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

[Disney Irish]

(check international numbers there pal) It was not a hit, but it was not a bomb like Disney's recent and more particularly sadly, consistent disappointments.

But I will play along to pretend to give you a point.

Check the budget and marketing there pal. Budget of $340M, the highest budget film of the year, and marketing of well over $100M. It brought in $723M WW, it needed between $850M-$950M (some claim over $1B) to break even.

But go ahead and "pretend" all you want. It was a huge box office disappointment for Uni, and put the whole future of the franchise into question, which honestly is fine by me.

Yep. That is one. I will give you that. Come on. Two more big flops now. Disney level big flops.

I will save you time. It did not happen. Reinfeld and Maurice are the only notable ones. Maurice was an odd deal and Universal distributed it for another.

No major studio is falling like Disney.

Even Sony's Animated Marvel movie outperofrmed Disney's big Marvel releases this year. (And I don't see The Marvels in November doing much better)

Where did I ever claim that Disney isn't performing worse than others. All I said was its an industry wide problem not just a Disney problem, which is 100% accurate. Sometimes you guys have to get off your soap box of Disney finger wagging and realize there is an overall industry wide issue here.

 

[TP2000]

This isn't just a Disney problem, its an industry wide problem. No studio is "doing it right", all have budget issues and all have been having box office issues in one form or another.

I think Disney deserves more blame than most because it consistently makes movies that cost a minimum of $200 Million. At least.

Even their "cheap" movies are well over $100 Million; Strange World cost $135 Million, and Haunted Mansion cost them $160 Million. Why?

Disney doesn't do a $100 Million movie, much less a $75 Million movie. But other studios, who have had their fair share of mega-budget flops as well, also have more modestly budgeted movies.

Super Mario Brothers only cost $100 Million and made $1.3 Billion globally. Minions Rise of Gru only cost $70 Million and made $940 Million globally. Barbie only cost $100 Million and will likely make more than Indy 5 that cost Disney $300 Million to make.

Disney doesn't do anything but approve mega-budgets, and lately all of them except Marvel lose money. That can't continue.

 

[celluloid]

Check the budget and marketing there pal. Budget of $340M, the highest budget film of the year, and marketing of well over $100M. It brought in $723M WW, it needed between $850M-$950M to break even.

But go ahead and "pretend" all you want. It was a huge box office disappointment for Uni, and put the whole future of the franchise into question, which honestly is fine by me.


Where did I ever claim that Disney isn't performing worse than others. All I said was its an industry wide problem not just a Disney problem, which is 100% accurate. Sometime you guys have to get off your soap box of Disney finger wagging and realize there is an overall industry wide issue here.

Did you think of one besides Fast X and what I mentioned yet? It fizzled, but not as hard as Disney's consistent. But I can move on. Because yes, that piggy had to not do well eventually, and the hog broke at 11 movies if you count the spin offs and more than twenty years. Uni found out people are getting done with that. That was Uni's one issue this year financially for a big movie. I asked you to name a few and you can't.


You claimed it was a problem all studios were having. We are talking two different things here then. Disney is having a Disney problem. Its not the pandemic, it's not the strike, its not that movies are in a downward audience attendance trend. This thread is a DIsney box office thread. So it makes sense to note the way Disney is failing to keep up.

They don't even have the highest grossing animated films anymore.
Their marvel films are spiralling to less than expected.
Indiana Jones had no triumphant finale to spin off, so the well is drying there.

Disney was only tentpoles.
Rough seas for all studios, Disney is the dire situation.

For the next reveal, I think it is fair to say that Oppenheimer will do moderately well, and Barbi will be a quasi hit, and people will get what they wanted out of those films and the studios of Sony and Uni will be ok with those releases.

Disney's Haunted Mansion, is not likely to do the studio many favors.


The industry is getting Cs and C- on some tests here.
Disney is the student that promised you big projects and just stopped showing up to put a variety of effort into the class.

 

[TsWade2]

I think I need a break for this right now, because this is getting too depressing.No offense, everyone!

 

[Disney Irish]

I think Disney deserves more blame than most because it consistently makes movies that cost a minimum of $200 Million. At least.

Even their "cheap" movies are well over $100 Million; Strange World cost $135 Million, and Haunted Mansion cost them $160 Million. Why?

Disney doesn't do a $100 Million movie, much less a $75 Million movie. But other studios, who have had their fair share of mega-budget flops as well, also have more modestly budgeted movies.

Super Mario Brothers only cost $100 Million and made $1.3 Billion globally. Minions Rise of Gru only cost $70 Million and made $940 Million globally. Barbie only cost $100 Million and will likely make more than Indy 5 that cost Disney $300 Million to make.

