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

[LittleBuford]

Fair enough, my apologies.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

 

[LittleBuford]

Others have already offered helpful insights that help explain how Inside Out 2 did not accomplish this pattern-break out of the blue, nor all by itself.

Setting aside my overly rude approach, the isolated and simplistic view is why it was so obvious where you were taking your line of thinking.

I’m not sure I understand you here. To clarify what I’m saying:

• I thought we would see at least another year of iffy box-office performances from Disney based on my (apparently mistaken) belief that the company had suffered long-term damage to its reputation.
• I wouldn’t have been overly surprised had a Frozen-style blockbuster broken the pattern sooner than my imagined timeframe. Before it was released, I even wondered if Wish might be that blockbuster (it obviously wasn’t).
• It would never have occurred to me that Inside Out 2 would end up being that film. Its level of success would have been surprising to me even before 2020.

I’m not sure if that makes sense. I admit my thinking on this is quite muddled.

 

[CinematicFusion]

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.

Or…
The success of “woke” narratives in films varies with the target market. The Barbie movie resonates well with its core audience of young girls and women, aligning with themes of empowerment and diversity.
In contrast, franchises like Marvel and Star Wars have historically male-dominated fanbases, making it more challenging to integrate progressive themes without facing resistance from a wide part of their audience.

Ultimately, understanding and appealing to the target market, managing audience expectations, and authentically weaving themes into the story are key factors in the success of any film narrative.

Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, and the entire Deadpool movie provided a warm, loving embrace for the Marvel male target audience. Similarly, Robert Downey Jr. as Dr. Doom will also excite and engage that target market.

Deadpool's Audience Under The Microscope

Movio’s data scientists have analyzed the evolution of the audience of one of 2016’s biggest hits, Deadpool.

vistagroup.co.nz

 

[easyrowrdw]

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.

Maybe everyone went to watch Glen Powell in Maverick.

I think a lot of it was timing. Oppenheimer and Barbie opened right after MI7. Oppenheimer took most of the IMAX screens and both movies seemed to suck up all the attention from a larger cultural perspective.

 

[Ghost93]

oI’m so confused. After initially resisting the idea, I really became convinced that Disney’s box-office slump was due in part to ideological opposition to the company, and then Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine (which I just saw) came along. Whatever the explanation, I’m glad we can (begin to) move on from some of the notions that have dominated these threads during the last two years.

Well, to be fair, Ron DeSantis has largely backed off attacking Disney in the past few months since he's no longer running for president. Whereas in 2022 and 2023, Disney was the political punching bag he needed and it was in his interest to keep the culture raging against Disney.

 

[LittleBuford]

Well, to be fair, Ron DeSantis has largely backed off attacking Disney in the past few months since he's no longer running for president. Whereas in 2022 and 2023, Disney was the political punching bag he needed and it was in his interest to keep the culture raging against Disney.

I suppose I find it difficult to wrap my head around the idea that the DeSantis feud can have had such an impact, particularly given that the trends under discussion happened at an international level. Anyway, I’m happy to accept that there are no simple explanations.

 

[BrianLo]

I suppose I find it difficult to wrap my head around the idea that the DeSantis feud can have had such an impact, particularly given that the trends under discussion happened at an international level. Anyway, I’m happy to accept that there are no simple explanations.

There are none. It was incredibly multi factorial.

Strange World is a poor sci fi throw back film in the ilk of Treasure Planet or Atlantis. These films never connect with the core Disney family audience. You can find me calling the film very uninteresting at D23 2022 - and I think I qualify as the unusually optimistic and cheery type on all their output and products. That film fell totally flat in a spectacular way because the subject and themes are just not what the core Disney Audience was after. I still haven’t watched it, which is exactly why it’s the least of everything I’m about to mention.

Encanto was destroyed by D+ release strategy. I don’t think its strength as a film is in question. We know its box office lacks alignment with the sub-Frozen adjacent strength of its cultural cache.

Luca and Turning Red are both actually strong performers. They still are in and around the top ten D+ rotation. These would have been moderate theatrical performers if not for the Pandemic. Almost all the movies I’m mentioning other than Encanto and Elemental did not make their way into the toddler animation rotation.

TLM actually did ‘well’ domestically. Something the detractors have a problem with. The lead, unfortunately, really seemed to kneecap International. A bit of remake fatigue as well, but retrospectively even the total box office take with the above acknowledged is actually not that bad.

