Disney's Live Action The Little Mermaid

[Sirwalterraleigh]

This is astute, and I agree with pretty much all of it.

Looky there…agreement all around.

I think the problem for Disney right now is they convinced themselves that what’s in their echo chamber can be turned loose into the market with no hiccups.

Frankly…it’s the blue ocean stuff.

I’m much more down with a company that tries to pull everyone along…not “my way or the Highway”

I know that is not aspirational…but I leave that for the park threads

 

[CaptainAmerica]

As if a 10 second scene in Lightyear is where all their creative focus went and is why the rest of the movie wasn't that good.

It's a personnel issue. Their creative rooms are filled with people who care most about the ten seconds. They're not hiring for talent, they're hiring for activism.

Black Panther was "woke" and it was great because Ryan Coogler is great and Chadwick Boseman was great and Michael B. Jordan is great. Avengers: Endgame had a "ten second scene" where Joe Russo inserted himself as a gay man and nobody cared because Joe Russo knows how to make a blockbuster superhero movie.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

The consumer has changed how they wants to consume their content, this isn't going to stop, pandemic accelerated it.

I'm not saying box office is gone tomorrow, but what 2023 has shown us is the box office is no longer the same as it was 5-10 years ago. It may never get back to that point. So studios have to find revenue post-theatrical, this means DTC in one form or another.

The old model of post-theatrical only being for pennies is gone. Its a whole new world of revenue being created with DTC.

Laughs in Barbenheimer.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I think they would leave some in-house, but going contractual maybe the best option long term.

But that is a different conversation for a different thread.

That’s what they do already and have for decades. Eddie Sotto talked in one of his threads about how if you didn’t have a project you didn’t have work. The reason it relates to this and other threads is you have people claiming to be familiar with things who clearly are not, whether it be the parks or the studios. You toss out enough content and you’re bound to have something you can crow about being right on and keep the nonsense machine going.

 

[Disney Irish]

Laughs in Barbenheimer.

As I said its not gone tomorrow, but it is changing and its only going to get worse at the box office.

The theatrical experience is going to become primarily a boutique operation as time goes on. We're already starting to see it across the nation now.

So yeah we'll have the few huge Barbenheimer events but they will be few and far between.

 

[DKampy]

There are three different problems here as I see it:

1) is the content sub-par?
2) is the content someone's idea of "woke"?
3) is the content made by Disney?

If either of the first two is true, they're going to get slapped 5x harder because of #3.

Lately, a lot of what Disney's been doing hits the full trifecta.

If they can nail #1, I'm confident the rest will sort itself out over time but because they haven't been, it's given the people who take issue with #2 a bigger platform to argue that somehow, that's why Disney's stuff is under-preforming.

As if a 10 second scene in Lightyear is where all their creative focus went and is why the rest of the movie wasn't that good.

As for #3, Disney's been considered the top of family entertainment for generations. Heavier scrutiny is what you get for being in that position which may be unfair in certain lights (I think it is) but is also the price you pay for being known for being the king of catch-all-family content and the billions the company rakes in from their dominant position in a number of businesses makes true comparisons of fairness sort of hard to make.*


*The problem here is that people feel Disney is their Disney. They see Disney changing with the times and because they aren't also changing, they feel like they're being left behind and betrayed which makes them feel angry and hurt. This is something that we all experience in one form or another at some point in our lives but it's usually with another individual that we grow apart from. Disney's unique relationship with their customers/fans creates this weird situation where people feel they have an emotional investment in a multi-billion dollar multi-national company and I say "they" but I might as well say we because none of us would be here if we weren't ensnared in a little of that delusion, too.

You just summed up what is going on perfectly

 

[CaptainAmerica]

As I said its not gone tomorrow, but it is changing and its only going to get worse at the box office.

The theatrical experience is going to become primarily a boutique operation as time goes on. We're already starting to see it across the nation now.

So yeah we'll have the few huge Barbenheimer events but they will be few and far between.

I don't think you understand the inflection point we're hitting. Streaming is getting massively neutered. It doesn't matter what consumers want if what consumers want is unsustainable for the studios.

