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

[BrianLo]

Btw, @BrianLo correct me if I’m wrong, but outside of their small budget Searchlight movies (which we don’t know the budgets on anyways) Disney had a 2024 with no movie loses. I don’t think any other studio can boast such a claim last year, or really any year in modern times.

Correct! And really the only searchlight film that isn’t micro would be a complete unknown and that just picked up an s-tonne of Oscar buzz, so I expect that will keep legging along.

They might have lost money on the Pixar re-releases if we get into the weeds, depends on how much they spent on marketing. But that’s micro and I really don’t think in normal circumstances we talk about re-releases.

It was an unusually successful 2024 rebound. Mufasa, IO2, Apes all definitely exceeded my expectations from this point last year; and we didn’t even know about Moana 2 yet.

 

[MagicMouseFan]

Don't bother. The movie will be a huge success

​

‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Tracking for Promising $90M-Plus U.S. Box Office Debut

The Marvel sequel sees Anthony Mackie take over duties as the marquee superhero, which opens over Presidents Day weekend.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

$180 million for Captain America is solid , Disney needs to keep these films under $200 million. The movie tracking at $90+ million is a great start

 

[Disney Irish]

Correct! And really the only searchlight film that isn’t micro would be a complete unknown and that just picked up an s-tonne of Oscar buzz, so I expect that will keep legging along.

They might have lost money on the Pixar re-releases if we get into the weeds, depends on how much they spent on marketing. But that’s micro and I really don’t think in normal circumstances we talk about re-releases.

It was an unusually successful 2024 rebound. Mufasa, IO2, Apes all definitely exceeded my expectations from this point last year; and we didn’t even know about Moana 2 yet.

What a difference a year makes! Iger for all his flaws have turned around Disney and put Studios back on a path for success.

 

[BrianLo]

This is not exhaustive, but a quick highlights tour of some of the biggest flops in what is considered a quite successful decade theatrically for Disney.

As @MisterPenguin has highlighted often in the past, there’s a relatively common denominator, I’m sure you can spot it.

2010-Prince of Persia/The Sorcerers Apprentice
2011-Mars Needs Moms
2012-John Carter
2013-The Lone Ranger
2014-Muppet Most Wanted/Million dollar arm (modest misses)
2015-Tomorrowland/Good Dinosaur
2016-Alice Through the Looking Glass/The BFG
2017-Cars 3 (very modest miss)
2018-A Wrinkle in Time / Solo
2019-Dark Phoenix - though otherwise sort of not their fault and an epic year

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

What a difference a year makes! Iger for all his flaws have turned around Disney and put Studios back on a path for success.

I give him a ton of credit for slimming down the release schedule to relatively safe releases, Disneys reputation for quality storytelling was severely damaged at the end of 2023, I think it’s largely been restored now, he absolutely deserves praise for that because another 2023 may have taken a decade to recover from. It’ll be interesting to see if that reputation and success carries over to next year with a more varied and questionable release schedule.

I think this is true with D+ also, still stumbled with some of the shows but overall the quality over quantity approach worked pretty well.

 

[Disney Irish]

I give him a ton of credit for slimming down the release schedule to relatively safe releases, Disneys reputation for quality storytelling was severely damaged at the end of 2023, I think it’s largely been restored now, he absolutely deserves praise for that because another 2023 may have taken a decade to recover from. It’ll be interesting to see if that reputation and success carries over to next year with a more varied and questionable release schedule.

He would have been given the blame had Disney had another dismal year, so he deserves the credit when they have success too. And 2024 was highly successful. Also outside of Mufasa I believe most every other film was started or finished after his return. Moana 2 was most certainly his decision to turn it from a streaming show to a theatrical release.

Edit - I see you edited your post to remove your question on how much credit Iger deserves.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

He would have been given the blame had Disney had another dismal year, so he deserves the credit when they have success too. And 2024 was highly successful. Also outside of Mufasa I believe most every other film was started or finished after his return. Moana 2 was most certainly his decision to turn it from a streaming show to a theatrical release.

Edit - I see you edited your post to remove your question on how much credit Iger deserves.

