Disney's Live Action The Little Mermaid

lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
Epcot81Fan said:
This film had an even more unique challenge as taking a beloved Disney character and swapping its race was always going to be an issue especially for the strong Disney markets in Asia.

Other films featuring black actors have obviously done well in those markets (we’ll put aside Disney’s controversy of removing the black actor from the Chinese Star Wars poster), but race-swapping a classic Disney character is an entirely different dynamic for these international markets.

Again, people can be disheartened by the film’s international box office, but nobody (when being intellectually honest) can feign surprise or bewilderment to the cause.
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So now we’re back to this being an expected outcome? Not that long ago people in this thread where mocking this as just a lame excuse.
 
MisterPenguin

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
TP2000 said:
Getting it back on track to nowhere good, Barbie's box office looks like it's going to fly past Mermaid in just one week's time.

With a production budget that was at least half that of Mermaid. o_O

View attachment 733290

www.the-numbers.com

Movie Comparison: The Little Mermaid (2023) vs. Barbie (2023)

Domestic box office comparison between The Little Mermaid (2023) and Barbie (2023)
www.the-numbers.com www.the-numbers.com
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Wouldn't Teenage Kraken be a better comparison?

Or are you only going to pick movies doing better for a comparison? There's a word for that...
 
TP2000

TP2000

Well-Known Member
MisterPenguin said:
Wouldn't Teenage Kraken be a better comparison?

Or are you only going to pick movies doing better for a comparison? There's a word for that...
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Teenage Kraken had a production budget of only $70 Million (28% of Mermaid's production budget) and was almost entirely ignored by its blink-and-you'll-miss-it marketing. It also was a massive flop.

Little Mermaid was allegedly a huge tent pole summer blockbuster given the prime Memorial Day Weekend debut, with a massive budget for both production and marketing, and was hyped to the hilt by Disney's vaunted marketing machine.

Also, wildly successful movies like Barbie and Oppenheimer and last summer's huge hits like Maverick show with hard facts and data that Americans will still willingly pay to go see a movie in a theater in huge numbers. But the movie has to be worth it for them.
 
G

GimpYancIent

Well-Known Member
The folks at Mattel have successfully toyed with a Barbi mermaid hmmmmm a possibility for a Barbi 2?
1690416827223.png
 
C

celluloid

Well-Known Member
TP2000 said:
Teenage Kraken had a production budget of only $70 Million (28% of Mermaid's production budget) and was almost entirely ignored by its blink-and-you'll-miss-it marketing. It also was a massive flop.

Little Mermaid was allegedly a huge tent pole summer blockbuster given the prime Memorial Day Weekend debut, with a massive budget for both production and marketing, and was hyped to the hilt by Disney's vaunted marketing machine.

Also, wildly successful movies like Barbie and Oppenheimer and last summer's huge hits like Maverick show with hard facts and data that Americans will still willingly pay to go see a movie in a theater in huge numbers. But the movie has to be worth it for them.
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I imagine Disney's lackluster Mermaid reception did not do Kraken many favors.

Remember when this came out?

1690417230436.png

'and then this:
1690417183542.png


But all of that is besides the point. Yes Teenage Kraken was not a box office hit. one of the middle budget blips for Universal in a summer eason of smash hits both tent poles and mids.

Where as all of Disney's did not get their ROI goals.(Mansion could be a surprise but doubtful)
 
C

celluloid

Well-Known Member
Epcot81Fan said:
Actually not only not odd, but entirely predicted since when the film was announced.

The casting was always going to be controversial internationally (especially in the Asian markets) and it has played out exactly as many predicted, if not worse.

Disney knew this and went ahead anyway (one can speculate to why) and will burn through investor cash yet again.

One can say it is disappointing, but certainly not surprising.
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That does not bode well for Haunted Mansion. For much of the main cast.

Also particularly because of the more recent last couple year mandate of know dead or undead being depicted on screen in many Chinese Markets.
 
Casper Gutman

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
celluloid said:
I imagine Disney's lackluster Mermaid reception did not do Kraken many favors.

Remember when this came out?

View attachment 733367
'and then this:
View attachment 733365

But all of that is besides the point. Yes Teenage Kraken was not a box office hit. one of the middle budget blips for Universal in a summer eason of smash hits both tent poles and mids.