 

[MrPromey]

How does a casting decision to deviate from the source material to appease a noisy group of activists relate to a different casting decision made to deviate from the source material to appease a noisy group of activists?

I didn't know Peter Diklage was a group.

And I assume that one guy out of the other seven is there to appease all the non-a-list actors who have dwarfism that disagreed with him.

This was a live action remake that I think just should never have been made, regardless of casting but I feel that way about most of them so what do I know?

 

[Disney Irish]

I don't think you understand the inflection point we're hitting. Streaming is getting massively neutered. It doesn't matter what consumers want if what consumers want is unsustainable for the studios.

The market drives the needle here.

Technological shifts are always seen as "unsustainable" in the short term. I remember in the early days when the internet was just BBS' and seen as a fad that would never catch on, and look at it now. While not a perfect comparison I hope it proves my point.

Hollywood will figure out a way to properly monetize streaming long term. The strike will likely cause studios to have tohave more transparency in their streaming numbers. Profit sharing of streaming content will become better long term. All these things will happen, because again the market is driving Hollywood to DTC.

 

[BrianLo]

Defend this. If you can't, explain the difference.

View attachment 732798

A photo was released of the casting choice. Everyone jumped to conclusions as the actress looked visibly different than the animated take. Some prejudicial judgement was passed on the casting based on said Photo because if they could not match the physical appearance maybe they didn't understand the movie itself. The directors claimed she was actually cast because she was the best audition for the role, people scoffed purely based on her physical differences with caucasian Ariel. Then the movie came out, almost everyone actually realized she was the correct casting choice. Basically no one who has seen the movie has actually criticized Halle as not fulfilling the role. This remains the only clearly consensus opinion of the movie, she was not actually miscast for Ariel, not sure why it is being re-litigated?

A photo was released of the casting choices. Everyone jumped to conclusions as the actors looked visibly different than the animated take. Some prejudicial judgement was passed on the casting based on said Photo because if they could not match the physical appearance maybe they didn't understand the movie itself.... TBD. Maybe the movie is hot garbage, maybe it's great. The only thing we are pre-judging on is appearance.

It's a personnel issue. Their creative rooms are filled with people who care most about the ten seconds. They're not hiring for talent, they're hiring for activism.

Black Panther was "woke" and it was great because Ryan Coogler is great and Chadwick Boseman was great and Michael B. Jordan is great. Avengers: Endgame had a "ten second scene" where Joe Russo inserted himself as a gay man and nobody cared because Joe Russo knows how to make a blockbuster superhero movie.

I think you've just actually encapsulated @MrPromey 's point. You don't dislike those movies because they were good. You also don't dislike the other films because they had those ten second scenes, you dislike them because they are bad. But because they are bad you hyper fixate on what you don't really don't like and think that's the reason for their downfall.

 

[DisneyHead123]

The market drives the needle here.

Technological shifts are always seen as "unsustainable" in the short term. I remember in the early days when the internet was just BBS' and seen as a fad that would never catch on, and look at it now. While not a perfect comparison I hope it proves my point.

Hollywood will figure out a way to properly monetize streaming long term. The strike will likely cause studios to have tohave more transparency in their streaming numbers. Profit sharing of streaming content will become better long term. All these things will happen, because again the market is driving Hollywood to DTC.

I think what you have to remember is that in regard to entertainment, said market is absolutely flooded with free content in the form of things like YouTube and TikTok. Or just scrolling the internet on your smartphone for entertainment. That is a big wild card for streaming and I don’t think anyone knows how it will factor in yet. That changes the supply / demand dynamic substantially, when you have endless “supply” for little to no cost.

 

[BrianLo]

"You guys"?

I'm not going to say you're making a strawman but you are lumping me into an argument I'm not making.

I'm simply saying there is a difference between a streaming service completely funding a $100 million movie for the exclusive rights to it and a streaming service paying $100 million to pick up limited secondary streaming rights to a movie that's been in theaters as a wide release for a quarter of a year and for which they have no ownership, merchandising, sequel rights, etc.

