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

[brideck]

I honestly forgot chicken little existed until just now

I have still never seen Chicken Little (one of maybe five animated classics I've missed). The completionist part of my brain is always saying, "Some day..." but we'll see if that ever happens.

 

[Casper Gutman]

I’ve never heard of any of those except Ted lasso.

Watch Slow Horses.

 

[brideck]

I miss the Coen Brothers so much. That whole generation of auteurs, with their playfulness and humor and self-aware toying with cinematic conventions was tremendous fun.

Dark Knight may be my favorite comic movie of all time, but I honestly don’t fully understand the infatuation with Nolan. There’s a chilly, distant, impersonal feel to his films reminiscent of Kubrick, another auteur I’ve always found alienating. Honestly, a lot of his appeal seems to be that he makes viewers feel smart without asking very much of them. A lot of the current generation of big name directors - Villanueva springs to mind - have that same self-serious coldness. It’s a long way from the impish cineaste approach, the wink and nod, of the Coens or Raimi or even earlier filmmakers like Lynch. Where’s the fun?

PS: Just thinking of more from that disappearing generation - Tarantino, Burton, Wes Anderson… Kids who got the keys to the candy store.

Paul Thomas Anderson is fascinating because his initial sprawling epics were very much of the postmodern giddy era (the Sundance era?) but he quickly shifted into one of the leading representatives of modern Kubrickian coldness with his recent character studies. When modern PTA tried to make an old-school PTA film, Inherent Vice, it was the worst film of his career.

I suppose Lanthimos, Bong Joon Ho, and Del Toro still have some of the old spirit - although the latter two are arguably slightly later members of the earlier generation.

I smell what you're stepping in. Kind of goes along with that discussion about the loss of whimsy over in the TBA thread earlier today. I'd have to think about if I've seen anything recently that seems to fill that void.

I'm not a big fan of Kubrick himself, but I do enjoy the more modern "distant" directors that you've named. It must be the same part of my brain that really digs things like Grant Morrison comics.

Ah, well. Off to finally see The Monkey.

 

[Agent H]

I have still never seen Chicken Little (one of maybe five animated classics I've missed). The completionist part of my brain is always saying, "Some day..." but we'll see if that ever happens..

You’re not missing much. The one way that movie positively influenced my life was getting me to realize I liked the song “I will survive” at 6 years old.

 

[Casper Gutman]

I smell what you're stepping in. Kind of goes along with that discussion about the loss of whimsy over in the TBA thread earlier today. I'd have to think about if I've seen anything recently that seems to fill that void.

I'm not a big fan of Kubrick himself, but I do enjoy the more modern "distant" directors that you've named. It must be the same part of my brain that really digs things like Grant Morrison comics.

I’ve always felt that Morrison was one of the most extreme practitioners of the “postmodern whimsy” approach I love. I think someone like Jonathan Hickman more closely embodies some of the Kubrickian coldness I’m talking about.

 

[DKampy]

I saw Jaws in the theater at age 4. Didn’t want to take a bath after.

As you mentioned on a previous post of mine we must be around the same age…. I saw Jaws at a drive in theater at age 4 or 5….and I literally had one of the most vivid nightmares of my life afterward… which I can still recall

 

[LittleBuford]

I have still never seen Chicken Little (one of maybe five animated classics I've missed). The completionist part of my brain is always saying, "Some day..." but we'll see if that ever happens.

Spare yourself. Your eyes and brain will thank you.

 

[Agent H]

You’re not missing much. The one way that movie positively influenced my life was getting me to realize I liked the song “I will survive” at 6 years old.

Oh yeah the original song from the beginning is pretty good too.

 

[doctornick]

While I agree it’s not a good movie I still found it entertaining, I think it’s worth a watch, maybe while doing the dishes or some other chore, probably not worth undivided attention though.

I've never really understood the vitriol that Chicken Little gets. I mean, it's not something that warrants repeat watches or anything but it has some funny moments and is entertaining enough. I'd at least use Home on the Range as an example of a horrible Disney animated film of that era over Chicken Little.

And does The Wild count as Disney animation? Talk about awful.

 

[Agent H]

I've never really understood the vitriol that Chicken Little gets. I mean, it's not something that warrants repeat watches or anything but it has some funny moments and is entertaining enough. I'd at least use Home on the Range as an example of a horrible Disney animated film of that era over Chicken Little.

And does The Wild count as Disney animation? Talk about awful.

I think home on the range is underrated.

 

[LittleBuford]

I've never really understood the vitriol that Chicken Little gets. I mean, it's not something that warrants repeat watches or anything but it has some funny moments and is entertaining enough. I'd at least use Home on the Range as an example of a horrible Disney animated film of that era over Chicken Little.

And does The Wild count as Disney animation? Talk about awful.

I went into it optimistic—I am a Disney loyalist and have never truly disliked any of their animated films. This is the one and only exception. (Home on the Range is far, far better in my opinion.)