Where as all of Disney's did not get their ROI goals.(Mansion could be a surprise but doubtful)
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This is utter nonsense. Without Mario, Universal's ROI for the year's slate of films was significantly worse then Disney's, not a "season of smash hits." And the idea that Mermaid hurt Kraken is laughable. You aren't arguing in good faith.
 
Casper Gutman

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
Epcot81Fan said:
As the international theatrical run winds down and as no major international market grossed $500K last weekend, we can start to put specifically the international box office in some perspective.

Using an approximate international box office of +/- $270M, below is how that generally compares to other Disney remakes along with the international/domestic ratio (all numbers roughly adjusted for inflation, not including currency fluctuations).

To put it in broad perspective, The Little Mermaid will make approximately a half a billion dollars less at the international box office than The Jungle Book and up to over a billion dollars less than The Lion King.

International BO, Int/Dom Ratio

Lion King: $1.34B 205%
Alice in Wonderland: $967M 207%
Beauty and the Beast: $948M 151%
Aladdin: $834M 196%
The Jungle Book: $768M 166%
The Little Mermaid: $270M 91%

Recent tentpole comps over past year:

Avatar 2: $1.64B 239%
Top Gun:Maverick $777M 108%
Super Mario Bros: $775M 135%
Minions: Gru $570M 154%
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How's the international market doing overall, particularly China? You cherry-picked a slate of the biggest hits you could find, and what you proved is that, even with your cherry-picking, international box office is way, way down post-covid unless you're Avatar. Even something like Mario, which one would expect to have MASSIVE international appeal, didn't perform particularly well.

It also seems very relevant to point out the this version of Mermaid actually performed better in relation to the Lion King remake (it earned 34% as much) then the original Mermaid did against the original Lion King (24%).

Mermaid underperformed in a tough box office environment, but that statement isn't enough for a lot of posters here... for some strange reason.
 
C

celluloid

Well-Known Member
Casper Gutman said:
This is utter nonsense. Without Mario, Universal's ROI for the year's slate of films was significantly worse then Disney's, not a "season of smash hits." And the idea that Mermaid hurt Kraken is laughable. You aren't arguing in good faith.
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The mermaid and kraken bit was a joke to mock The Wild ripping on Madagascar.
But yes, more Universal's films were less loss considering the ROI.
The duds don't sting a company as much when they don't poor 150-300 into every film.

And you can't just cherry pick not counting mario. Isn't that what people cause others of doing when wishing Disney did better?
Mario.
It cost less than Disney's tentpoles by far and of course rocked the world.
WB is now doing something similar(although double production budget of Mario)

Sony also rocked the house this year with a variety of investment levels in the box office.
Disney has no Barbie this year.
Disney had no Spiderverse.
Disney has no Oppenheimer
Disney had no Mario.

Disney had a bunch of break evens when they were at their best.
Disney has a Disney problem.

Those are the facts.
 
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Casper Gutman

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
celluloid said:
The mermaid and kraken bit was a joke to mock The Wild ripping on Madagascar.
But yes, more Universal's films were less loss considering the ROI.
The duds don't sting a company as much when they don't poor 150-300 into every film.

And you can't just cherry pick not counting mario. Isn't that what people cause others of doing when wishing Disney did better?
Mario.
It cost less than Disney's tentpoles by far and of course rocked the world.
WB is now doing something similar(although double production budget of Mario)

Sony also rocked the house this year with a variety of investment levels in the box office.
Disney has no Barbie this year.
Disney had no Spiderverse.
Disney had no Mario.

Disney had a bunch of break evens when they were at their best.
Disney has a Disney problem.
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Your statement was that Universal had had a season of hits. That's not true. It hasn't. It had A hit. Without that one movie, its ratio of dollars spent to dollars earned was considerably worse then Disney, about as bad as Warners. The point is that the box office environment, and particularly international box office, is utterly brutal.

To illustrate this last statement, consider that last year Mario would have been only the THIRD highest earner (behind a Disney film at number one) and Barbie would have had the THIRD biggest opening weekend (behind two Disney films).

Disney did have a Guardians this year, which as you probably know is the second biggest film of the year.

You aren't trying to understand what is going on at the box office, you're grinding an axe.
 
