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

[Casper Gutman]

But Wicked the, musical the movie is based on, is full of references to the MGM movie and only works as an alternate Oz retelling if you know what that was.

Wicked has existed for decades as a hit musical and cultural phenomenon. It tells a story that is complete in itself and does not require familiarity with the original. It is an enormously different take on some of the same material with clear (to the point of excess) themes.

Had Snow White used the original as a springboard for something totally new - say, the Shaolin Monk idea - it would still have faced an uphill battle but it wouldn’t be entirely dependent on nostalgia for a nearly 90-year-old original the way the live-action remakes are.

How did Oz the Great and Powerful do?

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

Current prediction is a 68% drop for Snow White in its second weekend (worse than Dumbo), with $13.7 million total

Jason Statham’s ‘Working Man’ With $15M+ Opening Puts ‘Snow White’ To Sleep & Sends Jenna Ortega’s ‘Unicorn’ Out To Pasture – Sunday Box Office Update

Jason Statham's 'A Working Man' leading the weekend box office with $15M+ ahead of Jenna Ortega's 'Death of a Unicorn' and 'Snow White'

deadline.com

Oof, downright atrocious.

I saw Friday had a drop of 77%.

The rumblings of its boxoffice keep plummeting... whispers on the net now questioning if it will cross 80m domestic

"It likely wont even make back its advertising cost" has also entered the chat.

 

[BrianLo]

Honest question, with the Bambi remake having been canceled, how many more original animated features are potential grist for the mill?

The Rescuers 1 & 2, Robin Hood, The Fox and Hound, the 80s titles that aren’t recognizable enough properties to be worth the expense…

Point being they’re quickly running out of movies to pull from. So I guess they’ll go back to sequels for everything.

You are right, there isn't much left. They've done like 25 of them now and that's the bulk of the low lying stuff.

Sleeping Beauty, Hercules, Tangled, P&tF, Brave, Coco, Frozen.. Encanto. I only bring half that up because of Moana... which I think is a terrible mistake.

Aristocats, Rescuers, Robin Hood, Sword in the Stone have direct to D+ energy.

I think Tarzan, Pochohantas and Hunchback are awkward for various reasons.

Edit - I'm dumb, Maleficent is sleeping beauty.

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

A group of Disney friends just departed Ft. Lauderdale on the Disney Dream for a cruise to Cozumel and Castaway Cay. They mentioned Snow White is showing on the boat and were wondering if they'd be drunk and bored enough to go fall asleep seeing it on the boat.

 

[Chi84]

This is where we are…years of throwing these not clever “darts” in the box office thread.

You can try to compartmentalize the comments to “diffuse” it…I can appreciate that.

But it doesn’t change the history of the downright ugly here. For my part…that’s my bad. But I just say it when my opinion differs…not this kindergarten “I never said THAT” or “what do you mean?” Low brow stuff.

This thread should he closed. Facts were optional long ago.

The excuses for some white bombing…because nobody ever wanted it for a hot minute…is apparently Snow White is just not acceptable for such a cosmopolitan world now.

Belle made $1.3 bil…and she was taken hostage and put into a cell by a werewolf…but that scanned…apparently?

But Beauty and the Beast was an interesting story with more developed characters.

I’m not sure what you mean by cosmopolitan. My grandkids are excited to see the Minecraft movie but haven’t asked to see Snow White even though they’ve seen the ads.

They’re normal, bright kids but I wouldn’t call them cosmopolitan.

 

[Casper Gutman]

You are right, there isn't much left. They've done like 25 of them now and that's the bulk of the low lying stuff.

Sleeping Beauty, Hercules, Tangled, P&tF, Brave, Coco, Frozen.. Encanto. I only bring half that up because of Moana... which I think is a terrible mistake.

Aristocats, Rescuers, Robin Hood, Sword in the Stone have direct to D+ energy.

I think Tarzan, Pochohantas and Hunchback are awkward for various reasons.

Sword in the Stone is ripe for a fairly big budget live action series based on the original book series. That actually seems like a logical IP to revive.

 

[Farerb]

They should remake The Aristocats the same way Universal did Cats.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

How did Oz the Great and Powerful do?

It was a bad movie, but did better than people remember with $235 million domestically, and nearly $500 million worldwide unadjusted for a dozen years of inflation.

What sunk it was the high production/marketing budget that required it needing $700 million to justify its existence and it playing poorly in countries less familiar/enamored with Oz, something even Wicked had to deal with.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

They should remake The Aristocats the same way Universal did Cats.

With Chappell roan instead of Taylor this time?…

…i’m interested

 

[Disney Irish]

This is where we are…years of throwing these not clever “darts” in the box office thread.

You can try to compartmentalize the comments to “diffuse” it…I can appreciate that.

But it doesn’t change the history of the downright ugly here. For my part…that’s my bad. But I just say it when my opinion differs…not this kindergarten “I never said THAT” or “what do you mean?” Low brow stuff.

This thread should be closed. Facts were optional long ago.

The excuses for snow white bombing…because nobody ever wanted it for a hot minute…is apparently Snow White is just not acceptable for such a cosmopolitan world now.

Belle made $1.3 bil…and she was taken hostage and put into a cell by a werewolf…but that scanned…apparently?

The difference here my friend is that I don't think I've ever said that Snow White was going to be a success, if I ever did it was years ago when the project was first announced. I've already said, especially recently, that this project probably was a mistake and probably shouldn't have been made. It however doesn't mean I don't have an opinion on the whys this one failed just like others, so I talk about them. This is a discussion forum after all, and we all discuss the topics at hand.

As for past conversations about other projects, so what. I'm entitled to an opinion just as you are.

But its funny how you want to rail against a few for not talking about box office or whatever else, but not others just because you agree with their takes on things.

