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

[Vegas Disney Fan]

BTW all of this was discussed ad nauseam months ago and only keeps getting brought up because some can't accept that maybe some Disney movies actually made a little bit of money this year.

Pretty sure I started the last debate by daring to suggest it was one of only a handful of movies that broke even, in a post about how horrible Disneys year has been.

It’s humorous at this point, it feels like people on both sides now view TLMs failure or success as validation of their view of DEI.

At this point I’d simply say it was a failure compared to the other renaissance era remakes but relatively successful compared to the shockingly long list of flops Disney released last year. Whether it made or lost $100 million won’t change my feeling on either of those statements.

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

If we're done accusing me of creating duplicate accounts years in advance, and overthrowing Eisner, and being Al Lutz, and wearing pajamas out in public (I can't decide which one of those is more impressive, but I keep coming back to the pajamas)...

Wait I thought you were a dog mixing a drink...

 

[Trauma]

For those who get offended by comedy,
don’t watch.

 

[BuddyThomas]

The marketing number is included in all the articles posted that shows TLM still made a profit.

It seems like ignoring the truth seems more fun to some.

That’s the world we live in now. They love believing their “alternative facts” as long as the alternative facts (aka - lies) prove whatever point they think they are making.

 

[TP2000]

That’s the world we live in now. They love believing their “alternative facts” as long as the alternative facts (aka - lies) prove whatever point they think they are making.

The comical irony there is that the article's author credited an extra $200 Million in profit that either doesn't currently exist, or will be impossible to create in future years.

Namely, a $100 Million payment to Walt Disney Pictures from the money losing Disney+ division of the same company. And then the wild assumption that there will somehow be $100 Million in profit coming from DVD sales in the future.

Those aren't "alternative facts" from the Deadline article, they are simply things that are not true or never will come to pass.

‘Little Mermaid’ Swimming Against Strong Tides At Overseas Box Office, Leaving Break-Even In Question

In a rare situation for a Disney tentpole, particularly a live action title based on a treasured animated classic, 'The Little Mermaid' may lose money.

deadline.com

 

[Disney Irish]

The comical irony there is that the article's author credited an extra $200 Million in profit that either doesn't currently exist, or will be impossible to create in future years.

Namely, a $100 Million payment to Walt Disney Pictures from the money losing Disney+ division of the same company. And then the wild assumption that there will somehow be $100 Million in profit coming from DVD sales in the future.

Those aren't "alternative facts" from the Deadline article, they are simply things that are not true or never will come to pass.

‘Little Mermaid’ Swimming Against Strong Tides At Overseas Box Office, Leaving Break-Even In Question

In a rare situation for a Disney tentpole, particularly a live action title based on a treasured animated classic, 'The Little Mermaid' may lose money.

deadline.com

Outside of you just not believing it can happen because you don't believe D+ pays for content, do you have any proof that D+ didn't pay $100M to Disney Pictures for TLM?

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

You forgot to mention the part where we are discussing PG rated animated movies for children.

Outside of Muslim nations, no one in 2023 cares if there's a gay character or three in movies rated PG-13 for teens and rated R for adults. Similarly, no one cares if four letter words slip into PG-13 movies, or bare and sex scenes slip into R rated movies. People actually expect that now for those films, largely.

But gay characters and plotlines in Disney cartoons for children? For many parents in the USA, Europe and Asia, that crosses a line. Thus, the global box office for those movies has been dreadful and Disney is pulling back on "representation" in children's movies.

Such a tired and outdated take.

By this logic, those concerned parents can't take their kids to a grocery store or send them to school, where they might find out a classmate has same sex parents.

Those parents shouldn't even let their kids out of the house until they're adults.

This notion that kids must live in a bubble where they never learn about anyone beyond one narrow demographic, is absurd.

 

[TP2000]

Outside of you just not believing it can happen because you don't believe D+ pays for content, do you have any proof that D+ didn't pay $100M to Disney Pictures for TLM?

I'm sure Disney+ did send Disney Studios a check for $100 Million to stream Mermaid. Which helps explain how Disney+ lost $387 Million in just the 90 days of Q4 of Fiscal 2023.

And that gets back to my nagging suspicion that Disney+ will never make a profit, especially if it keeps having to play a shell game with Disney's internal finances and "pay" other divisions of the same company for their products that already lost money at the box office.

 

[TP2000]

Such a tired and outdated take.

