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

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Mermaid isn’t “woke”…it changes an established character and people didn’t flock to it.

Don’t hate me…hate the planet

Lightyear wasn’t “woke”…it was plodding and a terrible idea. And the second time Disney tried to provide a backstory no one ever wanted.

They’ve cleaned out about half the studio people who lead them to this pattern of repeated nonsense and tone deaf…

…I’d give Iger credit if he just finishes it now. Clean sweep

 

[Phroobar]

Interesting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie had a better first day release total than the Haunted Mansion. $10m vs $9m. It is planted in the #2 spot after Barbie. Oppenheimer and TMNT might flop back and forth for #2 spot this weekend. The Meg 2 will push Haunted Mansion farther down the list.

 

[BrianLo]

I take it you haven't seen Barbie yet?

I didn't see it and haven't weighed in

That said, I have an opinion

This is true art.

 

[Disney Irish]

I don’t know what the hell that one means?

His audience, the one you say is shrinking, is the same audience for the candidate that is fighting Disney both in public and in court, and got rid of Reedy Creak and setup the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.

 

[LittleBuford]

That said, I have an opinion on changing the race of Ariel to anyone other than a northern European white girl. Which is that it's borderline offensive to do so, just as it would be offensive to get a swarthy Brazillian actor to play a Chinese warrior, or get a blue eyed Norwegian guy to play an Egyptian phoaroh. I say that as a Scandinavian-American who knows from my childhood that Hans Christian Andersen is one of the most famous writers to come out of Scandinavia, and his story The Little Mermaid is an important one in that culture. But that's just me and my childhood memories of my grandma reading us Hans Christian Andersen, it's a bit jarring for an old Swede like myself.

The original animated film isn’t set in Scandinavia either.

 

[TP2000]

You are now offering a tortured reading of a film that almost every commentator, left and right, admits is loudly, bluntly progressive. Your single consistent position is to attack anything Disney does, regardless of how disingenuous that forces you to be, and the motive behind these attacks is political.

I just caught that, and you couldn't be more wrong. As proof, I offer the first time I mentioned wanting to see this Barbie movie back on June 18th, over a month before it came out in theaters.

Then, on June 23rd in that same Disneyland forum thread, I said this about Barbie:

I'm calling it now. The Barbie Movie is going to be huge. It's going to bring America together. It's going to be the hit of the summer.

And that's exactly what the movie did, and what happened. Look at me with my finger on the pulse of young America.

I loved this movie the moment I saw the trailer back on June 18th when no one even knew what it was yet, and I loved it even more after I saw it last week.

The Miscellaneous Thought Thread

I mean, obviously you can’t stop anyone from going out and doing weird stuff, but if legitimate companies are doing it, they are registered somewhere, and whatever country they are registered in should regulate them to some sort of industry standard. I get where you're coming from, and that...

forums.wdwmagic.com

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Interesting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie had a better first day release total than the Haunted Mansion. $10m vs $9m. It is planted in the #2 spot after Barbie.

Haunted mansion is a full on bomb. Worse than Indy.

This isn’t unexpected. We don’t need to “wait”…it flopped last Sunday

The numbers do work as a model within a pretty standard margin of error…
…and was never questioned here until Disney started hatching stinkers in rapid succession.

Coincidence, huh?

 

[TP2000]

There was a trans Barbie.

There was a trans actress who played a Barbie. But she wasn't trans in the movie.

There were also likely a lot of Kens in the dance numbers who aren't exactly Playboy subscribers, but in the movie they were just Kens.

 

[Casper Gutman]

There was a trans Barbie.

He wasn’t told in time to be mad about it.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

His audience, the one you say is shrinking, is the same audience for the candidate that is fighting Disney both in public and in court, and got rid of Reedy Creak and setup the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.

That was spurred by one clown who tried to run for President in his 14th minute and has already lost.

Let’s not get into this “audience” stuff? They always are “vastly” overstated and then get mad when the truth comes into play

 

[LittleBuford]

There was a trans actress who played a Barbie. But she wasn't trans in the movie.

I don’t think you understand what being trans is.

 

[TP2000]

Ironically he already explained it. He hadn't seen those films or was so indoctrinated before seeing them half a year later it wasn't a position to back away from. I don't think the poster realizes why we're all throwing 2 years worth of his talking points back in his face, which I apologize to a couple other new joiners who I think are missing the broader hypocrisy point a few of you are making.

You aren't throwing anything back in my face. Or at least I'm too stupid to realize it.

What seems to be happening here though is a few folks are trying to convince me that I should not have liked Barbie and that I obey Ben Shapiro's wishes and I should have ignored the bold character arc that teenage Sasha had in the movie.

Other than that odd issue, the fact of the summer box office for Disney remains the same; Abysmal.

 

[TP2000]

This is true art.

I just went back and added a line to my last post after I saw this. I added the words "I'm too stupid to realize it" for you, and I'm going to try and add in little sayings like that so you can take them entirely out of context and create fun little haikus of stuff I said.

Here's another one you can use to get started for future use:

I don't think very highly of myself... when it comes to woodworking skills with power tools.

 

[Disney Irish]

That was spurred by one clown who tried to run for President in his 14th minute and has already lost.

