DarkMetroid567
Well-Known Member
This might be the optimal box office outcome for Disney fans. Moana 2 and Mufasa are performing well but it should be clear to Disney that they left money on the table here.
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Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs
- Thread starter Disney Analyst
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DisneyWarrior27
Active Member
I can’t agree on Moana 2 showing Disney left money on the table when they saw turning that from a Disney+ series that no one would watch to a movie that would make money back big time was the smart financial move.
But Mufasa, yeah, they left money on the table with that movie.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Sorry, how so? It’s merely one metric and it correlates quite well to word of mouth. Do you just have issues with the letter grading? As in A- is a good mark in school but a so-so CinemaScore for family-faire?
There are some genre exceptions of course, but an A+ will correlate to phenomenal word of mouth, A well above average, A- low average and then your B’s tend to correlate to bad word of mouth and terrible holds.
How so? It's playing ultra-wide in theaters around the world at the biggest time of year for the box office in many countries. I'm not sure how it would be performing better unless it wasn't going up against a title that seems to appeal more to actual children. It's rather like what happened last year with Wish, which kids were passing over in favor of Trolls Band Together, Migration, and especially Wonka.
(Interestingly, at my local five-screener Mufasa is on two screens so it gets two more showings per day, but Sonic the Hedgehog 3 got the biggest auditorium so it kind of evens out.)
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BrianLo
Well-Known Member
I don’t know if that’s quite the lesson to take from Mufasa. That’s more a case of they shouldn’t have made it. Which I think has been clear to many of us for a while.
I really think they are being told to stop with these franchise milkings. If Live action Moana tanks we’ve really got the message across.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Speaking of disasters… Kraven is quickly becoming one for the record books. Albeit Disney has had two recently (Strange World and then The Marvels particularly driven by its budget). Kraven is looking to hit a similar range loss as those films. Probably in the net negative 200 million range.
DarkMetroid567
Well-Known Member
Exactly! I mean, it’s still going to make them money, but not a lot of it.
Mufasa had a clean enough release (none of the TLM stuff and what Snow White is eventually going to face) that without excuse, it should be clear to Disney that this kinda film isn’t going to cut it.
easyrowrdw
Well-Known Member
Yeah. I think depends on what the frame of reference is. I agree with you, comparing Moana 2 to what it was going to be. But given what a Moana sequel could have been, I think Disney did leave money on the table. I think the same applies to Mufasa. The Lion King is considered a masterpiece for Disney and the remake made tons of money. Mufasa should be running away with the box office IMO.
I get what you're saying here -- imagine if Moana 2 had been more than "fine" for most viewers, how much better it might have done. If there's a zeitgeist-capturing, chatter-inspiring blockbuster this season, it's Wicked Part I, even if the box office numbers are bigger for Moana 2. And Zootopia 2 is going up against Wicked: For Good next Thanksgiving...WDFAS needs to step up its game to compete.
DarkMetroid567
Well-Known Member
Unrelated to your point, but my gut tells me Zootopia 2 is doing Inside Out 2 numbers, especially abroad. Whereas Wicked will do very well but will probably have worse legs than part one.
Ghost93
Well-Known Member
I think Wicked Part 2 will make slightly more money than part 1, but it will be more front loaded as people won't be "discovering" Wicked throughout the holiday season — the fanbase will be already established. So I think Part 2 will have a much bigger opening than part 1 ($160-$200 millionish opening weekend), but then it will have a steep drop off in the following weekends.
Serpico Jones
Well-Known Member
The next few months are going to be rough for Disney.
DisneyWarrior27
Active Member
I doubt that they’ll be that rough.
They’re still the #1 studio in the world and, thanks to Mufasa (not counting the Fox releases), they’re back as the #1 studio of the year in America, too.
Really.
Daredevil: Born Again looks like it’ll be huge on Disney+.
Moana 2 will hit a billion next month, per Variety.