... Which is what D+ is doing, right?

D+ does not have merchandising rights to TLM, right? They aren't directly getting a cut of that theatrical window, right? It doesn't have exclusive sequel rights to TLM, since D+ doesn't actually "own" it, right?

Disney likely could have gotten that $100 million or something close to it from someone else who would have had the exact same limited rights. I'm not in any way arguing that they couldn't have but they didn't so now it's up to D+ (not Netflix or whoever else) to justify that cost as a profit generator for the Disney Co. under their usage of it going forward, which just like everything else they've licensed or had exclusively produced, they can't really start to do until they're in the black and even then, them being in the black isn't saying they've made up for all the losses - just that they've started making more than they're costing.

Once they start to make a profit, everybody suddenly stops talking about the billions they've lost in previous years.*

I just want to highlight this post, not in the context of what you were talking about, but because it is valuable insight. I just want to add that one of the important differences between licensing and in house content, is that licensed content is already means tested. We know the relative value because it has already been tested at the box office. Generally speaking licensed content is cheaper than in house content as well for the streamer, you are floating a lot less for a '250 million movie' by licensing it for 100 million and ceding the rights to its merchandise or ownership. Both streams are of their own merit and why we will likely never see Netflix go entirely in house, as long as people are still willing to license valuable content to them.

** And this truly baffles me about how big corporations get away with this in general - I'm not picking on Disney here but if I lost several billions of dollars for half a decade and then on my sixth year, managed to make a few hundred million, nobody would call me a success, right?

That's the nature of capital heavy investment in some ways. You 'spend' 6.5 billion upfront on a themepark that yes makes money 3-5+ years later, but continues to make money in the long term. It's not about making a few hundred in 5 years. It's making billions in 10 for less capital. D+ is no different, it's just most people on this forum are far bigger parks fans than Disney content fans.

 

[Disney Irish]

I think what you have to remember is that in regard to entertainment, said market is absolutely flooded with free content in the form of things like YouTube and TikTok. Or just scrolling the internet on your smartphone for entertainment. That is a big wild card for streaming and I don’t think anyone knows how it will factor in yet. That changes the supply / demand dynamic substantially, when you have endless “supply” for little to no cost.

Well if that day comes when TikTok takes over as primary entertainment, well then we truly are moving toward the future shown in the Mike Judge film Idiocracy.

As much as I like Mike Judge, I hope that day never comes.....

 

[BrianLo]

As I understand it, Disney+ would pay that amount for Mermaid regardless of whether the latter made a profit or not, so your framing, which suggests that the money is designed to cover some sort of shortfall, is misleading.

Here's the irony. Disney+ would pay more for Mermaid if it did better in the box office. It has already demonstrated there is some fair market value that seems to correlate against overall box office performance. That makes sense to me intrinsically. Avatar: WoW paid multiples over Strange World (D+'s cheapest tentpole film it has ever acquired). And it should, we already knew one was a huge blockbuster and the other was DOA with audiences.

Right now, D+ would be more in the red if Studios were more in the black. The two are not contingent on each others profitability. I'll let the peanut gallery try and explain that one away.

*I keep letting everyone throw around 100million but I'm not ready for the blow back that they are probably paying 140-150million for TLM streaming rights based on its performance. *ducks for cover*

 

[donaldtoo]

Well if that day comes when TikTok takes over as primary entertainment, well then we truly are moving toward the future shown in the Mike Judge film Idiocracy.

As much as I like Mike Judge, I hope that day never comes.....

“Idiocracy” is one of my favorite films, as it just cracks me up…kinda’ like “Raising Arizona” did, even further back in the day…!!!!! Unfortunately, we seem to be creeping closer and closer towards such.
Fortunately I’m 60, and probably won’t be around when it’s that crazy…!!!

 

[Disney Irish]

Here's the irony. Disney+ would pay more for Mermaid if it did better in the box office. It has already demonstrated there is some fair market value that seems to correlate against overall box office performance. That makes sense to me intrinsically. Avatar: WoW paid multiples over Strange World (D+'s cheapest tentpole film it has ever acquired). And it should, we already knew one was a huge blockbuster and the other was DOA with audiences.

