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

[CaptJackSparrow]

Yes, 50/50 is two halves.

Look, this has to be faux outrage. There's no way I'm going to believe that normal adults care this much whether a twenty-something actor hates them or not. I just don't buy it.

Why isn’t anyone seeing the movie?

 

[Agent H]

But he's also a smooth talker. He could use his Hades persona and call me worthless trash to my face, and after the initital shock & anger subsided, I'd probably be like: "You know, the guy's got a point."

You know I wanna say this is wrong but I can’t. I physically can’t.

 

[LittleBuford]

Well they sure as heck didn't disown the statements. So as I was told here, and many agreed with. If you don't condemn it you are endorsing it.

I think it’s agreed by most that they played a significant role in her apology. That was their way of defusing the situation, consistent with the company’s general aversion to involving itself in such controversies if they can avoid it. And before anyone mentions Carano, as she herself has acknowledged, Disney likewise offered her the opportunity to apologise. She exercised her right not to take it, and it’s only then that they fired her and issued a public statement about her posts.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

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.

No need to suggest this…it’s exactly what’s going on

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

All this talk about “first impressions” and we are once again pretending the first two years - TWO YEARS! - of reactions to this project never happened. Lots of people heard Zegler’s unearthed comments about the original film specifically because of a two-year-old rage campaign.

History doesn’t change because it’s inconvenient to your ideology.

Yep…that “rage campaign” took down an otherwise bad, compeletely forgettable movie that was as easy to guess as who this weeks scooby doo villian is

The network always wins

Poor Disney

 

[Chi84]

Why isn’t anyone seeing the movie?

From what I hear there was no interest in the outdated IP and the movie they chose to make wasn’t that good.

 

[LittleBuford]

No need to suggest this…it’s exactly what’s going on

I was talking about trusting Disney to always deliver on quality. As the poster I was responding to himself noted, Disney has had good runs and bad throughout its history. It’s not as if everything they produced was top-notch before 2020.

 

[LittleBuford]

From what I hear there was no interest in the outdated IP and the movie they chose to make wasn’t that good.

I personally think it would have done pretty well had it been released before 2020. It’s not a bad film in the larger context of the remakes.

 

[DKampy]

From what I hear there was no interest in the outdated IP and the movie they chose to make wasn’t that good.

Exactly this….the people upset choose their battles to prove everyone agrees with their narrative…. Every film they hate on is apparent it will not do well even without the controversies

 

[Chi84]

Exactly this….the people upset choose their battles to prove everyone agrees with their narrative…. Every film they hate on is apparent it will not do well even without the controversies

Kids have changed too. I have a 4 year old granddaughter and a 5 year old grandson and they are both excited about the Minecraft movie. Not a word about Snow White even though they saw the ads.

Even if I did believe that Zegler was influential enough to control people's actions to the extent claimed, she insulted a bunch of people who were already on record as hating the film for other reasons. The prince doesn't save her stuff along with some nonsense too depressing to mention.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Disney and ABC hit with FCC investigation over DEI policies | CNN Business

The Federal Communications Commission is investigating ABC and its parent company Disney over its diversity, equity and inclusion actions, FCC Chair Brendan Carr announced Friday.

amp.cnn.com

So the federal government is now directly targeting Disney through the FCC.

Seems like Iger’s cringing appeasement on multiple fronts didn’t work.

This will, of course, have a chilling effect on all future Disney productions.

But we should probably keep obsessing over a 23 year olds social media posts.

 

[BrianLo]

NYT piece on WB and Zaslav mentions Snow White production/marketing cost was “at least $350 million.”

I agree, which is why for better or worse you just have to take what the recognized trades say is the budget which is $269.4M.

* By the end of 2023.

Or are you of the belief another year of production (reshoots, SFX) was relatively minimal?

A lot of confusion here because there are three different things being cited, not two.

296.4 million was the total the UK production had rang up by the end of 2023. That number ultimately does not have the credit or overhead removed and the movie wasn’t even done yet.

270M is the figure from Deadline that has the tax credit and overhead/interest removed from it. Typically 99% of movies we google or find on the numbers are reported this way. You can assume they actually spent another 100M dollars from the 2023 figure based on that.