And they’re not gonna cancel Disney+ when they have stuff coming up that year that may be big for them like Andor Season 2 and more.
Besides, the only films that might disappoint for Disney and bomb are Captain America: Brave New World and Snow White.
They’ll be fine. Really wish you’d stop being cynical, here and on the Jedi Council Forums, which I’ve seen you do recently with Skeleton Crew along with lying about what you heard about Jon Favreau on The Mandalorian & Grogu from people who can’t be trusted.
TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
I would be shocked (wouldn’t be the first time) if it did Inside Out 2 numbers. Inside Out 1 was considered by many to be one of the last great Pixar titles, an emotional piece that was heartfelt and amusing; it enjoyed critical acclaim in a way that WDAS and Zootopia haven’t enjoyed.
I mean anything’s possible but I don’t think the IP is in the same realm as Inside Out or even Moana.
TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
To paraphrase the Timekeeper, if Captain America bombs Burbank’s pants will be full.
CinemaScore can be a tad difficult to parse because we normally think of an A- as a really good score on a school project or test. But for a movie, it's already third tier behind A and A+.
And third tier means that, on average, you can take a movie's opening weekend and multiply it by 3.4 to get its final Box Office with an A- score. That gets one to the profit or loss line or break-even.
Getting a B+ or lower score means not getting to profitability.
Getting an A or A+ means very positive word of mouth will draw in crowds or repeat-watchers to get to very profitable.
Genre films (like Horror or Superhero) or sequels will draw in on opening weekend a crowd predisposed to like the movie and thus inflating its CinemaScore. If a prequel or genre film doesn't get a good CinemaScore... that's very bad.
Though, CinemaScore can be misleading at times. The Nightmare Before Christmas got a bad B+ score. Probably because opening night audiences didn't know what to make of it. But then it later got high critic and audience scores and became a beloved classic (and even made a profit at the BO).
And third tier means that, on average, you can take a movie's opening weekend and multiply it by 3.4 to get its final Box Office with an A- score. That gets one to the profit or loss line or break-even.
Getting a B+ or lower score means not getting to profitability.
Getting an A or A+ means very positive word of mouth will draw in crowds or repeat-watchers to get to very profitable.
Genre films (like Horror or Superhero) or sequels will draw in on opening weekend a crowd predisposed to like the movie and thus inflating its CinemaScore. If a prequel or genre film doesn't get a good CinemaScore... that's very bad.
Though, CinemaScore can be misleading at times. The Nightmare Before Christmas got a bad B+ score. Probably because opening night audiences didn't know what to make of it. But then it later got high critic and audience scores and became a beloved classic (and even made a profit at the BO).
Ghost93
Well-Known Member
Zootopia was acclaimed at the time and is still generally well-regarded, although it's commentary on racism hasn't aged the best in a post 2020 world.
I think Zootopia 2 will be a landmine if it's anything like the first movie as we are in a much more politically charged and tense situation than we were in March of 2016. Disney claims its trying to stay out of politics, but the first Zootopia film was probably it's most political animated movie.
Ghost93
Well-Known Member
I think CinemaScore is more of a test of "did the audience get what they thought they were paying for?" There have been many great movies with bad cinemascores, usually because the movies took bold swings that pushed audiences out of their comfort zone or the movies were mismarketed and the movie people ended up seeing was very different from what they were expecting based on the trailers.
DisneyWarrior27
Active Member
They’ll get over it once The Fantastic 4 makes a billion and Thunderbolts* is a success with $450-$500M WW on a $150M budget.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Had you posited this question back in January, I'd easily have said Moana > Zootopia > Inside Out in terms of market sentiment. Ironically we might land in the reverse with the sequels. Zootopia was quite big internationally. But I think the Inside Out 2 record is going to stand for a long time.
I still don't quite get what set Inside Out 2 that ablaze. In the sense that what made Inside Out 2 the biggest animated film of all time? I understand more Lion King and Mario and Frozen 2.