I’m trying to cut down on my “feedback sandwich” posts which include negativity in an otherwise positive post. I’m so used to doing it I usually don’t realize I did it until I get called on it or reread my post though

 

[DKampy]

Maybe similar, but inflation is much higher, and the reshoots were EXTENSIVE for this one. Let me stress, I'm not saying the numbers are wrong (or even insinuating it), I completely believe that's the numbers, it's just a lot less than I expected, which is a good thing for Marvel.

As Disney Marvel went on the OG Avenger cast got more and more expensive…. Without any original cast members… I am sure they can save a bit of money there… one plus in going with a Mackey Captain America

 

[brideck]

Correct! And really the only searchlight film that isn’t micro would be a complete unknown and that just picked up an s-tonne of Oscar buzz, so I expect that will keep legging along.

I think The First Omen (20th Century) was probably a little in the negative, no? That was actually a surprising miss for me at the time.

But obviously, everything else was a win on the scorecard.

 

[BrianLo]

I think The First Omen (20th Century) was probably a little in the negative, no? That was actually a surprising miss for me at the time.

But obviously, everything else was a win on the scorecard.

I was throwing that into the micro and very unknown break even category. If it lost money after streaming revenue, it’s almost a rounding error.

Certainly we can put a caveat that this year had no massive bombs, along with maybe 2017 if we’re being generous to the Cars franchise as a whole.

 

[Disney Irish]

I think The First Omen (20th Century) was probably a little in the negative, no? That was actually a surprising miss for me at the time.

But obviously, everything else was a win on the scorecard.

I'd technically put First Omen under Searchlight even though it was released under the 20th Century banner due to its very low budget. If it hadn't been part of the Omen franchise it would have been under the Searchlight banner.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Let's be honest, hardly anyone, besides a small sub group of movie fans, knows about any controversy with Snow White. If it doesn't do well at the box office it's because people chose to spend their money elsewhere and not because of anything that Zegler said.

In this case, I don’t know. I’ve seen a remarkably concerted effort of little micro pages all over my social media feeds trashing her, with many comments then also trashing her. Someone is out to get her. Half the country seem to think she’s the devil. I feel bad for her. I find her fairly compelling in the previews, and will likely see this film.

‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Tracking for Promising $90M-Plus U.S. Box Office Debut

The Marvel sequel sees Anthony Mackie take over duties as the marquee superhero, which opens over Presidents Day weekend.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Captain America with a reported $180 million budget. Anti-doomers, are we back?

Similarly, since a lot of people don’t know the comics, really myself included until I heard about it, a lot of people think this is some kind of woke move, and are against the film. When these kinds of things happen, it is at least some measure of an obstacle. A percentage of the potential audience is not just disinterested, but actively against certain things.

For me, the Captain America films are some of the most boring and hard to watch. They turned me off from the entire Marvel category after initially being turned on by Iron Man. It wasn’t until very recently. I went back and watched everything. I’ve never been particularly interested in the new guy, either. So this will be one of those times where it depends. If we happen to be going to the movies that week and it’s out, we might see it. We might wait for streaming. It’s not a must see at this point. That can change if I hear good things. The biggest draw for me would be Harrison Ford.

I think The First Omen (20th Century) was probably a little in the negative, no? That was actually a surprising miss for me at the time.

But obviously, everything else was a win on the scorecard.

You just reminded me, I can’t remember if I ever got around to seeing this. I remember being somewhat interested. I have no recollection. The only thing I can think of in my head is the Liev Schreiber version.

 

[LSLS]

As Disney Marvel went on the OG Avenger cast got more and more expensive…. Without any original cast members… I am sure they can save a bit of money there… one plus in going with a Mackey Captain America

Sure, but I can't imagine Harrisson Ford is costing less. And according to some of the people who were in the movie, they said they essentially shot the movie twice with the amount of reshoots. But whatever, I'm glad it's in that range (I was expecting $220 or more personally), gives it a good change to make a profit, which would be good for the future of the MCU and Falco in particular.

 

[DKampy]

And according to some of the people who were in the movie, they said they essentially shot the movie twice with the amount of reshoots.

Source?…. Because I will take a trade over some random blogger

 

[MagicMouseFan]

Source?…. Because I will take a trade over some random blogger

I couldn’t find anything confirming that half the movie was reshot, but there were significant and costly reshoots.

