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

[Tha Realest]

I don't remember people saying this movie would be a commercial hit. It faced too many obstacles and controversies along the way.
At least it seems to be well liked by its target audience - little girls.

Virtually every other live action Disney remake made money.

One other thing just hit me...

The 1937 debut of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was a big night for Hollywood in general, not just for Walt Disney. The economy had crashed again into a severe recession in 1936-37 and the movie industry (and a downtrodden nation) needed a huge hit. Walt Disney delivered it for them, and the rest is now history and why we're here on this discussion forum in the fantastically future year of 2025.

And Disney owns an exact replica of the Carthay Circle Theater themed inside to Snow White and has a giant 2,000 seat luxury theater sitting empty 50 yards down a fake 1930's Hollywood Blvd.

And yet they didn't use this DCA facility for the premiere and splashy publicity party?!? Why?!?

I have to think they had a plan to host the Snow White premiere at DCA, using the Hyperion Theater as the movie venue and the Carthay Circle Restaurant and Lounge as the party pad after the debut. And the private 1901 Lounge could have been used as the VIP Lounge where Miss Zegler held court for the media in one of those curtained off little banquettes near the bar.

But.... NOPE! Nothing. The "premiere" was closed to the press and was basically a non-event.

How weird. I'd bet two churros there's a story there, and the DCA venues were proposed for the premiere at one point.

Because the two leads are a don’t invite’m item along the lines of Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.

 

[LittleBuford]

Virtually every other live action Disney remake made money.

Yes, but the claim being made is that a significant number of posters here were declaring it would do well. That just didn’t happen.

 

[MagicMouseFan]

Yes, but the claim being made is that a significant number of posters here were declaring it would do well. That just didn’t happen.

I said it would do 600 million and place it in between Cinderella and Mermaid.
Felt there was no reason it shouldn’t have if the movie scored well with audiences and controversy was non existent.
It was never going to make the billion dollar mark Disney believed back in 2019. Different time.

 

[The Mom]

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.

As long as it is labelled as such, it is OK. But keep it short! It's like posting links to articles. As long as you are not representing them as your own thoughts, it is OK.

I agree that I'm never going to use AI to express myself. There are several posters who have been posting articulate opinions for years - long before AI became more common.

There are many "older" posters who remember the days of typewritten, double-spaced, onionskin theme papers. With footnotes. Many people considered a word processor with the capacity to back-space for corrections, and using cut, copy, and paste to reorient sentences and paragraphs, along with spellcheck and grammarly, a form of cheating.

 

[The Mom]

Please remember the no politics rule. Thank you.

 

[Ayla]

I have never used it and never shall (at least not willingly or knowingly—I hate the fact that it’s now woven into Google searches).

You can use AI-less google. I do. I abhor AI and refuse to use it.

 

[LittleBuford]

You can use AI-less google. I do. I abhor AI and refuse to use it.

Thanks! Using a browser extension or a special URL?

 

[Ayla]

Thanks! Using a browser extension or a special URL?

I either use duckduckgo or if I don't want to switch to a different browser (I usually use chrome), I just put -ai at the end of any search query.

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

The murmurs of it not having legs and not cracking 300m worldwide for its run have now become casual conversation... and the murmurs in the dark shadows have now become it could possibly not even make back its budget.

Shaping out to be the tsar bomba of bombs.

 

[LittleBuford]

I either use duckduckgo or if I don't want to switch to a different browser (I usually use chrome), I just put -ai at the end of any search query.

Thank you!

 

[MagicMouseFan]

The murmurs of it not having legs and not cracking 300m worldwide for its run have now become casual conversation... and the murmurs in the dark shadows have now become it could possibly not even make back its budget.

Shaping out to be the tsar bomba of bombs.

Not looking good now, if it doesn’t have legs it’s a disaster.
These type of movies usually have some legs though.

 

[Agent H]

Live action remakes operate on the same principle as reboots. What’s the substantive difference?

A remake tells the same story with a few added elements here and there. A reboot tells new stories with preexisting characters. Reboots also tend to ignore previous continuity for a fresh start.

 

[Willmark]

So after reading the commentary here and elsewhere in the web, it appears this approaching Wish or Strange World levels of movie bomb?

Next up is Thunderbolts, can it buck the trend? For my own part I’m only interested in FF this year.

 

[TalkingHead]

A remake tells the same story with a few added elements here and there. A reboot tells new stories with preexisting characters. Reboots also tend to ignore previous continuity for a fresh start.

Hard to believe anyone in 2025 would argue that Disney/Iger hasn’t made franchises and IP their business focus for the last 15 years but fans gonna fan I guess.

 

[TP2000]

So after reading the commentary here and elsewhere in the web, it appears this approaching Wish or Strange World levels of movie bomb?

