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

[Animaniac93-98]

Aquaman 2 surprises many of its hold. Performance oversaturation overall down but holding under those circumstances rather well considering all the negativity that came with the movie.

Aquaman 2 is 100% benefiting from being the only traditional popcorn blockbuster release of the season.

For those who don't want Oscar bait drama or family films, there isn't much else as high profile a release as it.

 

[TP2000]

I’m not surprised you confuse the output of the two studios when, by your own admission, you haven’t watched any of their recent films to begin with. How could you possibly know anything about how Strange World “acted”?

I'm just going off of the YouTube trailers and movie posters and (too many) reviews that I read. It's look and vibe was modern and contemporary, which I have always equated in my mind to "Pixar". It also wasn't a musical, which I have always equated in my mind to "Disney".

So, since Strange World was a modern looking non-musical, I have to remind myself that it wasn't from Pixar.

 

[LittleBuford]

I'm just going off of the YouTube trailers and movie posters and (too many) reviews that I read. It's look and vibe was modern and contemporary, which I have always equated in my mind to "Pixar". It also wasn't a musical, which I have always equated in my mind to "Disney".

So, since Strange World was a modern looking non-musical, I have to remind myself that it wasn't from Pixar.

With the exception perhaps of Lightyear, Pixar films have a very distinctive feel about them. Strange World did not have that feel—at all.

 

[BrianLo]

Interesting that you call Illumination Sequel heavy when they have had all of their sequels because all of their originals thus far have been hits.
Minions is a phenom for sure.
Illumination has had some Suess and Mario connected so you could say they have not had original characters as much but the recent situation with Pixar's sequels and spin offs are about the same.,
But let's not forget that after Ranft's passing, Pixar became almost entirely sequels and spin off. Toy Story 3, Toy Story 4. Cars 2, Cars 3. Cars 4. Lightyear. Inside Out 2.

It wasn’t meant to be a strong criticism. It’s pretty close. I just meant it has been a tad longer for them to really create a new brands. They already played their hands with Sing and Secret Life of Pets sequels. Migration I don’t think is a brand starter, even if it makes a bit of money. It needs to hit on streaming in a big way for that to change.

They clearly are going to be a Mario factory for a hot minute, which also isn’t a criticism. I enjoyed the film a lot, it just isn’t technically their brand. But the rising tide strongly raises both Universal and Nintendo.

 

[celluloid]

It wasn’t meant to be a strong criticism. It’s pretty close. I just meant it has been a tad longer for them to really create a new brands. They already played their hands with Sing and Secret Life of Pets sequels. Migration I don’t think is a brand starter, even if it makes a bit of money. It needs to hit on streaming in a big way for that to change.

They clearly are going to be a Mario factory for a hot minute, which also isn’t a criticism. I enjoyed the film a lot, it just isn’t technically their brand. But the rising tide strongly raises both Universal and Nintendo.

That's fair. I think that will be very telling is how Migration will continue to play out since it is the only new family animation release until their Dreamworks title in March. Illumination as it stands now is the highest animation studio production company of the last three years with Dreamworks slightly behind. In their defense, they did have an original this year it just flopped. So Universal and Disney were pretty on par this year. Disney had a decent attention original with Pixar and Universal had a respective one with Migration. That is of course not counting the massive hit of Mario.
Both Disney and Universal had originals not work out this year, the difference is that even if you discount Mario, Universal had one animated movie that definitely did work out well.

You can think of Migration like A Bug's Life or Wall E in box office numbers wise. It ultimately will help the studio as a whole for content library but will never likely get a sequel.

Illumination has the big tree project that will be interesting. That is an original film that should come to fruition by 2025.

Just to be fair again, Universal produced just as many original animated films as Disney this year(three if you count Mario)

 

[Bullseye1967]

I don’t think they would. The studio could probably be sold for at least 7-10 billion dollars. Especially in the era of massive tech conglomerates who’d want access to that brand label and talent for their service.

The obvious one would be Apple.

