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
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Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs
- Thread starter Disney Analyst
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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 the second-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.
TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
Honestly sounds a lot like 2023. A couple massive hits will probably emerge among a lot of decent-to-ugly underperformers. Redundancy and overlap are red flags for tentpoles.
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TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
Speaking of redundancy…
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
A good year for Disney at the box office…but limping across the finish line
Moana 2 has sorta flatlined…mufasa (predictably) is not gonna do anything great…
Moana 2 has sorta flatlined…mufasa (predictably) is not gonna do anything great…
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
Mufasa's $35 million opening is worse than Maleficent 2.
Doubt Disney will greenlight anymore of these live-action remake sequels.
Doubt Disney will greenlight anymore of these live-action remake sequels.
Farerb
Well-Known Member
In my opinion, they'll stop with the remakes altogether but that probably has more to do with how Snow White or Lilo and Stitch will perform. I can see them canceling Hercules (which seems to have production issues considering how stagnant it has been) and any other remake to their classics (Aristocats, Bambi, etc...). The only ones I can see them do are Tangled and eventually Frozen.
Disney Irish
Premium Member
Moana 2 now sits at $790M WW before final weekend numbers, likely crossing over $800M before Christmas Eve. International continues to have legs even if domestic has been flat.
We'll see by the end of next weekend if it has the juice to make it close to $1B or come just shy, either way Disney is exclaiming "Cheehoo!" with this movie.
We'll see by the end of next weekend if it has the juice to make it close to $1B or come just shy, either way Disney is exclaiming "Cheehoo!" with this movie.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
I expect Lilo and Stitch and Moana to do well.
But Tangled and Frozen are the only ones after that which really have box office potential IMO.
Hercules looks to be stuck in development, and there's no way they're sinking money into their B and C tier movies.
Movies like Hunchback and Black Cauldron had potential, but they won't happen.
brideck
Well-Known Member
Yes, exactly this. Humans don't tend to use the full breadth of pretty much any scale with much nuance, but instead just give really polarized scores. You might as well just ask for thumbs up/thumbs down and then give the % of thumbs up. [Unless that's how this works and then they just dress it up as a letter grade? No idea.]
Popcorn-meter has the same problem. It's 89% for Mufasa, which seems really good, but is not actually a number that's going to lead to great word of mouth. [Although comparing this to Wish (80%) and Solo (63%) is pretty silly.]
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DisneyWarrior27
Active Member
I still think it makes a billion next month just before Dog Man comes out. And Mufasa’s mixed reviews will help Moana 2 out big time.
Also, I saw Moana 2 in 3D and shared word of it on social media too, in the hopes I can get it to drop at or under 50% this weekend once the actuals come out tomorrow, rather than 51%.