At first I thought it doesn't seem to be that bad. Definitely not a Strange World level of mega-flop, and better than Wish (which I had forgotten how horrible it did after its coveted Thanksgiving release date).

But then I crunched the numbers, and only because I have a new bag of Stumptown coffee beans and I'm on my second cup. And it looks like, owing to Snow White's notably bigger budget than those other two, that by the end of its run two months from now it will likely have lost something right between Wish and Strange World.

This new box office perspective this morning deserves an Oof!

Strange World: Production $180, Marketing $90, Domestic $24, Overseas $14 = $218 Million Loss
Wish: Production $200, Marketing $100, Domestic $38, Overseas $71 = $191 Million Loss
Snow White: Production $250+, Marketing $100, Domestic $90???, Overseas $60??? = $200 Million Loss????

 

[Joel]

There are many "older" posters who remember the days of typewritten, double-spaced, onionskin theme papers. With footnotes. Many people considered a word processor with the capacity to back-space for corrections, and using cut, copy, and paste to reorient sentences and paragraphs, along with spellcheck and grammarly, a form of cheating.

Heck, I remember when we had to write our forum posts in cursive!

 

[TP2000]

Shaping out to be the tsar bomba of bombs.

From a financial standpoint, yes it is. Barring some unforeseen and massive turnaround in weeks two and three, of course.

Also, you get extra credit for using a 1960's Cold War analogy! We need more of that these days, if only to remind the young'uns how close we came a few times and what a massive win for humanity the collapse of the Soviet Union truly was.

 

[Willmark]

At first I thought it doesn't seem to be that bad. Definitely not a Strange World level of mega-flop, and better than Wish (which I had forgotten how horrible it did after its coveted Thanksgiving release date).

But then I crunched the numbers, and only because I have a new bag of Stumptown coffee beans and I'm on my second cup. And it looks like, owing to Snow White's notably bigger budget than those other two, that by the end of its run two months from now it will likely have lost something right between Wish and Strange World.

This new box office perspective this morning deserves an Oof!

View attachment 849614

Strange World: Production $180, Marketing $90, Domestic $24, Overseas $14 = $218 Million Loss
Wish: Production $200, Marketing $100, Domestic $38, Overseas $71 = $191 Million Loss
Snow White: Production $250+, Marketing $100, Domestic $90???, Overseas $60??? = $200 Million Loss????

I only noticed because I searched on biggest Disney busts and this came up:

https://collider.com/biggest-box-office-bombs-in-disney-history/

I’m guessing these are accurate numbers and if they are? Wow.

The noticeable thing is that for the biggest ones they are more recent (directionally.)

 

[Disney Irish]

At first I thought it doesn't seem to be that bad. Definitely not a Strange World level of mega-flop, and better than Wish (which I had forgotten how horrible it did after its coveted Thanksgiving release date).

But then I crunched the numbers, and only because I have a new bag of Stumptown coffee beans and I'm on my second cup. And it looks like, owing to Snow White's notably bigger budget than those other two, that by the end of its run two months from now it will likely have lost something right between Wish and Strange World.

This new box office perspective this morning deserves an Oof!

View attachment 849614

Strange World: Production $180, Marketing $90, Domestic $24, Overseas $14 = $218 Million Loss
Wish: Production $200, Marketing $100, Domestic $38, Overseas $71 = $191 Million Loss
Snow White: Production $250+, Marketing $100, Domestic $90???, Overseas $60??? = $200 Million Loss????

Given where things sit right now, I'm fairly confident that it'll at least do better than both of those. Maybe not much better, but it should do better.

It'll be interesting to watch to say the least.

 

[TP2000]

Given where things sit right now, I'm fairly confident that it'll at least do better than both of those. Maybe not much better, but it should do better.

It'll be interesting to watch to say the least.

From a gross receipts tally, Snow White should do better than Wish.

But to @Willmark's point, it's going to lose money right in line with Strange World and Wish; something around a $200 Million loss it looks like.

This is a great example of how Disney's bloated budgets north of $200 Million really create a steep hill for even successful movies to climb to merely breaking even at the box office. We still don't even know what the final budget tally was for Snow White, as the $269,400,000 figure comes from UK tax filings from late 2023. That was before Snow White was sent back for reworks and rewrites and delayed more than a year to March, 2025.

Until the final UK tax filings are released, I think we're being conservative in pegging the Snow White budget at $250 after the UK tax rebate check of $55+ Million. I wouldn't be surprised to learn later this year that the budget for Snow White swelled past $300 Million during 2024's reworking and it had a final post-rebate budget of $260 Million or more.

Again... Oof! Disney has to figure out a way to stop spending $200 Million or more on mediocre movies, much less flops.