Coco, Turning red, Luca and yes Elemental are all recent (post 2015) success stories out of that studio. Inside Out if you want to count 2015. No one else is producing consistent brand starters like Pixar. Illumination was for a time, as much as I’m not really high on that studio. Though they got sequel heavy.

Disney wants two animation studios because they want to produce more than one animated film a year. In fact, if anything with streaming they are requesting more output than ever before from those studios. Pixar has a new series coming out this year for D+. Disney has their Tiana series as well. They don’t need less animated talent.

Who does the cartoon stuff for Disney+ like Bad Batch?

 

[Farerb]

Pixar's origin story and early success is really quite impressive. And I would have agreed with you on keeping Pixar in Emeryville in 2015. But now? It's movies are fairly indistinguishable from WDAS, so why the need for two separate lavishly funded studios that both make the same type of movies that both fail to break even at the box office?

Even after making fun of it on this forum for most of the past year, I still sometimes forget that Strange World was not a Pixar movie; it looked like Pixar, acted like Pixar, and was non-musical like Pixar. I have to remind myself it was WDAS.

So why in the 2020's would you need two separate studios 400 miles apart making nearly the same products; far enough away from each other to not share most resources, but close enough to seem wasteful???

TP2000 Plan For Animation Success: Merge Pixar into WDAS, shut down the Emeryville studio and sell the land to the homeless industrial complex for Druggy Tiny Homes, lay off a lot of duplicative staff and administration at both properties, and set the new organization up in the lavish Disney Animation studios complex in Burbank. Princessy, musical, fantasy based animation gets branded "Walt Disney", and contemporary, SciFi and non-musical animation gets branded "Pixar". They'd save a lot of money and future heartache by just getting that over with and merging the two studios.

The shareholders can thank me later.

If the kind of musicals they're going to make are anything like Wish, they should stop making musicals. To be honest if one of the studios had to go I prefer that Disney Animation would shut down. They've painted themselves into a corner and they haven't really been "Disney Animation" since Winnie the Pooh in 2011.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Time for the Golden Globes!

OK, the tables were way too close together, people had to keep standing up to let others by, and it seemed like they started the timer from the moment the name was announced (meaning the long time it took to get to the stage was wasted!)

Most of the Avengers were there (sometimes pitted against each other.)

"Beef" I actually watched, so that was cool.

Ted Lasso was shut out. Ditto 1923, Only Murders, Bradley Cooper, etc.

Andra Day and Jon Batiste should be hooking up by now.

No need to list nominations for the new "box office" category. It should just be a special award given to the highest grossing film. (I guess they are trying to show people at home the blockbusters that don't normally get nominated as much.)

And good for Universal. I know people who work on the music side. Also, in my world, Universal and Disney are on the same side. I buy my Disney music from Universal Music Group.

 

[celluloid]

And good for Universal. I know people who work on the music side. Also, in my world, Universal and Disney are on the same side. I buy my Disney music from Universal Music Group.

You may know this but just for clarification purposes.

Universal Music Group is not owned by Universal/NBC Comcast. Different company. Gets confusing due to the Vivendi Universal selling in 2004.

 

[DKampy]

It has currently only reached half of its production budget. Whatever you rate it as, it has yet to make its money back.(currently at about half)

So by those standards, which is box office, it is a flop. We only need to be snarky because you came in saying we need to tell someone (who you referred to by their avatar to be condescending) that there was an accolade for the movie you want to succeed. It could all of a sudden explode, but not likely.

Quit your unnecessary hostility.

You should not request others to inform a poster who you have on ignore and intend to ignore some news for you.

If you go by the directors last film… The Favourite… Poor Things is playing similarly to that film which happen to receive a bump after Oscar nominations… The Favourite ended up with just under 96 million worldwide and continue to play in theaters until a couple of weeks into April… I think most weekends it never made over 4 million domestically…it just kept hanging on…If your expecting this film to put up blockbuster numbers to be a hit… it won’t it, but Disney didn’t expect it to either…I Poor things is doing fine right now… plus I feel there is more buzz for Poor Things right now… I would suspect all parties are happy with the results so far

 

[Disstevefan1]

Sorry I am joining this thread late. What does Poor things have to do with Disney at the Box office?