Buzz seemed to get rejected in a one two three punch of sci fi not really being animations strong suit, the immediacy of all animation films coming to streaming within a month and the ‘Not our Buzz’ lack of Buzz.

Indy seemed to have bounced off the box office like MI:7. The nostalgic audience just wasn’t there like they thought.

Elemental did well once the above factors started to reprieve themselves. Haunted Mansion had a dumping ground of a nonsense release date. DTC the movie, with a last minute theatrical release, played as such.

The Marvels I think leaned into a female audience that seemingly was never actually there for the first movie. In fact, I’m surprised how male leaning the first film was. Something like 70%? I think this reasonably solid movie will get the usual Dark World, Fox treatment and be somehow turned more fondly by its rewritten importance down the line.


I don’t get Wish. Like at all. I don’t think Disney does either. They knew Strange World had zero traction early in its campaign. They were really caught off guard on the apathy for Wish. Not arguing it’s a strong film, but I thought well marketed Disney Musicals had more of a floor.

 

[Disney Analyst]

 

[LittleBuford]

There are none. It was incredibly multi factorial.

Strange World is a poor sci fi throw back film in the ilk of Treasure Planet or Atlantis. These films never connect with the core Disney family audience. You can find me calling the film very uninteresting at D23 2022 - and I think I qualify as the unusually optimistic and cheery type on all their output and products. That film fell totally flat in a spectacular way because the subject and themes are just not what the core Disney Audience was after. I still haven’t watched it, which is exactly why it’s the least of everything I’m about to mention.

Encanto was destroyed by D+ release strategy. I don’t think its strength as a film is in question. We know its box office lacks alignment with the sub-Frozen adjacent strength of its cultural cache.

Luca and Turning Red are both actually strong performers. They still are in and around the top ten D+ rotation. These would have been moderate theatrical performers if not for the Pandemic. Almost all the movies I’m mentioning other than Encanto and Elemental did not make their way into the toddler animation rotation.

TLM actually did ‘well’ domestically. Something the detractors have a problem with. The lead, unfortunately, really seemed to kneecap International. A bit of remake fatigue as well, but retrospectively even the total box office take with the above acknowledged is actually not that bad.

Buzz seemed to get rejected in a one two three punch of sci fi not really being animations strong suit, the immediacy of all animation films coming to streaming within a month and the ‘Not our Buzz’ lack of Buzz.

Indy seemed to have bounced off the box office like MI:7. The nostalgic audience just wasn’t there like they thought.

Elemental did well once the above factors started to reprieve themselves. Haunted Mansion had a dumping ground of a nonsense release date. DTC the movie, with a last minute theatrical release, played as such.

The Marvels I think leaned into a female audience that seemingly was never actually there for the first movie. In fact, I’m surprised how male leaning the first film was. Something like 70%? I think this reasonably solid movie will get the usual Dark World, Fox treatment and be somehow turned more fondly by its rewritten importance down the line.


I don’t get Wish. Like at all. I don’t think Disney does either. They knew Strange World had zero traction early in its campaign. They were really caught off guard on the apathy for Wish. Not arguing it’s a strong film, but I thought well marketed Disney Musicals had more of a floor.

This is all very convincing—thank you for stating it so well!

 

[CinematicFusion]

Behold the box office feats of Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine this past weekend:

Highest R-Rated Opening of All-Time Both Worldwide and Domestic: At $438.3M worldwide and $205Mdomestic. Deadpool & Wolverine beats previous record-holder Deadpool from 2016 ($264M WW in like for like markets excluding China, $132.4M domestic).

Biggest Global opening since Avatar The Way of Water ($439M in like for like markets at current rates).

Highest July opening weekend of all-time at domestic box office, surpassing The Lion King ($191.8M).

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I don’t get Wish. Like at all. I don’t think Disney does either.

I can't think of another Disney movie that had as much box office and audience appeal on paper, yet tanked so hard.

Historically, Disney bombs are either movies that didn't have obvious potential, or unwanted sequels. Wish was neither.

 

[Willmark]

Deadpool was going to be a hit no matter what; it’s Deadpool. However Deadpool is not really the MCU; it’s stand alone.

The success of the movie doesn’t really tell us anything with how the MCU will do next year. Apparently the next Cap movie is back to reshoots again? If that is true it’s budget has likely swelled incredibly high.

The MCU still has a fair number of box office issues to address we’ll see what next year brings.

 

[CinematicFusion]

I can't think of another Disney movie that had as much box office and audience appeal on paper, yet tanked so hard.