 

[Agent H]

Big Hero Six remake that integrates it into the MCU?

Not the worst idea they’ve had.

 

[Agent H]

I remain confused why we’re suddenly saying the original Snow White is irrelevant. Feels like there’s some Scrooge mcduck levels of rewriting history going on here .

 

[Agent H]

Sword in the Stone is ripe for a fairly big budget live action series based on the original book series. That actually seems like a logical IP to revive.

An even better option would be the series of books that inspired the black cauldron.

 

[Chi84]

I remain confused why we’re suddenly saying the original Snow White is irrelevant. Feels like there’s some Scrooge mcduck levels of rewriting history going on here .

I don’t think anyone is saying it’s irrelevant. It’s more that the story is not the best for a modern day remake.

You’ve heard the term “didn’t age well?”

When I first saw the original I posted a fairly lengthy opinion on why a faithful remake wouldn’t resonate with modern audiences. It was posted in November 2024 in the now-closed Snow White thread.

We’re not “suddenly” saying this.

 

[Agent H]

I don’t think anyone is saying it’s irrelevant. It’s more that the story is not the best for a modern day remake.

You’ve heard the term “didn’t age well?”

When I first saw the original I posted a fairly lengthy opinion on why a faithful remake wouldn’t resonate with modern audiences. It was posted in November 2024 in the now-closed Snow White thread.

We’re not “suddenly” saying this.

Perhaps irrelevant was the wrong term. But I truly don’t understand the insinuation that kids today would find the Snow White story as it was told in 1937 unenjoyable when for generations prior it didn’t seem that way. If it’s true it’s very depressing. As for the use of the term suddenly I have not read the entirety of that thread and I have thought this was a very strange thing to hear so much over the past month or so.

 

[TalkingHead]

You are right, there isn't much left. They've done like 25 of them now and that's the bulk of the low lying stuff.

Sleeping Beauty, Hercules, Tangled, P&tF, Brave, Coco, Frozen.. Encanto. I only bring half that up because of Moana... which I think is a terrible mistake.

Aristocats, Rescuers, Robin Hood, Sword in the Stone have direct to D+ energy.

I think Tarzan, Pochohantas and Hunchback are awkward for various reasons.

Edit - I'm dumb, Maleficent is sleeping beauty.

Since you’re the numbers guru, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of business Stitch will need to do to cover the eventual loss here.

 

[Chi84]

Perhaps irrelevant was the wrong term. But I truly don’t understand the insinuation that kids today would find the Snow White story as it was told in 1937 unenjoyable when for generations prior it didn’t seem that way. If it’s true it’s very depressing. As for the use of the term suddenly I have not read the entirety of that thread and I have thought this was a very strange thing to hear so much over the past month or so.

I think the Snow White story is wonderful. I read the story to my kids when they were young and it’s a fun story. It doesn’t take very long to read.

The dwarfs are great characters and the kids loved their antics at the Snow White character dinner.

But a full length film needs more story and character development than was contained in the original movie to fill the time and keep people’s interest.

We are talking about a very specific subject - whether the subject matter in the original film would translate to a modern movie.

 

[BlakeW39]

Plenty of kids grew up watching Snow White. Nostalgia for it is not limited to people who saw it in 1937.

Snow White was the 3rd highest selling VHS (not Disney VHS, in general) and either in or at least around the top ten highest selling Blu-rays depending on what source you look at, so probably those people. It also rereleased in theaters like twelve times all the way through to the 90s. Not sure what the streaming numbers are, admittedly, but the heavy switch to streaming is pretty recent, all things considered. Even if we presume no one streams it, that's pretty strong evidence people were watching it recently enough for young adults to have nostalgia for it.

I really don't understand why people suddenly act like we never moved past the "movies are in theaters then disappear" phase of movies when it comes to Snow White so only old people have watched it. Especially since you never hear this stuff for, like, Cinderella. 75 year old film is okay, but 88 years old will obviously only be watched by the elderly.


I do agree no one actually wanted this, though. Not because no one likes Snow White, but because I think most people knew the remake would turn out being garbage.

These are all fine points and I was hyperbolic in my comment. Obviously Snow White is not a film only known by or liked by old people. But I would postulate that the age of a film very much pertains to its relevance. 90s rennaisance era animated films like The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast are much more culturally relevant than films like Snow White, Pinnochio, and Dumbo. I don't think this is the main reason for the film's financial struggles, but I do think it contributed.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Oof, downright atrocious.

I saw Friday had a drop of 77%.

View attachment 850739

The rumblings of its boxoffice keep plummeting... whispers on the net now questioning if it will cross 80m domestic

"It likely wont even make back its advertising cost" has also entered the chat.

This is shocking for me, I expected this movie to struggle but this is far beyond even my worst expectations, I remember arguing over a year ago that Disney was in too deep to write this movie off but I’m starting to think they may have lost less had they just written off $250 million and got a tax write off.

My original guess (over a month ago) was a $100 million loss, after the predictions fell under $50 million for opening weekend I started thinking it would be a $200 million loss, now I’m starting to wonder if this could be a $300 million loss… and that’s based on a $500 million break even point.

Any hope of a big second weekend turning the tide seems to be lost.

 

[Agent H]

I think the Snow White story is wonderful. I read the story to my kids when they were young and it’s a fun story. It doesn’t take very long to read.

The dwarfs are great characters and the kids loved their antics at the Snow White character dinner.

But a full length film needs more story and character development than was contained in the original movie to fill the time and keep people’s interest.

We are talking about a very specific subject - whether the subject matter in the original film would translate to a modern movie.

I haven’t Seen the movie yet and probably won’t for several months so I don’t know if the new movie will have more character development and story than the old one. The only thing I see that could be significantly improved is the love story which I’ll admit is a little underdeveloped.