Serpico Jones
Well-Known Member
The next few months are going to be rough for Disney.
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Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs
- Thread starter Disney Analyst
- Start date
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.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
I don't think we'll ever get a definitive answer, but Disney will probably waste a lot of time and money trying to figure it out and replicate what happened
Sonic 3 is not the record opening weekend of the franchise many thought it would be…. It is now projected at 62 million
I think what this shows is we will not know for a few days how Mufasa or Sonic is doing… as many families are waiting until after Christmas to go to the Theater
If I had to place money on it… I would say Sonic is a hit and Mufasa is not, but the box office is so unpredictable post pandemic you never know…. Regardless… despite what some posters want to declare…. Disney is very happy with the results of 2024… they are the top studio by a large margin…. And no studio expects every movie to be a home run
I think what this shows is we will not know for a few days how Mufasa or Sonic is doing… as many families are waiting until after Christmas to go to the Theater
If I had to place money on it… I would say Sonic is a hit and Mufasa is not, but the box office is so unpredictable post pandemic you never know…. Regardless… despite what some posters want to declare…. Disney is very happy with the results of 2024… they are the top studio by a large margin…. And no studio expects every movie to be a home run
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Farerb
Well-Known Member
Box Office: ‘Sonic 3’ Speeds to $62 Million Debut, ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ Gets Trampled With $35 Million
"Sonic the Hedgehog 3" is powering to the top of box office charts while "Mufasa: The Lion King" is getting trampled in its first weekend of release.
variety.com
That's still a really impressive opening, and considerably ahead of Mufasa. (And Wonka on the equivalent pre-Christmas weekend last year, and look what legs that had.)
No, but Disney probably expected big things out of a continuation of their biggest non-Marvel hit of 2019. I'm mixing metaphors but when they're putting so many eggs into so few baskets, every movie has to be a home run now.
The overseas opening for Mufasa is also disappointing given it was the only new title on the books in most countries (Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is waiting a few days in a lot of territories, though there are exceptions like the UK). Predictions had it at $125 million, it's coming in at $82.5 million.
Box Office: ‘Sonic 3’ Bounds Over the Hedge With $62M Opening, ‘Mufasa’ Limps to $35M
The video game adaptation scored one of the best December openings ever for a PG-rated pic as Disney's follow-up to 2019's 'The Lion King' came in notably behind expectations.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
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Family-friendly movies in the first half of 2024 were nonexistent aside from Kung Fu Panda 4 and IF, (I've heard anecdotal evidence that one reason Godzilla X Kong performed as well as it did was because at least kids wanted to see that) and neither of those had the kind of pop culture footprint that a sequel to one of the most beloved Pixar films can manage. And since the only other family film that summer was Despicable Me 4 (and the only other Disney-backed releases were Deadpool and Wolverine and Alien: Romulus, which weren't aimed at families; Disney didn't have to move its advertising spread to another family title for months) it had a lot of time and space to develop legs beyond that giant opening weekend.
Yeah, I do wonder if the goodwill the original Zootopia has is as strong as what Moana has. Disney was slower-than-expected to capitalize on both the way they did with Frozen and even Big Hero 6, and that just made people more excited for Moana 2 once it was finally announced as a movie, but Zootopia might not be the same case because it would be wading into much more fraught waters by bringing up the issue of prejudice again. I suppose they might try to simply center the narrative and expanded worldbuilding around other issues, but what would those be?
(I think back to my theorizing that the reason the more-interesting animatic-stage plot for Wish - when Magnifico and Amaya were equally wicked, straight-up preying upon the innocent residents of Rosas, while Asha's family and others were living as fugitives - might have been changed as much as it was because Corporate Disney didn't want a story about completely overthrowing a corrupt system because it was "too political", especially not for the big centennial project. The finished film pays lip-service to the idea of revolution and ordinary people banding together, but the plot is so defanged that Asha's only angry with Magnifico's system because it doesn't give her everything she wants and she doesn't appreciate how good she and others really have it in Rosas, and others only join her after they end up in trouble themselves because of what she started; as one YT video argued, everybody in the movie is just acting out of their own self-interest in the end. So I'm wondering if a Zootopia 2 will end up undergoing similar rethinks as to what it wants to say about prejudice...if it's even willing to say anything at all.)
TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
On the subject of Moana 2 and Mufasa being released too close together, next year Disney has:
May 23: Lilo and Stitch remake
June 13: Elio
The “original non-IP stories bomb” are already being written.
And after releasing one Marvel film this year:
Feb: Captain America
May: Thunderbolts
July: Fantastic Four
There’s gonna be MCU oversaturation at some point. Only question is how much and when.
May 23: Lilo and Stitch remake
June 13: Elio
The “original non-IP stories bomb” are already being written.
And after releasing one Marvel film this year:
Feb: Captain America
May: Thunderbolts
July: Fantastic Four
There’s gonna be MCU oversaturation at some point. Only question is how much and when.
DisneyWarrior27
Active Member
I doubt Elio will bomb if it’s a great movie and if word of mouth saves its at the worldwide box office like it did for Elemental.
Plus, I’m sensing a vibe of Wall-E and Lilo & Stitch with Elio so, it has a chance if the strong quality is there and the lack of animated films after Dog Man and The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie help kids have their parents take them to Elio in droves in its opening weekend.
Yeah, that's cutting it awfully close, especially if Lilo & Stitch is as big a hit as early enthusiasm for it suggests it can be. Elio's home stretch ad campaign can't start until after Lilo's. And it opens the same day as the How to Train Your Dragon remake.
The inherent problem with the 2025 slate isn't so much oversaturation as much as that these are all B- and C-list characters, a far cry from mega-fan-favorites Deadpool & Wolverine. The sheer confidence shown by Sony in bumping back Paddington in Peru's American release to the same day as Captain America: Brave New World suggests they feel Cap is less of an adversary than Dog Man (which the originally planned January 31st date would have put it up against); Disney probably shouldn't expect a strong family audience for that one.
Fantastic Four: First Steps is in effect running unopposed on its weekend, but...yeah, in the comics they're A-listers but they've performed B-level at best in their previous cinematic incarnations. And even if the "fun" retro approached being promised comes through, they're shooting for the same crowd as James Gunn's Superman , which opens just two weeks before (and already has a teaser). If that heads up up and away at the box office...not to mention that the week before that Universal's unleashing a new Jurassic World installment, which could hurt both. (Kids love them dinos!)
Another thing to keep in mind with Mufasa is that it has most of theaters' available showtimes in extra-charge specialty formats like IMAX, Real 3D, Dolby Cinema, 4DX, etc. sewn up, and apparently those are making up a fair chunk of the take - so the actual number of tickets sold is that much lower compared to Sonic the Hedgehog 3's.