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

[TalkingHead]

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!)

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.

 

[TalkingHead]

Plus, I’m sensing a vibe of Wall-E and Lilo & Stitch with Elio

Speaking of redundancy…

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

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…

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Mufasa's $35 million opening is worse than Maleficent 2.

Doubt Disney will greenlight anymore of these live-action remake sequels.

 

[Farerb]

Mufasa's $35 million opening is worse than Maleficent 2.

Doubt Disney will greenlight anymore of these live-action remake sequels.

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]

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.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

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.

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]

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?

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.]

 

[DisneyWarrior27]

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.

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%.

 

[Disney Irish]

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%.

We’ll see, but as I said no matter what Disney is extremely happy with its results.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Either I didn’t notice before, or the new trailer is slightly tweaked, but they explain that Snow White was named after a snowstorm on the day she was born. There you go. There’s your explanation. No big deal.

She looks solid to me, and I’ve never seen her in any other movie as far as I know. All the hoopla makes me want to go out and support her.

As for the rest of the discussions lately, I’m finding them more and more irksome. Everyone thinks they’re a critic, a director, and an analyst. It’s starting to sound like all the threads complaining about new attractions where everyone thinks they’re an armchair Imagineer, and they are just “correct“ about their opinions.

Why is it the lion King is being derided for a prequel, but sonic is not for a second sequel? The first sonic was massively retooled before it was released, I don’t hear any prattling about that.

I’m not at all surprised to see sonic outdo the lion King because there was a lot of positive buzz about the past two sonic installments, at least as I heard it.

I don’t know why lion King fans wouldn’t want to learn about Mufasa’s history, but I am not the biggest lion King fan.

Pitting Moana against lion King: why? You can’t go to the movies twice?

The incessant blathering about lay people’s theories on why something is successful or not successful as if they are experts. They aren’t.

Huge songs never made it to number one because the timing was bad, because an even bigger hit was number one at that very same time. Had they released it at a different time, it would’ve been a number one. It works the same with films. Obviously, that’s one reason they reschedule films.

A film being good or bad, or the right or wrong decision, is only partially tied to its box office. Some things are just ahead of their time. Plus: reasons.

 

[Tha Realest]

I’m not at all surprised to see sonic outdo the lion King because there was a lot of positive buzz about the past two sonic installments, at least as I heard it.

Why?. The Lion King (animated) made almost a billion, and more recent Lion King “live action” film made over $1.6B. That’s a ton of franchise awareness

I don’t know why lion King fans wouldn’t want to learn about Mufasa’s history, but I am not the biggest lion King fan.

Pitting Moana against lion King: why? You can’t go to the movies twice?

It’s generally considered a bad idea for a studio to step on its own box office. There is a finite amount of marketing spend and cross-promotion to go around in a tight window.

 

[TalkingHead]

Pitting Moana against lion King: why? You can’t go to the movies twice?

Sure, but a lot of families won’t, which is Disney’s target audience for these two.

Last week I went to see something with relatives. One small popcorn and a bottle of water was $15. Tickets and concessions for a family of four would be over $100 in a lot of places. If the entertainment value is perceived to be mediocre, it’s easy to imagine a family doing the first film and skipping the second one.

 

[CinematicFusion]

Disney spent a record $290.9 million last year to make ANDOR Season 2, which makes it the highest-ever annual spend for a Star Wars production

This takes the total budget of ANDOR Seasons 1 and 2 to $645 million

Universal spent $350 million on both Wicked movies combined (Marketing cost not included)