 

[Phroobar]

Sorry I am joining this thread late. What does Poor things have to do with Disney at the Box office?

It is a left over Fox Searchlight movie with lots of nudity and gore.

 

[DKampy]

It is a left over Fox Searchlight movie with lots of nudity and gore.

It is not a left over Film… Disney bought Fox studios in 2019… Poor Things was announced in 2021

 

[TalkingHead]

Downey‘s Globes comment about his agents saying he had needed to restart his career, the implication being post-MCU, doesn’t make me think he’s donning the Iron Man helmet anytime soon.

Imo there’s a not-insignificant amount of love for Oppie because it’s such a pleasant reminder of what he can do with strong material. So I guess Nolan and Universal indirectly have Disney to thank for that.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Downey‘s Globes comment about his agents saying he had needed to restart his career, the implication being post-MCU, doesn’t make me think he’s donning the Iron Man helmet anytime soon.

Imo there’s a not-insignificant amount of love for Oppie because it’s such a pleasant reminder of what he can do with strong material. So I guess Nolan and Universal indirectly have Disney to thank for that.

I believe the whole point of bringing him to Ironman was to give it credibility with a good actor and have a more fully fleshed out character. Ditto Ed Norton with the Hulk, but that imploded.

As in almost every industry, initial high quality standards often eventually give way to maximizing profits/mass production.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Side note: finally saw Blue Beetle on Max and thought it was enjoyable, similar in tone to Ms. Marvel with the “whole family on board” aspect.

 

[brideck]

Determining whether a post was written by AI or a human is challenging without additional context. The content seems well-structured and focused on Star Wars analysis, which could be written by either a knowledgeable human or a well-trained language model.

Just caught up on the thread after a few days away and phew. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was picking up the stench of GPT on here. The crazy thing to me is that they're still persisting in doing it at least into Saturday.

The most hilarious one to me is what it did in response to Tony posting his cornfield image.

 

[Phroobar]

I'm pretty sure most of the posters here are GPT.

 

[Disstevefan1]

This baffles me. I have a lovely little Sony Hi-Fi setup in my family room with a new Sony turntable and receiver and speakers I bought last year. It has Bluetooth to hook it into the kitchen speaker setup when I'm cooking, and in to the living and dining rooms when I'm entertaining. I have many of the records I bought in the 60's, 70's and 80's, plus some newer ones, and a bunch of fabulous old records I grabbed from relatives homes when they started passing away in the 70's and 80's.

But you are telling me that the kids today are buying records again but they have no turntable to play them on?!? How? Why?

What on earth do they do with them? Just display them, and then play the iTunes version of that same record? I'm baffled.

The album art was a significant part of experience. Many time suitable for framing.

For me, given I can listen to the the same music from a digital audio file, I would hang the album art on the wall and listen to the audio file.

 

[brideck]

If you go by the directors last film… The Favourite… Poor Things is playing similarly to that film which happen to receive a bump after Oscar nominations… The Favourite ended up with just under 96 million worldwide and continue to play in theaters until a couple of weeks into April… I think most weekends it never made over 4 million domestically…it just kept hanging on…If your expecting this film to put up blockbuster numbers to be a hit… it won’t it, but Disney didn’t expect it to either…I Poor things is doing fine right now… plus I feel there is more buzz for Poor Things right now… I would suspect all parties are happy with the results so far

I'll try my hardest to ignore TP's continued willful ignorance on the subject, and say that Poor Things continues to basically track right with expectations.

I would attribute the loss of 50 screens to the aforementioned incredible holds of Anyone But You more than anything else. Insignificant, in that for my market it means that it's only showing at 5 out of the 6 AMCs instead of all 6 now, and it's only dropped out of the low-cost "classic" theater.

It'll be interesting to see how Soul does this upcoming holiday weekend. It's getting a surprisingly robust release, at least at the local theaters that I pay attention to, and it's playing with house money.