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

[Disney Irish]

Yeah, but citing local Halloween "trends" is an easy way to dismiss a movie's performance with anecdotal data. Data that can't actually be verified.

Box office is the ultimate barometer. Anything else is often cherry picked examples.

Agreed, and even then the box office can be misleading due to many factors that have been discussed in this and other threads over the last 5 years.

 

[Disney Irish]

The IP in the parks thing has been going on for awhile, certainly. Like one of my criticisms of the Cars area is that it’s a decades old IP that could already be fading with Gen Alpha. (My son is a preschooler and while this is anecdotal, I don’t see kids that age talking about it, wearing the shirts, etc.)

With the merch - princess and princess adjacent characters certainly got merch, as did sequels (Toy Story, Cars, Wreck It Ralph, Finding Dory, Frozen, Incredibles, Star Wars, Marvel, Spider Verse although not sure who has merch rights to that). Looking back, I’m actually surprised to see how many of the movies of the past decade/s were part of a pre-existing franchise. For movies like Coco or Big Hero 6 I honestly can’t remember. So maybe Wish didn’t start the trend, but I’m fairly certain it didn’t help.

Cars is just one of those franchises that seems to transcend a particular generation and appeals to many across the generational divide. I think Disney has enough data over the last almost 20 years since its release to know if its still a "seller" or not. For example you hardly ever see Cars Land in DCA empty, and RSR is one of the Parks top performers in terms of wait time. So it made sense to add the franchise with a new experience to WDW, avoiding the specific location debate, even if your particular child's peers aren't into the franchise now. As it doesn't mean they won't be into the attraction once it opens, which leads to merch sales down the line, thus completing the circle of life as it were.

 

[DisneyHead123]

Cars is just one of those franchises that seems to transcend a particular generation and appeals to many across the generational divide. I think Disney has enough data over the last almost 20 years since its release to know if its still a "seller" or not. For example you hardly ever see Cars Land in DCA empty, and RSR is one of the Parks top performers in terms of wait time. So it made sense to add the franchise with a new experience to WDW, avoiding the specific location debate, even if your particular child's peers aren't into the franchise now. As it doesn't mean they won't be into the attraction once it opens, which leads to merch sales down the line, thus completing the circle of life as it were.

Off topic so I’ll keep it brief but - yeah, there is a definite disconnect between what Disney must see with their streaming data and what I see with my own eyes. I’m around kids all the time and I rarely see so much as a Lightning McQueen shirt. I’m not doubting their data, I honestly just don’t get it. Ten years ago I heard kids talking about Cars frequently. Now it’s almost never.

 

[Disney Irish]

Off topic so I’ll keep it brief but - yeah, there is a definite disconnect between what Disney must see with their streaming data and what I see with my own eyes. I’m around kids all the time and I rarely see so much as a Lightning McQueen shirt. I’m not doubting their data, I honestly just don’t get it. Ten years ago I heard kids talking about Cars frequently. Now it’s almost never.

To bring this back to the topic at hand. They obviously have enough data saying its still a viable franchise that there have been rumors of a Cars 4 coming for a long time, with an update as recently as Dec 2023. Now this may not go anywhere as with all movies. But with the new land coming to MK, and potentially a new movie in the works, I think its safe to say that Disney believes that Cars is still and will continue to be a money maker for a long time to come.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

Cars is just one of those franchises that seems to transcend a particular generation and appeals to many across the generational divide. I think Disney has enough data over the last almost 20 years since its release to know if its still a "seller" or not. For example you hardly ever see Cars Land in DCA empty, and RSR is one of the Parks top performers in terms of wait time. So it made sense to add the franchise with a new experience to WDW, avoiding the specific location debate, even if your particular child's peers aren't into the franchise now. As it doesn't mean they won't be into the attraction once it opens, which leads to merch sales down the line, thus completing the circle of life as it were.

Honestly, like a lot of popular Disney attractions not knowing the IP behind it is largely irrelevant if it's a good attraction.

A fast paced car ride through mountain terrain is appealing regardless of whether or not one likes, loves, or doesn't even know about, the Cars movies.

Likewise, I don't think Mr. Toad is dominating the streaming charts but the attraction stands on its' own.

 

[DisneyHead123]

To bring this back to the topic at hand. They obviously have enough data saying its still a viable franchise that there have been rumors of a Cars 4 coming for a long time, with an update as recently as Dec 2023. Now this may not go anywhere as with all movies. But with the new land coming to MK, and potentially a new movie in the works, I think its safe to say that Disney believes that Cars is still and will continue to be a money maker for a long time to come.

Yeah, obviously I don’t know what data they have. It just seems to me that preschool age boys all know Minecraft, Roblox, Mario, and Spider-Man. Beyond that there are several interests that are popular but not as ubiquitous - Sonic, dinosaurs / dragons, various types of vehicles, soccer, and so on. I never hear about Lightning anymore (heck, even the much more recent Minions don’t get a lot of airplay with kids I know). But again, Disney has their data to go on so kids must still be watching at home at least.