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I think there’s some rosy retrospection going on here. There have been plenty of not-so-great Disney films in past decades, and a few outright bad ones (I’m looking at you, Chicken Little). Box-office performance isn’t necessarily a measure of quality. The Lion King remake made more than a billion despite being awful, and Wish was not nearly as bad as the figures suggest. I agree with you and others that Disney’s reputation may have taken a knock, but the idea that you could always be assured of a great product when a film had the Disney name on it isn’t true.

I addressed this in a subsequent post, Disney has a weird cycle of good/bad that almost follows the decades, there’s outliers within those cycles but overall the perception goes way up, or way down. We just came out of a decade where the perception was nearly everything they did was loved… Disney Animation was on fire with PaTF, Tangled, Wreck it Ralph, Frozen, BH6, Zootopia, Moana, Frozen, at the same time Marvel was putting out massive hit after massive hit, meanwhile Pixar was putting out hits, meanwhile the “unpopular” live action remakes were raking in billions, even struggling franchises like Star Wars and Pirates that had quality issues with many fans were still pulling in billions.

Over the last 5 years animation is struggling, Marvel is struggling, Star Wars has virtually disappeared, Pirates is gone, Pixar is struggling, the remakes are struggling… there’s a few exceptions like Moana2 and Avatar but overall the perception couldn’t be more different now than it was just 5 or 6 years ago when it seemed they could do no wrong.

 

[Agent H]

I addressed this in a subsequent post, Disney has a weird cycle of good/bad that almost follows the decades, there’s outliers within those cycles but overall the perception goes way up, or way down. We just came out of a decade where the perception was nearly everything they did was loved… Disney Animation was on fire since Dec 2009 with PaTF, Tangled, Wreck it Ralph, Frozen, BH6, Zootopia, Moana, and ending with Frozen2 in 2019… at the same time Marvel was putting out massive hit after massive hit, meanwhile Pixar was putting out hits, meanwhile the “unpopular” live action movies were raking in billions, even struggling franchises like Star Wars and Pirates that had quality issues with many fans were still pulling in billions.

Over the last 5 years animation is struggling, Marvel is struggling, Star Wars has virtually disappeared, Pirates is gone, Pixar is struggling… there’s a few exceptions like Moana2 and Avatar but overall the perception couldn’t be more different now than it was just 5 or 6 years ago when it seemed they could do no wrong.

And yet I’m an apologist for a lot of the projects from those time periods. The early 2000s is the worst one but I like most of the movies they made in that time even some of the direct to dvd sequels.

 

[LittleBuford]

I addressed this in a subsequent post, Disney has a weird cycle of good/bad that almost follows the decades, there’s outliers within those cycles but overall the perception goes way up, or way down. We just came out of a decade where the perception was nearly everything they did was loved… Disney Animation was on fire with PaTF, Tangled, Wreck it Ralph, Frozen, BH6, Zootopia, Moana, Frozen, at the same time Marvel was putting out massive hit after massive hit, meanwhile Pixar was putting out hits, meanwhile the “unpopular” live action remakes were raking in billions, even struggling franchises like Star Wars and Pirates that had quality issues with many fans were still pulling in billions.

Over the last 5 years animation is struggling, Marvel is struggling, Star Wars has virtually disappeared, Pirates is gone, Pixar is struggling, the remakes are struggling… there’s a few exceptions like Moana2 and Avatar but overall the perception couldn’t be more different now than it was just 5 or 6 years ago when it seemed they could do no wrong.

This cyclical framing seems somewhat at odds with your earlier then vs. now framing, which suggested that people used to be able to trust Disney but no longer can. Perhaps I misunderstood you, in which case I apologise.

 

[Agent H]

I love the hand drawn stuff from the early 2000s, it was a weird time as they were shifting to computer animated though, between Chicken Little, Home on the Range, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt it was a bit of a painful 5 year transition period.

Chicken little sucks. Bolt is mediocre. I like the rest.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I don’t have blind trust in any studio anymore, Disney was formerly the lone exception. This also isn’t the first time they’ve lost that trust, Disney had a pretty bad run in the 80s, followed by the renaissance era in the 90s, then a pretty bad run in 00s, followed by fairly amazing 10s, followed by pretty bad 20s… I expect the 2030s to be another golden age for Disney.

This cyclical framing seems somewhat at odds with your earlier then vs. now framing, which suggested that people used to be able to trust Disney but no longer can. Perhaps I misunderstood you, in which case I apologise.

My initial post wasn’t very well worded which was why I clarified when asked with the second post quoted above.

 

[LittleBuford]

Chicken little sucks. Bolt is mediocre. I like the rest.

I really enjoyed Bolt! I’d say it’s pretty good.

 

[Agent H]

I really enjoyed Bolt! I’d say it’s pretty good.

It’s not an objectively bad movie or anything. Just nothing I feel strongly about one way or the other.

 

[Baloo124]

Chicken little sucks.

I tried to watch that one. I tried to enjoy that one. I made it maybe 7-10 minutes into it and realized it was not gonna happen.

 

[Baloo124]

I saw Jaws in the theater at age 4. Didn’t want to take a bath after.

Well now I'm feeling like a real coward. You had a backbone at age 4 and could handle Jaws, one of the most terrifying films in history.
Meanwhile at several years older, I still couldn't handle Large Marge and the clown doctor from Pee Wee's Big Adventure.