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

[MoonRakerSCM]

Theres no doubt this was a combination of issues culminating in this disaster.

 

[erasure fan1]

Iger will be walking on water with the fandom shortly after he leaves.

As dumb as it sounds, you're 100% right.

 

[Agent H]

It’s shocking to me how easily Perlmutter was able to rewrite his narrative. I’m not specifically trying to target you, just using it as a jumping off point.

I have almost no nice things to say about him and he had a really awful record in his position. He was controlling, arrogant and toxic amongst several other adjectives. Including just being generally a bad steward of the brand.

Based on how quickly people get retroactively sainted, I’m sure we’ll have individuals calling for Paul Pressler for CEO soon enough.

To the many posters who dislike Iger, be afraid of people like Perlmutter turning around their narrative in 5 years. Iger will be walking on water with the fandom shortly after he leaves.

Sounds a lot like what happened with Eisner after he left….

 

[choco choco]

I still think Disney has a Burbank bubble problem, they are surrounded by like minded people so they think thats how everyone thinks. The echo chamber needs more dissenting voices to say “that’s not going to go over well in middle America”, or “that’s not going to work with the Asian market”, without those voices the movies they make appeal to a far smaller audience than they need to to be profitable.

Disney has always pushed the boundaries, and I think they’ll continue to push them, but I think they’ve misjudged where the boundaries actually are, SoCal is far more progressive than the world is so if they’re making movies for the SoCal mindset they’re severely limiting their audience.

People celebrated when Perlmutter was forced out but the reality is they need more Perlmutters in the room to speak the realities of the world.

Nobody inside Burbank wants to make these stupid live-action remakes. No one making these remakes wants to make these remakes, that’s why they are so terrible. Everybody is just collecting a paycheck without putting a single ounce of passion or care into it.

If Iger were so smart, he would realize that making creatives do for-hire work has lead to terrible products, both artistically and financially. But Iger is the leader who has become the dotard old stubborn fool. It’s basically King Lear at this point….

 

[TP2000]

Here we go, gang, the first pass at weekend box office is in!

Snow White didn't make its latest revision downward of opening at only $45 Million for the weekend. It got to $43 Million, but the final tally down to the dollar will be in tomorrow. Tellingly, it opened overseas in all major markets this weekend too, and it didn't do well at all; pulling in just $44 Million from all overseas markets combined.

Foreigners must also be controlled by the Hate NetworkTM that's being run out of a few podcast studios in the Midwest.

The Numbers - Weekend Box Office Chart for July 25, 2025

Weekend Domestic Box Office Chart for the weekend of July 25, 2025

thenumbers.com

 

[TP2000]

And here's some freshly cherry-picked data that gives us an idea how Rachel Zegler's Snow White and its $43 Million opening weekend fares in comparison to the past decade of live-action remakes.

Because most of these movies are pre-pandemic, the inflation adjustment toggle was activated on The Numbers website. It looks as though the recent comparison to Dumbo six years ago will have the elephant coming out the winner, barring some sudden box office boom for Snow White by weekend #2. The comparisons to the others aren't even close, really.

 

[Joel]

I think what’s important… and this is very important…
You must let everyone know the prompt used.

You just now decided that's very important after all the other purely AI posts you've made?

Exactly, I’m the opposite. I find it fascinating and love doing deep dives.

You aren't doing a "deep dive". You're giving an AI tool a short prompt and posting its output verbatim, with no commentary of your own and, I can only assume, no time spent verifying that any of the facts it spit out weren't merely hallucinated.

No one here is scared of technology just because they don't want an already crappy thread further crapped up with walls of zero-effort machine-generated text.

 

[TP2000]

Technically I think it’s the last remnant of the short Chapek era… so maybe Bob Chapeks Snow White would be most accurate.

I agree. I'm of the optimistic opinion that this version of Snow White is the very last vestige of the financially disastrous Woke Era of movies from the early 2020's, mostly seen to fruition by the charmless and clueless Bob Chapek.

This Snow White flop should be the last piece of garbage to get purged out of the old pipes in Burbank, and hopefully they are already returning to their core audience and their traditional mission statement of making movies for American families with small children (WDAS, Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar) or teens and adults with disposable income and dates to entertain (Marvel, Lucasfilm, 20th Century).

Looking at that box office data above, it seems it could be a struggle for Snow White to get past $300 Million at the global box office. That obviously wasn't the plan when they budgeted this film at $250+ Million a few years ago.

 

[Disstevefan1]

I gotta say, Snow is filling theaters at Disney Springs

Folks are probably killing time until their 6:45 PM Lighting lane return time

 

[Agent H]

I gotta say, Snow is filling theaters at Disney Springs
View attachment 849458
Folks are probably killing time until their 6:45 PM Lighting lane return time

I know you’re joking but people are more likely to be in the Gideons bake house virtual queue.

 

[brideck]

their traditional mission statement of making movies for American families with small children

Trivia question: In what way is the current movie not one for families with small children?

You're going to respond with box office prattle about how it's a flop, etc.... So sure, it's not connecting with the masses. But in what way is the content of the movie not made for the audience you have identified?

 

[Chi84]

Clearly there are differing opinions on the usefulness of AI.

I think it's fine if you want a quick answer to something that has no consequences but that's about it.

I prefer not to read long AI generated text but unless it violates the TOS (and I think it's close) I can easily skip over it.

 

[Chi84]

Trivia question: In what way is the current movie not one for families with small children?

