust for inflation, if you were to roll back 6.99 a month for Disney's entire back and future catalogue to the 90's, people would lose their minds over such a deal.

Which is why my outstanding question with Wish is, does the D+ audience watch it reasonably aggressively, or is it like Strange World? Does their audience actually want to see this movie in any form, or is it something intrinsically wrong with the movie. Strange World for example was rejected by their audience, whereas Encanto, with technically poor theatrical numbers, was clearly not.

Wish will do about as well streaming as Strange World did. People will come for the train wreak they were told about and then leave.

 

[Tha Realest]

Wish will do about as well streaming as Strange World did. People will come for the train wreak they were told about and then leave.

I think it’ll perform somewhere between SW and Elemental. It feels like more of a conventional animated film, so it’ll hang around the top ten ratings for 2-3 weeks, and that’ll be it. Bad WOM means it won’t have the repeat watches that legit good films get.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

No one will remember it in nine months. They don't remember it now three weeks after release.

I don’t know when any of the movies are scheduled to release on D+, whether it was 2 months or 9 it would be a surprise to me when they show up on the homepage.

The DVD/Bluray release schedule didn’t prevent people from going to theaters, a similar 4-6 month delay should be plenty to get the people who are considering going back into theaters.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Disney massively devalued their content in the race to acquire streaming numbers. We don't even need to adjust for inflation, if you were to roll back 6.99 a month for Disney's entire back and future catalogue to the 90's, people would lose their minds over such a deal.

For over 60 years, Disney's back catalog was kept guarded and released sporadically in a strategy to create a sense of exclusivity and urgency. My favorite going-back-in-the-vault commercial is the one from 1996 where Mark Elliot reads the narration with zero irony saying "you may never be able to buy them again!" Tacky? Misleading? It worked.

Theatrical re-releases were the studios bread and butter business for a long time. Then video came along and the numbers shot up even higher. It was like $25 for one VHS back then so $6.99/month for everything would have been a huge deal.

Then in 2019 the company decided, "here, have at it" and just threw everything up for cheap with little fanfare. What would have been a huge selling point in the 90s became an afterthought to expensive, new content to hype the service that in hindsight probably doesn't get as much replay as the animated canon.

Yes, the vault strategy wasn't going to last forever, and home media has changed, but maybe the rush to get everything out ASAP did more damage than it should have to what were, at one point, among the best selling VHS/DVDs of all time.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I think Disney could have kept the Vault thing going even on streaming.

Say Jungle Book is only on Disney+ from October 1 - January 31...then it goes "back into the Vault" for x years. You do this for the dozen or so most popular pre-2000 classics. It incentivizes people to stay subscribed or keep checking for upcoming re-issues instead of binge watching everything in a month and cancelling.

And/or maybe you upsell an "all-access" higher tier subscription which lets you view all the former Platinum Edition titles with DVD like extras you can't watch elsewhere.

Too late to do this now, but they could have.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

No answers. Again. Noted.

There has to be a question…

If you’re asking my opinion on how they’re mishandled their DEI…I think you’d read it probably 100 times by now

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

For over 60 years, Disney's back catalog was kept guarded and released sporadically in a strategy to create a sense of exclusivity and urgency. My favorite going-back-in-the-vault commercial is the one from 1996 where Mark Elliot reads the narration with zero irony saying "you may never be able to buy them again!" Tacky? Misleading? It worked.

Theatrical re-releases were the studios bread and butter business for a long time. Then video came along and the numbers shot up even higher. It was like $25 for one VHS back then so $6.99/month for everything would have been a huge deal.

Then in 2019 the company decided, "here, have at it" and just threw everything up for cheap with little fanfare. What would have been a huge selling point in the 90s became an afterthought to expensive, new content to hype the service that in hindsight probably doesn't get as much replay as the animated canon.

Yes, the vault strategy wasn't going to last forever, and home media has changed, but maybe the rush to get everything out ASAP did more damage than it should have to what were, at one point, among the best selling VHS/DVDs of all time.

They just did that out of desperation to drive numbers…hoping the money would show?