Brook Barnes just posted a number that seems to be a weird amalgamation of 270 (tax credit and interest/overhead removed) + 80 million marketing. Seems too low to me. Hence ‘at least’

Final all in costs will be, as I’ve said, likely more towards 450 million. Production 375 (~325 + interest and overhead ~50) + marketing (surely more than 80, more like 100-125) - tax credit (~50M) + residuals and distribution (~25).

All the figures above are various shades of correct, but entirely different contexts.

 

[LittleBuford]

A few questions for those saying they refuse to see a film starring someone who’s expressed ideological disdain for them: Do you plan to extend this principle to future Avatar instalments in light of James Cameron’s similarly strong views in this regard? If not, can you explain why you would take a different approach in his case?

I can’t recall any other film that people claimed to be boycotting based on the political views of one of its lead actors. Perhaps there are examples out there that I’m overlooking, but I’m genuinely at a loss to think of one.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I personally think it would have done pretty well had it been released before 2020. It’s not a bad film in the larger context of the remakes.

I agree the movie had potential… bad timing, bad script, bad casting, bad marketing, too soon, etc we can argue til the end of time but I don’t buy the argument people don’t care about Snow White anymore, Once Upon a Time largely revolved around Snow and was an insanely popular TV show less than a decade ago, Snow White and the Huntsman made $400 million in 2012 ($550 million inflation adjusted)… the source material is still relevant, for whatever reason this version just missed.

 

[BrianLo]

Not to pick a fight and be obstinate, Cap 4 is absolutely limping, but probably has a negligible loss at the end of the day. If Deadline is to be believed it’s currently kind of under a 10-15 million loss, as of now.

I don’t want to call it break even because there’s too much ideology here for that. But that seems about where it’s landing from the data I can gather.

 

[Agent H]

Not to pick a fight and be obstinate, Cap 4 is absolutely limping, but probably has a negligible loss at the end of the day. If Deadline is to be believed it’s currently kind of under a 10-15 million loss, as of now.

I don’t want to call it break even because there’s too much ideology here for that. But that seems about where it’s landing from the data I can gather.

That reminds me. What was the exact terms of our bet @MagicMouseFan?

 

[LittleBuford]

I agree the movie had potential… bad timing, bad script, bad casting, bad marketing, too soon, etc we can argue til the end of time but I don’t buy the argument people don’t care about Snow White anymore, Once Upon a Time largely revolved around Snow and was an insanely popular TV show less than a decade ago, Snow White and the Huntsman made $400 million in 2012 ($550 million inflation adjusted)… the source material is still relevant, for whatever reason this version just missed.

I actually mean the movie as it currently stands would have done OK, perhaps even well, had it been released before 2020. The box office has thrown up many weird surprises in the past half-decade; in the more predictable pre-pandemic age, I really think Snow White in its current form would have been much more favourably received by the public.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Not to pick a fight and be obstinate, Cap 4 is absolutely limping, but probably has a negligible loss at the end of the day. If Deadline is to be believed it’s currently kind of under a 10-15 million loss, as of now.

I don’t want to call it break even because there’s too much ideology here for that. But that seems about where it’s landing from the data I can gather.

Close enough, a couple million one way or the other isn’t going to make or break Disney, $100 million or more matters though, even for a company the size of Disney.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I actually mean the movie as it currently stands would have done OK, perhaps even well, had it been released before 2020. The box office has thrown up many weird surprises in the past half-decade; in the more predictable pre-pandemic age, I really think Snow White in its current form would have been much more favourably received by the public.

Maybe, being made in a time of smaller budgets, better box office results, and less divisiveness definitely wouldn’t have hurt, I still think a Snow White movie, without the outside noise, would have fallen in line with similar remakes (Cinderella), even in 2025. Unfortunately well never known beyond pure speculation.

 

[BrianLo]

Close enough, a couple million one way or the other isn’t going to make or break Disney, $100 million or more matters though, even for a company the size of Disney.

Yup! Snow on the other hand is a big ol’ flop. One of those aforementioned 9 figure losers.