Right now, D+ would be more in the red if Studios were more in the black. The two are not contingent on each others profitability. I'll let the peanut gallery try and explain that one away.

*I keep letting everyone throw around 100million but I'm not ready for the blow back that they are probably paying 140-150million for TLM streaming rights based on its performance. *ducks for cover*

I've realized for awhile now that some here are having an issue with the concept of "free" paid for content on D+. As if it was thought that all content on D+ was just shoved up there by Disney without any cost associated with it which is it why it was "free" to the sub.

 

[Disney Irish]

“Idiocracy” is one of my favorite films, as it just cracks me up…kinda’ like “Raising Arizona” did, even further back in the day…!!!!! Unfortunately, we seem to be creeping closer and closer towards such.
Fortunately I’m 60, and probably won’t be around when it’s that crazy…!!!

Well I'm only a decade(ish) behind you, and I hope I'm gone if that day ever does come too. I pray for the future of this world sometimes.

I watch Idiocracy at least once a year, its funny.

 

[MrPromey]

That's the nature of capital heavy investment in some ways. You 'spend' 6.5 billion upfront on a themepark that yes makes money 3-5+ years later, but continues to make money in the long term. It's not about making a few hundred in 5 years. It's making billions in 10 for less capital. D+ is no different, it's just most people on this forum are far bigger parks fans than Disney content fans.

I get it but it feels to me like the real point you are in the black on something you've lost say $20 billion or so on is when you eventually make $20,000,000,001.00 in revenue - not the first quarter you make more than you've spent that quarter.

So considering, for this example, that D+ will continue to shoulder costs for licensing and production, it will in reality, take at least a decade for them to recoup those actual losses if not longer. That's betting that the streaming landscape which hasn't even been mature for a decade (if we want to say it's mature, now) doesn't throw a new curve-ball.

Not questioning Disney alone in this, though they're the ones we're talking about.

It just kind of baffles me how at that level, money doesn't really seem to matter when it comes to something that is solely about making people money.

But the corporate world doesn't seem to work that way.

 

[BrianLo]

I've realized for awhile now that some here are having an issue with the concept of "free" paid for content on D+. As if it was thought that all content on D+ was just shoved up there by Disney without any cost associated with it which is it why it was "free" to the sub.

Well in order to explain away the content not being paid for, you have to explain what Disney+ is spending 10 billion dollars on.

I've come to realize there's an underlying component of denial and persistence driven primarily by bad faith arguments for ideological gain rather than a complete intellectual discussion going on. In this thread at least. Not everyone, some people truly are just a product of extremely poor financial literacy in North America. It's almost a badge of honour in society to be financially illiterate, that's another discussion point.

The only reason I stick around is because the bad faith arguments entire tactic is to wear down the sane to take advantage of the financially illiterate. Unknowingly bringing them into their cause, which we know really has nothing to do with these movies box office profitability at their root. Not today, satan.

 

[BrianLo]

I get it but it feels to me like the real point you are in the black on something you've lost say $20 billion or so on is when you eventually make $20,000,000,001.00 in revenue - not the first quarter you make more than you've spent that quarter.

You also are not wrong, but you also need to take out the inherent value of what you've created and its resale value. Yes it's going to take 'a long time' for Disney to realize the value. Just like it takes Disney a long time for Disney to realize value out of their theme parks.

But in and of itself the 'dividend' is just a small component of the underlying 'stock'. What is D+ worth on the free market? Way in excess of what Disney has spent to realize it so far.

Same with parks. Sure I bet the totality of what Disney spent on WDW seems like a crazy amount at the time, but now WDW is probably resellable on the free market for, what... 50 billion?

This is the whole difference between building things up internally versus going out and just buying something. We all thought everyone wanted the former, but Disney+ has interestingly demonstrated most fans are against internal growth and expansion. Perhaps I am being slightly unfair since this is a component of the company some people have no faith in as ever being financially viable, unlike the parks which we have the benefit of hindsight.