 

[TP2000]

Ps- I’m at the expo now!

Oh, I'm so glad you made it! What's the Canada pavilion like?

I hope you'll update us over in the Misc. Thoughts thread or something. I'll be in Kyoto this fall, and I am purposely putting two days on hold so I can take the train down to the World's Fair at least one of those days.

 

[TP2000]

Yeah, but citing local Halloween "trends" is an easy way to dismiss a movie's performance with anecdotal data. Data that can't actually be verified.

Box office is the ultimate barometer. Anything else is often cherry picked examples.

As you genuinely seem to be angered that the topic of Halloween costumes is used as part of a pop culture impact discussion, I should probably explain where that came from. It didn't start here in this thread.

It started over in a Disneyland forum thread 15 years ago, when discussing the Avatar land rumors for the parks and it's lack of pop culture impact a year after the first movie came out in 2009. It continued through the 2010's on the Disneyland forums as a fun and wacky side topic, with changing tastes as Star Wars and various Marvel and Princessy characters came and went over the years on the annual costume parade. Back then I lived in a neighborhood that was flooded with a hundred or more kids every Halloween. And I was famous in my neighborhood for giving out Best Costume gift baskets that I had made up every year at See's Candy. It was always a fun thing. Fun! Happy! Laugh! Candy!

It's mentioned here on occasion because a few of the posters here were on the Disneyland forums in the past 15 years and know it as a point of reference. It's obviously not scientific or quantifiable in any meaningful way. It's nothing more than a fun anecdote to see what the kids are into each year.

It's nothing to be angry about or annoyed by, but I can understand the confusion if you don't know the 15 year long backstory to how it came about as an occasional discussion point in regards to movie popularity and pop culture.

All that said, I wonder if I'm going to get any boys wearing eye patches on my door this Halloween? I'm not sensing it.

 

[TP2000]

I think people just need to accept that toys and other merch is no longer (and probably hasn't been for while now) the barometer test on a movies impact.

As I'm certainly no expert on children, I could buy into that if there were no other movies belching out huge amounts of plastic crap in the Target toy aisles.

But that's not the case at all. Jurassic Park and Superman both have huge end caps of displays, and Bluey is for sale all over. In 2019, Disney entered into a much ballyhooed partnership with Target in order to market and sell their IP merchandise.

But Elio (and several other recent mega-budget movies like Snow White, Elemental, etc.) are not worthy of so much as a t-shirt and a coloring book this month? That seems weird, and almost self-defeating.

 

[Disney Irish]

As I'm certainly no expert on children, I could buy into that if there were no other movies belching out huge amounts of plastic crap in the Target toy aisles.

But that's not the case at all. Jurassic Park and Superman both have huge end caps of displays, and Bluey is for sale all over. In 2019, Disney entered into a much ballyhooed partnership with Target in order to market and sell their IP merchandise.

But Elio (and several other recent mega-budget movies like Snow White, Elemental, etc.) are not worthy of so much as a t-shirt and a coloring book this month? That seems weird, and almost self-defeating.

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And what do all those toys have in common that you found, they have decades upon decades of sales behind them before their most recent movie. How many new franchises are you seeing with major toy pushes?

 

[TP2000]

How many new franchises are you seeing with major toy pushes?

I'd have to wait for the next new franchise launch. Or go back to Target.

In the children's book section, there was a bunch of different options for Bluey books, right on the same display that had the Elio book and the discounted Snow White and How To Be Taylor Swift books. You can't see all of them in this pic, as I was aiming at the Elio book, but the left side of that display had 10 or so different types of Bluey books/media for sale.

Does Bluey count? It's also sort of Disney, right? I'd need to return to seek out Bluey toys or t-shirts though, if they even exist.

 

[Disney Irish]

I'd have to wait for the next new franchise launch. Or go back to Target.

In the children's book section, there was a bunch of different options for Bluey books, right on the same display that had the Elio book and the discounted Snow White and How To Be Taylor Swift books. You can't see all of them in this pic, as I was aiming at the Elio book, but the left side of that display had 10 or so different types of Bluey books/media for sale.

Does Bluey count? It's also sort of Disney, right? I'd need to return to seek out Bluey toys or t-shirts though, if they even exist.

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No Bluey doesn't count as it was released in 2018.

 

[DKampy]

Maybe we will get some Final Destination merch….with the probable sequel…

 

[Miss Rori]

Bluey offhand might be the last really big piece of "new" kids' media to take off in merchandising. I can remember back in 2020 how there was only a limited amount of merch available that was in high demand, and now, there's plenty of it (though not as much as a Disney-backed series probably would have if it took off in the same way!).

