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

[celluloid]

I get that. I loved the first film too, but the second didn’t quite live up to it for me. I definitely didn’t expect it to become the most successful animated film of all time.

People want Disney to be Disney. This was the closest Disney Pixar has been to Disney Pixar in a long time.

It is not that Inside Out 2 was GREAT for many people.

If someone is hungry enough, they will believe chicken is a steak.

 

[erasure fan1]

Perhaps. But Disney is still receiving plenty of (ideologically inflected) bad press at the moment, which is why I’m genuinely puzzled by the apparent—and rather sudden—box-office turnaround.

Honestly I think you're over thinking it. It just goes to show, that when you make films that are quality, and that resonate with the audience, people go. I'm not surprised in the least. The vast majority of fans want Disney to succeed.

 

[LittleBuford]

People want Disney to be Disney. This was the closest Disney Pixar has been to Disney Pixar in a long time.

Elemental felt very Pixar to me. But I agree nostalgia for something familiar must have played a role in Inside Out 2’s phenomenal success.

 

[LittleBuford]

Honestly I think you're over thinking it. It just goes to show, that when you make films that are quality, and that resonate with the audience, people go. I'm not surprised in the least. The vast majority of fans want Disney to succeed.

I think many of us have been left at least somewhat confused by the behaviour of the box office in recent years, and not just as it pertains to Disney (someone mentioned Mission: Impossible a little earlier). I may well be overthinking it, but I don’t think it’s quite as simple as you suggest.

 

[bwr827]

The temptation to assign one main factor to explain something complex is a fool’s errand.

It wasn’t one thing before, and it’s not one thing now.

I’m happy to see Disney succeeding, because overall I love a lot of their stuff and would like to enjoy more of it.

Eg the Infinity Saga was an incredible journey. I’d love to see the MCU restore its former glory.

 

[erasure fan1]

I think many of us have been left at least somewhat confused by the behaviour of the box office in recent years, and not just as it pertains to Disney (someone mentioned Mission: Impossible a little earlier). I may well be overthinking it, but I don’t think it’s quite as simple as you suggest.

Sure it's more intricate than good movie = good box-office. There will always be outliers either way. I just don't think it's shocking that they've bounced back. While non of us can fully predict anything when it comes to the box-office. You do see some patterns that have formed that tend to lead to success.

 

[erasure fan1]

Elemental felt very Pixar to me. But I agree nostalgia for something familiar must have played a role in Inside Out 2’s phenomenal success.

Yes elemental was very pixar. It's only problem was a sceptical audience. Disney had a string of bad, a few meh, and a couple they were ok, films. It took a bit for it to get going, and word of mouth kept it going. Of course nostalgia plays a role, especially when the film is really good. As I said, fans want Disney to succeed, they want to support them.

 

[DKampy]

On balance, I think I agree with @Disney Analyst that ideological factors were not particularly impactful in the first place. I acknowledge that the situation regarding the governor of Florida has changed, but I’m doubtful that this shift can account for what we’re seeing at the box office, particularly at the international level.

I believe it was as simple as Disney was putting out films that were easy targets… Lightyear did not do well because it was not a great movie…. Not because of a very brief same sex couple scene… but it made some feel good about their own hate to say it was for ideology reasons…. Now that Disney films are successful…the noise will quiet…. Elemental was probably more “woke” then any of the films that was complained about, but since it had good word of mouth… not a peep

 

[mickEblu]

I think it’s pretty widely accepted that the film relates to immigrant experiences and to themes of love across cultural/racial lines. The director has confirmed this is the case in multiple interviews.

Yeah most people don’t have an issue with those themes or find them Woke. They have been common themes in movies now for a while.

 

[BrianLo]

It's all just Trojan-horsing beliefs into something that is, at best, was always tangentially related.

TLM suffered Internationally, but not because the internet willed it so. The rest were all movies that merely failed to catch on. Elemental and IO2 had far more messaging than Wish and Lightyears token exchanges. As mentioned, the preachiest film of them all was Barbie. Even still, when the vitriol at Disney was in its hey day, the company still had Avatar 2. Something constantly ignored in this thread all last year.

I still think Pixar was detrimentally hurt by the D+ release strategy. But I also think during Elemental we watched the unwinding of that occur. What was lost or unknown to me was how much it could be unwound. Turns out all the way.


Marvel was never really dead though. We act like they didn't just come off of Spiderman, Doctor Strange, Wakanda and GoTG3.

 

[mickEblu]

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.

And if, as you claimed in your last post, it’s all a cumulative effect, why are things suddenly turning around at this moment? It’s not as if Disney’s political image is any different now than it was a year ago.

Yeah I’m not sure I found the movie anti patriarchal but I can understand how one could come to that conclusion.