Let’s not get into this “audience” stuff? They always are “vastly” overstated and then get mad when the truth comes into play

I'm just pointing out the facts its all the same group from a certain ideological sect trying to battle the evil "woke" corporations.

I think they are all silly.

 

[TP2000]

I don’t think you understand what being trans is.

I do actually. The redhead background actress who played the Barbie who had that one line "This is the best day ever" is a trans woman.

She started her life as a male, and still has the XY chromosomes to prove it. At some point in her life she transitioned to being a woman, and is now referred to as a "trans woman".

But in the movie Barbie, her character was not a trans woman. Her character was one of the many Barbies, and she had exactly one good line.

When she goes home from her job on the Warners studio lot, she is a trans woman.

In the movie she recently acted in for Warners, she played a woman named Barbie.

 

[BrianLo]

And that's exactly what the movie did, and what happened. Look at me with my finger on the pulse of young America.

I loved this movie the moment I saw the trailer back on June 18th when no one even knew what it was yet, and I loved it even more after I saw it last week.

I'll happily give you a bronze medal for discovering Barbie because in your defence there were still some limited posters you were arguing against at that time. But my god, discovering Barbie in mid June when the thing was in a full media frenzy was not early. It was extremely late.

The trades have been abuzz with the script, Greta, Ryan/Margot for years now. It exploded onto the scene April 2022 with first looks at the actors. My social circle had been talking about it for a while, just not really relevant to a Disney forum. The December 2022 trailer was absolutely a juggernaut. "Discovering" the film during the push for pre-sales is not having your pulse on America, it's correctly riding the tide.

Again we need to review your participation ribbon on the Avatar franchise before you do further victory laps here on Barbie.

You aren't throwing anything back in my face. Or at least I'm too stupid to realize it.

I wasn't participating in the upfront, but the conversation comes down to Mermaid, Strange World and Lightyear aren't actually woke, if by your definition Barbie is not. Or Barbie is woke and so are they, but it actually doesn't matter if one watches the movie. I'm actually happy you liked Barbie, you should like Barbie. Your energy has just been misplaced against a trio of movies you didn't like. The latter two just weren't very good, that was their core problem. Nothing more, nothing less. If Barbie wasn't good it would be equally derided for the same reasons. These are at their core movie quality concerns that are being misappropriated against culture war talking points.

There is a very real underpinning that Mermaid was rejected overseas due to casting, which sucks. That's not a woke issue, that's a foreign racism issue.

 

[TP2000]

I'll happily give you a bronze medal for discovering Barbie because in your defence there were still some limited posters you were arguing against at that time. But my god, discovering Barbie in mid June when the thing was in a full media frenzy was not early. It was extremely late.

The trades have been abuzz with the script, Greta, Ryan/Margot for years now. It exploded onto the scene April 2022 with first looks at the actors.

I don't read "the trades" unless I'm Googling up info on box office data from Variety or The Hollywood Reporter or such.

So the fact that those neighborhood teens told me about the Barbie movie on June 18th and once I watched the trailer that day I was instantly hooked on it is about as cutting edge as you are going to get from me.

I was actually very proud of myself for jumping in on it and making my family watch the trailers too by late June. They thought I was off my rocker for a few minutes, until they realized how funny the movie looked.

 

[BrianLo]

I don't read "the trades" unless I'm Googling up info on box office data from Variety or The Hollywood Reporter or such.

So the fact that those neighborhood teens told me about the Barbie movie on June 18th and once I watched the trailer that day I was instantly hooked on it is about as cutting edge as you are going to get from me.

I was actually very proud of myself for jumping in on it and making my family watch the trailers too by late June. They thought I was off my rocker for a few minutes, until they realized how funny the movie looked.

Yes and totally in your defence, you are and were correct about this phenomenon. I mean this in a reasonably complimentary way that if a decidedly millennial aimed movie is suddenly breaking through to you, it probably is going to be massive.

The Schitt's Creek effect of going mainstream.

 

[crispy]

Loved it. Thought provoking. It made me think of my mom and all she did for me and my sister, and I got a bit teary eyed in my seat.



I'm not trying hard at all to do anything. I'm telling you why I liked a silly summer Barbie movie.

You seem to be disappointed that I loved it, that most Americans loved it, and that it poked fun at the extremes on both sides of the issue. From dour and humorless wokester Sasha becoming a lovely and supportive young lady who even started to smile, to Ken turning the Dream House into his Mojo Dojo Casa House (which is a term I am committed to using more). It was all a wonderful journey that was surprisingly thought provoking amidst all the fun and laughs.

I think people like Barbie because it's a good story told in a fun way. Good storytelling is something Disney seems to have forgotten how to do. Agenda has superceded the story and no one is interested.

 

[TP2000]

There is a very real underpinning that Mermaid was rejected overseas due to casting, which sucks. That's not a woke issue, that's a foreign racism issue.

Trust me, I know. I've traveled extensively in Japan, and a bit in southern Europe, and race prejudice circa 1958 Alabama is shockingly evident there even in the 2020's.

In Japan, it's even entirely legal to deny you entry to a store or bar or restaurant based on race or ethnicity. In the non-tourist areas of Tokyo and Osaka they put signs up telling you to stay out if you aren't the right race, but at least they add a "sorry" or "please" to it.