200 million
variety.com
Quality content and storytelling, strong franchises, and relatable A-list stars that both men and women can fantasize about being or being with can still attract audiences. I’m sure my wife fantasizes about being with Hugh Jackman… she bought us tickets a month ago. But that’s what cinema is all about: the fantasy and a break from the everyday world.
I think it was ideological opposition to the movies, not the company. I think the success of the last few movies just proves what most here have said, it’s the story that matters, focus on a good story instead of a message and people will still show up.
What was the ideological opposition to Wish?
They took a story that was originally about the origins of the wishing star, seen in many Disney movies, and turned it into a story about bringing down the patriarchy.
In regards to Wish, the film wasn’t interesting, and audiences agreed—hardly anyone showed up. I don’t think there was a single character in the film that the audience could identify with, aspire to be, or wanted to be with. My girls saw it once and never talked about it again. Ultimately, it was a forgettable film.
Agree and so did the audience… While addressing contemporary issues is important, audiences primarily seek entertainment from Disney movies. If the messaging overshadows the storytelling, it can detract from the overall enjoyment, leading to a perception that the film is more didactic than delightful.
That certainly wasn’t my reading of it, and I don’t think such an interpretation gained any real steam until after the film had already flopped. At that point, a familiar pattern kicked in whereby those intent on framing things politically promoted an ideological explanation for the film’s failure (while neglecting to account for why Elemental did quite well despite having a much stronger social message).
Honestly, I think the film did much worse than it deserved to (or would have done pre-2020), and its failure (together with that of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) is what finally convinced me that Disney may have suffered some sort of longstanding ideological damage to its reputation that was keeping people away from even the most unobjectionable of releases. I find it difficult to square such a reading, however, with the remarkable box-office turnaround we’re now seeing.
Assuming what is true?
What surprised me the most last year was MI 7. Despite great reviews from audiences and critics, and with Cruise coming off the mega-hit Maverick, I thought the movie was a great action film… but it bombed. Still scratching my head at that one.
Wish struggled (my opinion) to balance its storytelling and thematic delivery, leading to criticisms on both fronts. The film’s failure to engage through its characters and plot, combined with its overt messaging, contributed to its mixed reception. These elements combined to create a viewing experience that many found less engaging and more didactic than they would have preferred.
I am not positive of where I might have readi it… but I remember seeing 200 million at one point
I did not find Wish lecturing
I enjoyed the film more than others here did but am perfectly willing to accept that many found it boring and uninspired. That was certainly the critical consensus. What I don’t find at all convincing is the notion that droves of people kept away because they deemed the content anti-patriarchal.
This and your previous post bear out my point. Because Inside Out 2 has done so incredibly well, you’ve had to label it “Not Woke” even though it has plenty of “woke” features. Similarly, Elemental’s success has forced you to label it less “woke” than Lightyear when it patently isn’t. Yours is a logic that invokes wokeness to explain failure but ignores its presence when the film in question is a success.
What was its overt messaging in your opinion? The interpretations that people have offered over in the Wish thread are all over the place. If the film was lecturing us (and I personally don’t think it was), there seems to be little agreement on what it was saying.
It felt like 1970s The Phantom Tollbooth to me.