By this logic, those concerned parents can't take their kids to a grocery store or send them to school, where they might find out a classmate has same sex parents.

Those parents shouldn't even let their kids out of the house until they're adults.

This notion that kids must live in a bubble where they never learn about anyone beyond one narrow demographic, is absurd.

You should go down to the next school board meeting and tell the assembled parents from various cultures and creeds that. And bring some theater gift cards with you to pass out with the understanding that all those parents will take their family to the next Disney children's movie with gay characters in it, and they will like it, and they will obey.

 

[BuddyThomas]

Such a tired and outdated take.

By this logic, those concerned parents can't take their kids to a grocery store or send them to school, where they might find out a classmate has same sex parents.

Those parents shouldn't even let their kids out of the house until they're adults.

This notion that kids must live in a bubble where they never learn about anyone beyond one narrow demographic, is absurd.

And it is particularly offensive coming from someone who continually states that he is gay.

 

[Disney Irish]

I'm sure Disney+ did send Disney Studios a check for $100 Million to stream Mermaid. Which explains how Disney+ lost $387 Million in just the 90 days of Q4 of Fiscal 2023.

And that gets back to my nagging suspicion that Disney+ will never make a profit, especially if it keeps having to play a shell game with Disney's internal finances and "pay" other divisions of the same company for their products that already lost money at the box office.

Remember that each of these divisions are run as separate companies. And in the case of TLM a literal separate company was established in the UK for its production.

So if money exchanged hands, whether internal or in this case to another company setup for the production, that still counts toward the money made by the movie.

Also just an FYI, it’s not just DVD sales, it’s any post-theatrical money made including PVOD and other digital purchases.

So just by the fact that $100M was paid for TLM it made profit.

 

[Disney Irish]

Such a tired and outdated take.

By this logic, those concerned parents can't take their kids to a grocery store or send them to school, where they might find out a classmate has same sex parents.

Those parents shouldn't even let their kids out of the house until they're adults.

This notion that kids must live in a bubble where they never learn about anyone beyond one narrow demographic, is absurd.

Or let them watch Baby Shark, Tiny Toons, or 100s of other animated shows and movies with LGBTQ characters aimed at kids today.

 

[erasure fan1]

Outside of you just not believing it can happen because you don't believe D+ pays for content, do you have any proof that D+ didn't pay $100M to Disney Pictures for TLM?

I'm not really sure that matters for the argument being had. Everyone who is talking about Disneys box-office and their struggles, is talking about theatrical box-office. That's the best way to compare apple's to apple's from film to film. I posted an interview way back in this thread, where Matt Damon talked about what a movie would need to be profitable. And it was budget plus marketing times two. He actually makes movies, he's as inside as it really gets. That would put mermaid at around a $780mil break even point based on the readily available numbers. Does that mean it will never make money? No, there's a lot of other factors that go into it. But as it goes from a theatrical window standpoint, it didn't make it.

 

[Disney Irish]

I'm not really sure that matters for the argument being had. Everyone who is talking about Disneys box-office and their struggles, is talking about theatrical box-office. That's the best way to compare apple's to apple's from film to film. I posted an interview way back in this thread, where Matt Damon talked about what a movie would need to be profitable. And it was budget plus marketing times two. He actually makes movies, he's as inside as it really gets. That would put mermaid at around a $780mil break even point based on the readily available numbers. Does that mean it will never make money? No, there's a lot of other factors that go into it. But as it goes from a theatrical window standpoint, it didn't make it.

I understand your point, and don't disagree that during theatrical that Disney struggled on a majority of their movies this year. No question on that.

But we all know that Disney is the king at post-theatrical money making. So at some point all these movies will make some money. But for some it seems its not enough that Disney loses money at the box office, but post-theatrical too. And so discounts or straight up won't acknowledge any post-theatrical money that the movie is making. Heck I wouldn't even call D+ content spend as post-theatrical as its basically almost an extension of the theatrical run anyways, at least in the initial weeks upon hitting the service.

BTW, Damon was talking averages not specific movies or even specific studios. Its the reason why its so hard to tack down specific financials on these movies, too many unknowns.

 

[_caleb]

And it's actually much worse than that for Disney. Pre-Disney+ they would have sold the rights to TLM to multiple downstream distributors (domestic and international pay windows, cable, streamers, free TV, etc., etc.) based on its box office results (or pre-negotiated deals). That was a huge amount of actual cash inflow to the company.