It is a shame that Disney has not put its back into promoting Elio. Now that the review embargo has been lifted it's clearly shaping up to be a second-tier Pixar film in terms of quality, but I could argue that Inside Out 2 was that too, and look how well that did - except Disney pushed that harder and it was a sequel to a known hit. At this point BoxOfficePro is expecting Elio to come in third for the weekend behind the second weekend of How to Train Your Dragon and the debut of 28 Years Later, with a $20-30 million 3-day take, and even if the word of mouth legs out the way Elemental's did, that would be a rough start to overcome. Wish couldn't overcome a rough debut, nor could the Snow White remake. (If Elio does come in at those expectations it will be a worse start than Snow had!)

 

[BrianLo]

Box office is the ultimate barometer. Anything else is often cherry picked examples.

I’m going to take it one step further. Nothing is the ultimate barometer. It’s a series of metrics of sometimes equal importance.

Box office in no way properly captures Winnie the Pooh, Mickey, Bluey, Encanto or even Stitch until just weeks ago.

I think Merch matters a lot more at year 5 and year 50.

 

[BrianLo]

Oh, I'm so glad you made it! What's the Canada pavilion like?

Janky and reservations only.

I hope you'll update us over in the Misc. Thoughts thread or something. I'll be in Kyoto this fall, and I am purposely putting two days on hold so I can take the train down to the World's Fair at least one of those days.

I won’t run it too wildly off topic. But I swung from this place is a “miserable death trap” to “oh, I actually had a good time”.

Expect to have no expectations, go with what strikes your fancy. It really is a lot like a new version of Future World (not showcase) and I’d describe a lot of the larger pavilions more like walking through the Cosmic Rewind Queue or walking through portions of living with the land. It’s neat enough and the exterior architecture of the pavilions are varying shades of cool.

I think you’ll treat it like a D23 conference Sunday stroll and you’ll have a good time. Sort of scratching the surface. Fall would also be my preference, with a parasol and water in tow.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

Janky and reservations only.



I won’t run it too wildly off topic. But I swung from this place is a “miserable death trap” to “oh, I actually had a good time”.

Expect to have no expectations, go with what strikes your fancy. It really is a lot like a new version of Future World (not showcase) and I’d describe a lot of the larger pavilions more like walking through the Cosmic Rewind Queue or walking through portions of living with the land. It’s neat enough and the exterior architecture of the pavilions are varying shades of cool.

I think you’ll treat it like a D23 conference Sunday stroll and you’ll have a good time. Sort of scratching the surface. Fall would also be my preference, with a parasol and water in tow.

This thread is often a tribute to off topic-ness so I think you're good

I've seen really mixed opinions on the Expo with the lengthy unshaded queues and terrible reservation system.

I'm still debating whether or not to spend a day there in the fall, but I wonder if I'll just be done with lines after Disney & Universal, and should focus elsewhere.

 

[BrianLo]

This thread is often a tribute to off topic-ness so I think you're good

I've seen really mixed opinions on the Expo with the lengthy unshaded queues and terrible reservation system.

I'm still debating whether or not to spend a day there in the fall, but I wonder if I'll just be done with lines after Disney & Universal, and should focus elsewhere.

If you are content waiting 20-30 minutes to be able to then experience Cosmic Rewinds queue. But only 1/4 of the pavilions, many are reservation only and a few others were hours long.

Like I said I swung from I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, to finding some weird joy and amusement by just going with the flow and hopping in the lines that were fine. 70% of the problem was the caustic concrete heat, there was like a 15 degree Celsius swing between leaving the cover of the giant wooden circle and the concrete.

I’m very glad I have been to an expo and there was more to it than I expected. To really properly do it I would go for three days and actually had some foresight to have reservations. I’m sure I didn’t do the very best pavilions, but some of the ones I did do seemed quite strong like Singapore, Indonesia, Saudi, Australia, Spain.

 

[TP2000]

I think you’ll treat it like a D23 conference Sunday stroll and you’ll have a good time. Sort of scratching the surface. Fall would also be my preference, with a parasol and water in tow.

That's perfect. I enjoy that you remember my years of D23 Expo Sunday strolls, those were such fun!

As an American with a distinct Canadian (Penticton!) side of the family from the mid 20th century, I'm planning to visit the Canada pavilion by any means necessary. Even if that's via some clunky Osaka World's Fair reservation app.

Fall is a definite. Even though late September will still be swampy in Osaka, I'll make do as I commute down from Kyoto. That said, I think I'll forgo the parasol. I mean, the Japanese gays can spot me a mile kilometer away in my tailored American touristwear, but a parasol is just too much. As a very wise woman once said, before you leave the house take one thing off.

So I'll leave the parasol.

 

[Agent H]

@BrianLo
Did I miss something? Destination d23 isn’t till August. What event are you attending?