You're going to respond with box office prattle about how it's a flop, etc.... So sure, it's not connecting with the masses. But in what way is the content of the movie not made for the audience you have identified?

Good lord if it's not for families with small children, who is it for?

If you know the answer will be "prattle" (and I foresee a 100% chance of that) why ask the question?

 

[Disstevefan1]

Foreigners must also be controlled by the Hate NetworkTM that's being run out of a few podcast studios in the Midwest.

Hate is a strong word.

For me its - I am not going to buy a ticket for this move instead I will wait till its "free" on Disney+ NetworkTM


PS. Boy those few Midwest podcasts must have a HUGE audience!!!!

 

[brideck]

Good lord if it's not for families with small children, who is it for?

If you know the answer will be "prattle" (and I foresee a 100% chance of that) why ask the question?

Well, I'm shamelessly hoping that by identifying the nature of the stock response ahead of time I'd get them to stop and think and provide a real answer, but if wishes were ponies...

 

[TP2000]

Sounds a lot like what happened with Eisner after he left….

That actually took at least five years, if not a decade. There were a lot of bad vibes around Eisner when he departed against his will. And he was persona non grata in Burbank for several years afterward.

But a decade later, by 2015, his legacy had restored itself just a bit.

 

[Farerb]

That actually took at least five years, if not a decade. There were a lot of bad vibes around Eisner when he departed against his will. And he was persona non grata in Burbank for several years afterward.

But a decade later, by 2015, his legacy had restored itself just a bit.

Eisner drove Disney Animation to the ground. Sabotaged theatrical films like Treasure Planet and had Disney Toons make cheap sequels that devalued hand drawn animation, worse he released some of them in theaters and that severely damaged Disney's brand.

Roy Disney is what saved Disney for a short time until he died, he was the only one who still cared about Disney's legacy. Disney Animation benefited until 2016 thanks to Musker and Clements but after they left, it all went downhill.

 

[Agent H]

That actually took at least five years, if not a decade. There were a lot of bad vibes around Eisner when he departed against his will. And he was persona non grata in Burbank for several years afterward.

But a decade later, by 2015, his legacy had restored itself just a bit.

Yeah I know. I was pointing out how fickle people are sometimes. They hate someone’s guts and then decide years later that they actually weren’t that bad. The point I’m making is that it’s more nuanced than that. In the case of both Eisner and Iger.

 

[TP2000]

Trivia question: In what way is the current movie not one for families with small children?

You're going to respond with box office prattle about how it's a flop, etc.... So sure, it's not connecting with the masses. But in what way is the content of the movie not made for the audience you have identified.

Do I prattle? Oh, dear.

While they certainly didn't turn Snow White into a PG-13 raunchy teen movie, they didn't really stick to the original script for this PG (which is the new G for hilarious reasons) movie aimed at young girls.

Both starring actresses were given official Talking Points at 2022's D23 Expo explaining how this was no longer a "love story" and instead the Princess in the story was on a "leadership journey" to show her father she could be fair, brave and true. Was Ms. White going to give a TED Talk to the dwarves about that leadership journey, I wonder?

And she was not going to be saved by the Prince! Yuck! He's a stalker, and she doesn't need a man and he could be cut entirely from the movie. "That's Hollywood, baby!", as Miss Zegler smirked into the cameras at D23 Expo.

They appear to have taken this movie in a weird, HR-approved direction and rewrote the story. Or at least the version that was supposed to come out in 2023 was that version. Who knows what they added or cut after 15 months of editing and re-writes for its 2025 version? It's easy to imagine there was some panic in Burbank.

That's their right to do all that as a studio with a product they own, and which made their studio possible in the first place. But it's not really the romantic and Princessy story of Snow White as it's portrayed in the theme parks and previous media from Disney.

If they want to make a PG rated movie about an ancient girl who is on a leadership journey in her father's footsteps, go right ahead. But that's not what Snow White was, and whatever the heck they just did rewriting and reframing Snow White obviously didn't work with family audiences both here and overseas.

 

[Agent H]

Do I prattle? Oh, dear.

While they certainly didn't turn Snow White into a PG-13 raunchy teen movie, they didn't really stick to the original script for this PG (which is the new G for hilarious reasons) movie aimed at young girls.

Both starring actresses were given official Talking Points at 2022's D23 Expo explaining how this was no longer a "love story" and instead the Princess in the story was on a "leadership journey" to show her father she could be fair, brave and true. Was Ms. White going to give a TED Talk to the dwarves about that leadership journey, I wonder?

And she was not going to be saved by the Prince! Yuck! He's a stalker, and she doesn't need a man and he could be cut entirely from the movie. "That's Hollywood, baby!", as Miss Zegler smirked into the cameras at D23 Expo.

They appear to have taken this movie in a weird, soulless, HR-approved direction and rewrote the story. Or at least the version that was supposed to come out in 2023 was that version. Who knows what they added or cut after 15 months of editing and re-writes for its 2025 version? It's easy to imagine there was some panic in Burbank.

That's their right to do all that as a studio with a product they own, and which made their studio possible in the first place. But it's not really the romantic and Princessy story of Snow White as it's portrayed in the theme parks and previous media from Disney.

If they want to make a PG rated movie about an ancient girl who is on a leadership journey in her father's footsteps, go right ahead. But that's not what Snow White was, and whatever the heck they just did rewriting and reframing Snow White obviously didn't work with audiences.

Ok but none of that explains why it “ isn’t for families with small children”.