It failed…they are worse off than ever for a revenue potential standpoint

So here we are

 

[celluloid]

All they did was cheapen their products. They would have had better luck with selling classics build as you go digital libraries where they send you a hard copy dvd for a slight extra charge for those who still love it. Like printing on demand. DTC would still exist. They would have been a higher regard than others and instead they cheapened the entire situation and mysteriously others have still not been released to the platform that should have been there by now.


All this wacky dreaming is moot though, because even if they were to do something of that nature to keep their exclusivity and high regards, they would have still had to make things people want to see bad enough to be a success in theaters somewhat frequently.

 

[BrianLo]

For over 60 years, Disney's back catalog was kept guarded and released sporadically in a strategy to create a sense of exclusivity and urgency. My favorite going-back-in-the-vault commercial is the one from 1996 where Mark Elliot reads the narration with zero irony saying "you may never be able to buy them again!" Tacky? Misleading? It worked.

Theatrical re-releases were the studios bread and butter business for a long time. Then video came along and the numbers shot up even higher. It was like $25 for one VHS back then so $6.99/month for everything would have been a huge deal.

Then in 2019 the company decided, "here, have at it" and just threw everything up for cheap with little fanfare. What would have been a huge selling point in the 90s became an afterthought to expensive, new content to hype the service that in hindsight probably doesn't get as much replay as the animated canon.

Yes, the vault strategy wasn't going to last forever, and home media has changed, but maybe the rush to get everything out ASAP did more damage than it should have to what were, at one point, among the best selling VHS/DVDs of all time.

Indeed, the back catalogue was effectively killed by Netflix. Sure, Disney had the option to loan out content, but the appetite for Ala carte old content with a rental fee was quickly going the way of Blockbuster.

Not having the content come and go (which Netflix by and large still had somewhat normalized as acceptable for their non-original content), was a choice Iger made. I think that was generally one that was consumer friendly. The vault strategy was as you say tacky, but strangely effective at wringing money.

The non-Netflix strategy though was first-run Pixar movies at home, with absolutely no pay window. There was a choice as a one-off pandemic goodwill gesture (in Soul), but there was another entirely in shovelling all of them, with no care in the world for the ill effects that would have. They hastened their own theatrical content devaluation by choice, largely in pursuit of empty subscriber numbers. I mean, this is at the end of the day a Chapek move and boy was it damaging to the theatrical health of their core brands.

I think the Marvel and Star Wars things are a whole more complicated problem, but the Pixar releases direct to stream really unwound their animated content as something people think should be paid for.

The choices are to slowly attempt to put the horses back in the barn, or charge the consumers more, whom were getting your premium content for peanuts. I kind of have the same opinion on annual park passes relative to gate prices.

 

[Phroobar]

Indeed, the back catalogue was effectively killed by Netflix. Sure, Disney had the option to loan out content, but the appetite for Ala carte old content with a rental fee was quickly going the way of Blockbuster.

Not having the content come and go (which Netflix by and large still had somewhat normalized as acceptable for their non-original content), was a choice Iger made. I think that was generally one that was consumer friendly. The vault strategy was as you say tacky, but strangely effective at wringing money.

The non-Netflix strategy though was first-run Pixar movies at home, with absolutely no pay window. There was a choice as a one-off pandemic goodwill gesture (in Soul), but there was another entirely in shovelling all of them, with no care in the world for the ill effects that would have. They hastened their own theatrical content devaluation by choice, largely in pursuit of empty subscriber numbers. I mean, this is at the end of the day a Chapek move and boy was it damaging to the theatrical health of their core brands.

I think the Marvel and Star Wars things are a whole more complicated problem, but the Pixar releases direct to stream really unwound their animated content as something people think should be paid for.

The choices are to slowly attempt to put the horses back in the barn, or charge the consumers more, whom were getting your premium content for peanuts. I kind of have the same opinion on annual park passes relative to gate prices.

Nice thing is Disney+ isn't addicting like the parks. Most of the time there is nothing to watch.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

There has to be a question…

If you’re asking my opinion on how they’re mishandled their DEI…I think you’d read it probably 100 times by now

No, that’s not how this works. You go back and follow the thread, or just forget it. I’m not repeating myself.