Disney doesn't do anything but approve mega-budgets, and lately all of them except Marvel lose money. That can't continue.

I'm not saying Disney doesn't have a budget problem with their large budget films. I've long said on these boards that Disney needs to bring down the budgets on all their films.

However we have to take this into context. Disney isn't just one studio, its many studios under one umbrella. Its Disney Pictures, Marvel, Lucas, Pixar, 20th Century, and Searchlight. At least 2 of those have medium to small budget films. The rest yes need to get their budgets under control, but that will take a couple years before its truly felt.

And yes there are studios that put out a few lower budget films that did extremely well, but even those are fewer and fewer. The whole box office and industry is changing. We can look at Disney with a microscope, but to ignore the rest of the industry and cherry pick a few films that did extremely well is being dishonest.

Long story short, as I mentioned, no studio is "doing it right". They all have their issues with budgets and the box office. There are some that had more winners than losers, but they had losers nonetheless some with huge budgets. Yes Disney as a whole is having more box office problems than other studios at the moment, but lets not discount the issues those other studios are having as well. The box office is not what it once was, and 2023 is not looking to change that.

 

[Disney Irish]

Did you think of one besides Fast X and what I mentioned yet? I

Knock at the Cabin and Ruby Gilman, there is two more.

Uni has released 7 films this year, 3 of which pretty much lost money. The only positive thing that can be said about those 3 is at least 2 of them weren't high budgets.

 

[celluloid]

Knock at the Cabin and Ruby Gilman, there is two more.

Uni has released 7 films this year, 3 of which pretty much lost money. The only positive thing that can be said about those 3 is at least 2 of them weren't high budgets.

Its almost like I said that it is Disney's problem this entire conversation! The tentpole effect.

As in, every one of Disney's releases this year was a disappointment.
Guardians almost did well enough.

This is a Disney problem. This is a Disney box office discussion. Even with all the industry waves as of late, the Disney ship was already taking on water. Their hubris has just hurt them in itself and now its compounded due to unfrotunate circumstances everyone is facing. Take away those unfortunate circumstances and you still have bad business of their own.

Now realistically, and who knows, do you think Disney's The Haunted Mansion is going to break 300 million domestically? I will be shocked if it breaks 200 million but I have been wrong plenty before.

It somehow cost 150 million because Disney wanted random stars in it.

If Wish is not a hit by the end of this year, things are going to seem pretty dire very quickly.

 

[Disney Irish]

Its almost like I said that it is Disney's problem this entire conversation! The tentpole effect.

As in, every one of Disney's releases this year was a disappointment.
Guardians almost did well enough.

This is a Disney problem. This is a Disney box office discussion. Even with all the industry waves as of late, the Disney ship was already taking on water. Their hubris has just hurt them in itself and now its compounded due to unfrotunate circumstances everyone is facing. Take away those unfortunate circumstances and you still have bad business of their own.

Look, all I said was there is an industry wide box office problem. I've already agreed Disney is having a worse time at the box office than other studios, mostly because the sheer number of films Disney puts out from its various studios, many with larger budgets.

So lets not get it twisted, I agree Disney needs to bring down budgets, I've said so for MANY years on this site. But to think this is ONLY a Disney problem and not an industry wide problem is dishonest at best and delusional at worse.

Now realistically, and who knows, do you think Disney's The Haunted Mansion is going to break 300 million domestically? I will be shocked if it breaks 200 million but I have been wrong plenty before.

It somehow cost 150 million because Disney wanted random stars in it.

If Wish is not a hit by the end of this year, things are going to seem pretty dire very quickly.

As far as Haunted Mansion, I don't know how it will perform. With the box office performance being all over the place this year it could end up being a sleeper hit, or it could be another disappointed. The thing it has going for it is the lower budget comparatively to other recent Disney movies.

I think Wish is going to do well, as it appears to be a return to more traditional Disney animation, something that fans claim they want. So it'll hopefully do well.

 

[Disney Analyst]

 

[Disney Irish]

With hitting just $5B mid-July one has to wonder if 2023 is really going to even meet yet succeed 2022s $7.3B.

Box office is not doing too good, despite the one-off successes of a few films.

 

[Disney Irish]

Another thought, how will the WGA/SAG-AFTRA duo strike affect the box office? Will the general public just be apathetic and still see movies, or will they become enraged against the Hollywood system and just not go.

I think opening weekend for Barbie and Oppenheimer will be ok, but question the long term box office of both.