No, I labeled it that way because it happened to be a Good movie that’s also not Woke and it makes sense within the context of that post. You could have a Good movie that’s also woke or semi -woke that does well but not as well as Inside Out 2. Nowhere did I say that Not Woke = Good Movie. The success of these movies has forced me to do nothing. What are you talking about? You had a boy crushing on another boy in Strange World and two women kissing in Lightyear. There is nothing in Elemental that comes close to any of that in terms of what people may find woke or what parents might have an issue with. AND it just happens to be a better movie than Lightyear or Strange World. Much better.

Why are you assuming that all people are either on Board with Disney or not? Many people, just need a good movie or two to get back on board or just make their decision to take their kids based on the content of that movie. Inside Out 2 was a good movie that had good word of mouth. It was also a sequel. It was also not Woke. I also think people have just been waiting for a good summer family movie and they got the timing right.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

The fact is, some films did not do well for a myriad of reasons. Yet one side decided to use those flops as fodder for their “anti-woke” messaging, when the truth is that made a negligible difference.

Plenty of presumably “woke” films have been smash hits (cough Barbie cough). But they refuse to see the idiocy of their argument, and double down.

Disney is successful again at the box office, and not a peep from them.

These people flip on a dime.

Let's not forget Super Mario Bros. It was attacked by the usual suspects because the Princess was the competent hero who had to teach Mario who was basically useless without her. Poor emasculated Mario.

Then the movie was a hit and suddenly it was heralded as being "anti woke".

It's all so laughably obvious and tedious.

 

[BrianLo]

Deadpool looks poised to overtake Inside Out 2's lifetime domestic gross - or at least land very, very similarly. Its opening weekend aligns with a lot of 600+ million other Marvel or blockbuster fare. Both should be nipping at the heels of the top ten all time best domestic box offices (entrants held back by Jurassic World at 652).

The pair should collectively easily overtake Barbie and Mario. Though not 2022's Maverick and Way of Water.

 

[Ghost93]

I think many of us have been left at least somewhat confused by the behaviour of the box office in recent years, and not just as it pertains to Disney (someone mentioned Mission: Impossible a little earlier). I may well be overthinking it, but I don’t think it’s quite as simple as you suggest.

Yeah, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of great movies that have flopped and an equal amount of mediocre or terrible movies that have made a lot of money. Box office isn't always an indicator of quality.

 

[doctornick]

Elemental felt very Pixar to me. But I agree nostalgia for something familiar must have played a role in Inside Out 2’s phenomenal success.

I think Elemental rehabilitated Pixar’s image a ton once people got around to watching it on D+. It was just too late for that film’s box office but helps to explain the willingness/eagerness to give IO2 a shot

 

[LittleBuford]

Yeah most people don’t have an issue with those themes or find them Woke. They have been common themes in movies now for a while.

Then it seems the concept of wokeness is a pretty meaningless metric. It only appears to matter when a film doesn’t do well.

 

[LittleBuford]

It's all just Trojan-horsing beliefs into something that is, at best, was always tangentially related.

TLM suffered Internationally, but not because the internet willed it so. The rest were all movies that merely failed to catch on. Elemental and IO2 had far more messaging than Wish and Lightyears token exchanges. As mentioned, the preachiest film of them all was Barbie. Even still, when the vitriol at Disney was in its hey day, the company still had Avatar 2. Something constantly ignored in this thread all last year.

I still think Pixar was detrimentally hurt by the D+ release strategy. But I also think during Elemental we watched the unwinding of that occur. What was lost or unknown to me was how much it could be unwound. Turns out all the way.


Marvel was never really dead though. We act like they didn't just come off of Spiderman, Doctor Strange, Wakanda and GoTG3.

I think this is a really astute take.

 

[bwr827]

Then it seems the concept of wokeness is a pretty meaningless metric. It only appears to matter when a film doesn’t do well.

And here’s the post you wanted to make when you were “confused” and “puzzled” yesterday.

If you honestly were confused as you claim, then the rest of us know where your head is at better than you do.

“Wokeness” was never a sole factor, and it’s not a binary (pun intended) on/off switch. Its context has also changed. Situations evolve. Creators learn lessons. Etc.

 

[LittleBuford]

And here’s the post you wanted to make when you were “confused” and “puzzled” yesterday.

If you honestly were confused as you claim, then the rest of us know where your head is at better than you do.

“Wokeness” was never a sole factor, and it’s not a binary (pun intended) on/off switch. Its context has also changed. Situations evolve. Creators learn lessons. Etc.

Nope. You can look at my posting history and trace my confusion for yourself if you don’t believe me. I went from being entirely sceptical of the idea that ideological factors played any significant role in Disney’s box-office fortunes to being convinced that they must be having a real impact (certainly not the only impact, but an appreciable one). This shift in my view came about last year; I couldn’t explain the degree of Disney’s slump otherwise (Wish may not have been a great film, but even its harshest critics were surprised at just how poorly it did). So yes, having already changed my thinking on the issue once, I was indeed surprised when Inside Out 2 broke the pattern as suddenly and completely as it did. To me at least, it’s not all that easy to make sense of.

I have no problem with you disagreeing with my posts or faulting my logic, but please stop calling me a liar. That isn’t my style and never has been.