Historically, Disney bombs are either movies that didn't have obvious potential, or unwanted sequels. Wish was neither.

Cat From Outer Space? J/K…. The Black Cauldron would be another film that had all the potential and failed. The film’s poor performance had a substantial impact on Disney’s animation division, leading to changes in leadership and paving the way for the “Disney Renaissance” era that began with “The Little Mermaid” in 1989.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Twisters wasn't completely wiped out by Deadpool. It dropped 56-57% and has made about $155 million in 10 days.

Where it's really struggled is at the foreign box office. Just $66 million to date.

 

[Miss Rori]

I think that's telling that The Black Cauldron and Wish are the movies that "had all the potential and failed". It's because the potential was promised in their ad campaigns but not actually realized by the filmmakers; both movies were meddled to death, by executives who didn't want to go too dark in the case of Black Cauldron (and to be fair, in the mid-'80s Disney was not powerful enough to overcome any upset from parents and moral guardians over content in an animated feature), and filmmakers who were concerned with the superficial trappings of a "Disney movie", not the substance, with Wish. They both came out watered down and dull for it.

Actually, the website Vulture has a podcast, Land of the Giants, and this season's been discussing Disney as a corporation over the years. Their most recent episode discusses the animation division's history from the '80s onward and how it's largely lost the thread of late as to what a "Disney movie" actually is (including an interview with Glen Keane):

 

[BrianLo]

Deadpool was going to be a hit no matter what; it’s Deadpool. However Deadpool is not really the MCU; it’s stand alone.

The success of the movie doesn’t really tell us anything with how the MCU will do next year. Apparently the next Cap movie is back to reshoots again? If that is true it’s budget has likely swelled incredibly high.

The MCU still has a fair number of box office issues to address we’ll see what next year brings.

No Way Home, Thor 4, Wakanda Forever, DS: MoM and GoTG3. Even Secret Invasion that I incredibly bounced off of had shockingly good viewership.

It’s less that this is a one-off exception - and more like everything they serve us is not a guaranteed billion earner like it was in the hey day. Some of that is content flooding and people realizing they can skip things and it’s not really earth shattering to do so.

Even D3, which I absolutely love, is seemingly entirely skippable and self contained, for now.

All that said, they hit the break glass in case of emergency at Comic Con. Even if Cap 4 misses, I think there are some billion earners on their slate. The death of the MCU and Pixar were exaggerated and both were just incessantly hurt by Chapek’s D+.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Actually, the website Vulture has a podcast, Land of the Giants, and this season's been discussing Disney as a corporation over the years. Their most recent episode discusses the animation division's history from the '80s onward and how it's largely lost the thread of late as to what a "Disney movie" actually is (including an interview with Glen Keane):

I appreciate the content of this podcast episode, but this is another glossing over of history that ignores things besides Little Mermaid that got Disney pushing for animation again.

Don Bluth walking out the door with other staff and making the very profitable American Tail was a major ego bruise and wake up call for Disney. Roger Rabbit's phenomenal success was proof that animation could have adult appeal. It wasn't just that Disney animation had lost its way relative to its past, there was real competition brewing that was actually making money and taking their market share. It took forces in AND outside of Disney to start thinking about animation differently.

 

[BrianLo]

Apes has quietly snuck up to the doorstep of its 2.5x multiplier. I think we can declare the drought officially over.

The company bragged about it in their presser. I’m interested what they’ll do with the franchise. Either a tightly budgeted sequel or a more spendy Planet of the Apes confluence.

The Walt Disney Company has released the No.1 title for May (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes), June (Inside Out 2), and July (Deadpool & Wolverine).

 

[MisterPenguin]

Marvel Studios Crosses $30 Billion at the Worldwide Box Office - The Walt Disney Company

Marvel Studios has achieved a mighty feat at the box office thanks to the amazing start of "Deadpool & Wolverine."

thewaltdisneycompany.com

 

[celluloid]

Deadpool was going to be a hit no matter what; it’s Deadpool. However Deadpool is not really the MCU; it’s stand alone.

The success of the movie doesn’t really tell us anything with how the MCU will do next year. Apparently the next Cap movie is back to reshoots again? If that is true it’s budget has likely swelled incredibly high.

The MCU still has a fair number of box office issues to address we’ll see what next year brings.

It also had its ace in the hole that not only is it a climax to a set up to follow huts, it got Jackman back as Wolverine.

I would much rather be a Uni studio exec with a variety of hits and brand advocacy/trust.