 

[Mmoore29]

"Movie budgets are getting out of control" is a complaint that always surfaces every decade. People were saying it was getting out of control in 1996, including with Disney, and Joe Roth began shredding the slate and production deals.

They said it after the home video market matured.

They said it in 2016.

If anything, it just only proves that standards shift and that movies are actually keeping up with inflation. No more, no less. It's a cycle, and the cycle always comes up during economic shudders, but is promptly forgotten when the economy recovers. As things get costlier, so will movies. That's just a fact of life. Nothing new at all.

 

[TsWade2]

I think Wish is going to do well, as it appears to be a return to more traditional Disney animation, something that fans claim they want. So it'll hopefully do well.

I hope so.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Knock at the Cabin and Ruby Gilman, there is two more.

Uni has released 7 films this year, 3 of which pretty much lost money. The only positive thing that can be said about those 3 is at least 2 of them weren't high budgets.

And Mario had a big profit sharing agreement with Nintendo, which I've been assured in the case of Avatar means that it doesn't count when considering studio revenue.

 

[flynnibus]

If anything, it just only proves that standards shift and that movies are actually keeping up with inflation. No more, no less.

Are profits keeping up with that inflation too? No? Then it is more than just keeping up with inflation... because when its you bleeding out it's not sustainable.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

No major studio is falling like Disney.

5 of the top 10 grossing films this year are from Disney.

 

[Casper Gutman]

So I got curious and ran some numbers to see how the studios are doing in terms of getting bang for their buck - that is, how many global box office dollars they are getting back for every dollar they spend for 2023 releases. Sony is having the best year so far with a 4.48 multiplier (I didn't include M:I since it just opened). Universal is also having a good year with 3.54. Disney and Paramount are almost tied with 2.07 and 2.06, respectively. Warners, which is barely a studio, trails the pack with 1.7.

BUT

What's interesting is that this is really the year of Mario and everything else. Without Mario, Universal has a multiplier almost identical to WARNERS. Nintendo is doing all the heavy lifting for a very weak slate. To be fair, this is also true of Disney if they didn't have Guardians.

Sony, on the other hand, would still be ahead of the game even without Spider-verse with a 3.0 multiplier. The key? You guessed it, low budget horror - namely Insidious and The Pope's Exorcist.

The takeaway is that, with the exception of Sony, all the studios are struggling in a very similar way, but Uni has masked this by hitting the jackpot with Mario. No one seems to offer a viable model for the future, unless we want the only theatrical films to be cheap horror (which Disney also produces - see Boogeyman).

 

[TP2000]

Most people value things (including the arts) at a slightly higher threshold than what’s necessary for human life. YMMV - and it clearly does.

I love the arts. A decade ago I took a trip to Detroit just to visit The Motown Museum. It was even better than I'd hoped. And I firmly believe that Motown is some of the finest artistry that has ever come out of American culture. Truly a gift.

But Covid taught me that when the egg and meat cases at my local supermarket are empty, you have to forego frivolities like Motown.

If you asked people who is more important to American society, farmers or actors, I'd bet 99% of people would say farmers.

 

[TP2000]

Resentment fuels a lot of America, huh?

I'm sure that loathing for actors and writers is universal at your famous heartland dinner parties where everyone acts confused about current events, but some folks are capable of empathy even if they imagine some members of a group might have differing political views.

If you want to pretend that millionaire Hollywood actors are somehow sympathetic personas for people, go right ahead. I'm simply being honest and talking from my honest gut in saying that the concept of "Actors on strike" is not something that alarms most Americans, and the cause is not a sympathetic one for most folks.

Again, what do you do that you deem more socially significant then acting or writing? I fully understand if you don't want to say.

I'm retired. But I worked for decades in industrial supply.

It was often a boring industry for me as I'm not a trained engineer and had little technical understanding of the highway bridges and oil platforms and heavy infrastructure my firm was helping to build by literally supplying them nuts and bolts, but it paid incredibly well. And the firm I worked for the last 20 years of my career threw one helluva Christmas party every year. And my retirement is lovely. But that doesn't stop the fact that...

Hollywood actors are not a sympathetic cause that Americans will rally around when they go on strike.

 

[BrianLo]

Did you think of one besides Fast X and what I mentioned yet? It fizzled, but not as hard as Disney's consistent.

I'm really not sure what your point is. Universal only has had two tentpoles and one was a bit of the miss (Fast X). Mario was wildly successful.

They had two medium films and both were a miss (Renfield and Ruby Gillman).

They have had success with their small films. But 1/4 of their tentpole and medium films isn't some wildly successful streak. 3/7 films if we are including the small budget takes.