From Vulture:
“
Early test screenings of Brave New World, which hits theaters February 14, were reportedly disastrous, prompting expensive reshoots with major sequences cut from the film. According to a technical crew member on the film with knowledge of both the screenings and the reshoot process (which also took place last year), the character portrayed by Harrison Ford — Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, a demagogic military leader who morphs into an irrational, orange-hued superhuman — created unforeseen political resonances for the studio in an inaugural year.

“He’s this very powerful general who becomes kind of a fascist and turns into a raging Red Hulk. That was seen as an allusion to Trump,” this source explains. “Disney was realizing, Hey, we’ve been bleeding for a while. Let’s try not to off our core base anymore than we have been over the past couple of years.””

https://www.vulture.com/article/how-is-hollywood-preparing-for-the-trump-sequel.html

 

[LSLS]

Source?…. Because I will take a trade over some random blogger

Tim Blake Nelson did an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. His quote:

"Well, we’re done. I’ve shot it. I’ve actually shot it twice because I did it originally a year ago, and then we came back and redid a lot of it at the beginning of it this summer."
Interview

They say it was 22 days of reshoots, which if what I read is correct, is longer than normal (I've read normal is 2 days-2 weeks, but I'm far from an expert in Hollywood so that could be wrong), but it is less than some of the more recent MCU films.

Honestly it's not as big a deal as people are making my comments to be. I was simply surprised it was less than $200 million between some of the stars in it and the reshoots and the recent Disney history. It's not a bad thing at all, and like I just said, I'm far from some Hollywood expert, so me being off on how much I expected the budget to be isn't that surprising. Just my personal first thought.

 

[Disney Irish]

Tim Blake Nelson did an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. His quote:

"Well, we’re done. I’ve shot it. I’ve actually shot it twice because I did it originally a year ago, and then we came back and redid a lot of it at the beginning of it this summer."
Interview

They say it was 22 days of reshoots, which if what I read is correct, is longer than normal (I've read normal is 2 days-2 weeks, but I'm far from an expert in Hollywood so that could be wrong), but it is less than some of the more recent MCU films.

Honestly it's not as big a deal as people are making my comments to be. I was simply surprised it was less than $200 million between some of the stars in it and the reshoots and the recent Disney history. It's not a bad thing at all, and like I just said, I'm far from some Hollywood expert, so me being off on how much I expected the budget to be isn't that surprising. Just my personal first thought.

I wouldn’t take what Nelson said as anything more than a hyperbolic statement. It might have felt like he shot the movie twice because he had to come back and do reshoots after so much time away, but that doesn’t mean they really did.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Reshoots are part of the creative process, not a sign of failure or panic.

 

[LSLS]

Reshoots are part of the creative process, not a sign of failure or panic.

I did NOT say they were not, nor did I say that makes this a bad movie, nor anything else. ALL I said was that based on there being relatively large reshoots, I figured the budget would be higher. I was simply saying I was surprised this came in under $200 million. Nowhere did i say it's failed, it's panic time, the movie will bomb, etc. In fact hilariously this is one of the first Marvel movies in a while I'm excited to see. I don't think it's going to be some masterpiece, but it feels like there will be lots of action, and that's good enough for me.

 

[Disney Irish]

I did NOT say they were not, nor did I say that makes this a bad movie, nor anything else. ALL I said was that based on there being relatively large reshoots, I figured the budget would be higher. I was simply saying I was surprised this came in under $200 million. Nowhere did i say it's failed, it's panic time, the movie will bomb, etc. In fact hilariously this is one of the first Marvel movies in a while I'm excited to see. I don't think it's going to be some masterpiece, but it feels like there will be lots of action, and that's good enough for me.

Part of the issue is that there has been a string of posters (not just one) recently that has taken reshoots as a sign of an issue with a movie that should be cause for alarm. So when posters bring up reshoots as being a reason why they think xyz, others have to remind them that reshoots are normal and not an immediate sign of a problematic movie. So you're just getting caught up in that, not that you specifically said anything was wrong.

But back on the budget, I also don't automatically draw a correlation between reshoots and a very high budget. Reshoots can cause a budget to explode, but its not an foregone conclusion. I know we've been sort of trained to just assume that reshoots cause budget overruns to occur, especially with Disney and MCU movies, but I think this shows that we can no longer make that assumption anymore.