In order to be the exclusive place to stream it (outside of PPV/EST) in most markets, they now have the "honor" of paying intracompany to the studio to make them and the producers "whole" while not recouping the money on the Disney+ side in actual new subscribers (hence the massive Disney+ losses).

Box office bombs with huge production budgets kill the downstream ecosystem/business model, so in the case of Disney, there is no place to hide. Unless you believe movies like Strange World are actually continuing to drive new subscribers and its existence on the platform is responsible for actually reducing churn. This is why HBO Max is starting to license content to Netflix again - they need to get back that lost revenue stream even though it may hurt the Max subscriber base.

So Disney actually figured out a way to make less net money for the company on the same film and box office performance than pre-streaming when a film doesn't get marketplace traction at the global box office (which is the case for nearly every Disney release this year).

Owning the entire distribution of the film is great when you have hits, not so much when you have bombs.

Subscribers pay for Disney+.

 

[erasure fan1]

BTW, Damon was talking averages not specific movies or even specific studios. Its the reason why its so hard to tack down specific financials on these movies, too many unknowns.

He was actually talking about his movie, one he was making. And yes we know it's averages and is different for different studios. The point of the interview was to show that these are real estimates used by people who actually make movies. And not some made up nonsense like is being argued here. But even if we give every bit of advantage to Disney, it's not realistic mermaid made money theatrically. But I agree, Disney is great at milking IPs for everything they're worth post theatrical. But if there's one thing that has more unknowns than theatrical financials, it's post theatrical financials. You can get a pretty good idea if a film was profitable in it's theatrical run by the numbers that are readily available.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

You should go down to the next school board meeting and tell the assembled parents from various cultures and creeds that. And bring some theater gift cards with you to pass out with the understanding that all those parents will take their family to the next Disney children's movie with gay characters in it, and they will like it, and they will obey.

A company is never going to appeal equally to everyone in this day in age, so it seems like a pretty simple choice to not pander to bigots.

As I've said before, being intentionally non-inclusive will prevent Disney from attracting the talent needed to make better content.

 

[Trauma]

I love the people denying the damage to the brand in this thread.

Burying ones head in the sand seems to be popular here.

Numbers do not lie.

Traditionally TWDC would make 16-18% return on capitol deployed.

So for every dollar they spend they would make back $1.16 - $1.18.

Since Disney has damaged the brand that number is consistently below 2%.

One of the many reasons the stock price is in the toilet.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

Subscribers pay for Disney+.

True!

But how much are they really getting per subscriber?

I originally paid $140 for the first 3 years (less than $50/year).

Then they raised the cost and I renewed for another year at $80. I held my nose at that price, but there was supposed to be a lot of new Marvel content on the way that... didn't quite happen.

Then they raised the cost and wanted me to renew for another year at $140 (in other words, one year for the price of what I originally paid for three years) with little new content on the horizon. So I canceled.

Then they offered a great discount and I'm now paying $24 for Disney+ for a year (with ads). So, instead of getting my $50/year or $80/year, because they nearly doubled the price with little value to show for it and I wouldn't pay for that, they're now getting $24/year from me (plus advertising... something... that I mute and/or read my phone during until the show or movie comes back on).

Doesn't seem like the best math to me, but... at least they're keeping me as a paying subscriber.

 

[Prince-1]

It’s also just moving the goalposts to spin a story.

The conversation on these threads and others is always about “theatrical window” profitability, which can be ballpark estimated by the available information and industry standards.

Trying to forecast all of the various long-term revenue streams down through the ecosystem requires speculation upon speculation and varies greatly by studio, film, distribution footprint, streaming models, talent/producer deals, intracompany allocations, etc., etc.

The reason why everybody uses “theatrical window” profitability is that it provides a general sense of a film’s success and can be a relatively apples to apples comparison against individual films’ budgets, marketing and distribution costs, and theatrical window box office returns (when roughly adjusted for inflation).

These films are not greenlit to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in the theatrical window, fully factoring in that there are future downstream revenues to come.

Also, the downstream revenues almost always scale based on the global box office success, so huge theatrical bombs lead to significantly lower downstream revenues (no matter the silliness noted by some posters).

Disney lost a disastrous billion plus dollars in the theatrical window this year and TLM was part of that historic loss.

Except TLM made money. I know it doesn't fit that extremely weird narrative that you and a few others have but it actually made money. I mean I guess all those websites could be wrong and that random nobodies posting whatever they want are right but for some reason I highly doubt it.