C

celluloid

Well-Known Member
Casper Gutman said:
Your statement was that Universal had had a season of hits. That's not true. It hasn't. It had A hit. Without that one movie, its ratio of dollars spent to dollars earned was considerably worse then Disney, about as bad as Warners. The point is that the box office environment, and particularly international box office, is utterly brutal.

To illustrate this last statement, consider that last year Mario would have been only the THIRD highest earner (behind a Disney film at number one) and Barbie would have had the THIRD biggest opening weekend (behind two Disney films).

Disney did have a Guardians this year, which as you probably know is the second biggest film of the year.

You aren't trying to understand what is going on at the box office, you're grinding an axe.
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I never said a season of only hits. It def has some this year obviously, the difference is even with the many losses, they were low to mid produced budgets.
Nothing about Disney's were modest losses. They had Zero hits thus far and all meant to be franchises.

So let's see last .
Cocaine Bear
Mario
Oppenheimer.
M3GAN(late 2022 release since we are tossing Avatar 2 for good measure in your argument)

Talk about not in good faith. When you say Universal had one hit.

That's four hits so far this year. Your ignorance told me they had one. Yeah, if you only want to count summer for a snapshot Uni had two hits( one being the biggest movie of the year so far by far, we shall see later) But there is cherry picking again.

All three(four if you want to count M3GAN as it was so late in 2022 and we are tossing in that year now) movies that blew away predictions and goals in their own right. The most expensive one was 100 million production budget.

They had their misses.( reinfield, Ruby Gillman, Fast being the big one. It was time for that franchise to finally take a hit and a few others. Names don't matter but we can list them)
They had their break evens.(knock Knock close with that etc...)

Disney hits that passed goals and predictions(gee uhh) NONE.
All even tentpoles. After marketing means losses.
Then they have their actual major losses. Indy, elemental, probably haunted Mansion.

See the difference?

You say I am not discussing in good, faith but you misquote, and have nothing to back up what you accuse of.
To quote The original Ghost Host Narration:
Shhhh listen.
 
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C

celluloid

Well-Known Member
MisterPenguin said:
Here's Sony since the beginning of 2022. Last year they were in the red (in the theatrical window). This year they are in the black so far... but I wouldn't call it rockin' it....

View attachment 733397
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Two of the movies on that list that are their biggest ROI are still earning a million and a half daily. I call that rocking it out of the whole.

They even had the biggest domestic Marvel based film of the year, and the lowest cost to produce Marvel based film of the year.

Again, now we keep tossing 2022 in there.

Disney wishes they had a profit margin like Across The Spider-Verse and Insidious: The Red Door.

Only thing similar Disney could say they got money back from would be Guardians of The Galaxy thanks to international monies.
 
Casper Gutman

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
celluloid said:
I never said a season of only hits. It def has some this year obviously, the difference is even with the many losses, they were low to mid produced budgets.
Nothing about Disney's were modest losses. They had Zero hits thus far and all meant to be franchises.

So let's see last 365 days since we are tossing Avatar in there now as well from last year.
Cocaine Bear
Mario
Oppenheimer.
M3GAN

Talk about not in good faith. When you say Universal had one hit.

That's four hits so far this year. Your ignorance told me they had one. Yeah, if you only want to count summer for a snapshot Uni had one(the biggest movie of the year so far by far, we shall see later) But there is cherry picking again.

All three movies that blew away predictions and goals in their own right. The most expensive one was 100 million production budget.

They had their misses.( reinfield, Ruby Gillman, Fast being the big one. It was time for that franchise to finally take a hit and a few others. Names don't matter but we can list them)
They had their break evens.(knock Knock close with that etc...)

Disney hits that passed goals and predictions(gee uhh) NONE.
All even tentpoles. After marketing means losses.
Then they have their actual major losses. Indy, elemental, probably haunted Mansion.

See the difference?

You say I am not discussing in good, faith but you misquote, and have nothing to back up what you accuse of.
To quote The original Ghost Host Narration:
Shhhh listen.
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Dude, Cocaine Bear was not a hit. Oppenheimer will be successful, but its been out for less then a week.

Again, I put together an entire post on how much each studio was spending to earn back a dollar. Without Mario, Universal was doing as badly as WB. You're trying to blow off big bombs like Renfeld and Fast, but the fact is that, again, without Mario Disney is substantially outperforming Universal. When little films bomb, they don't hurt too much... but when they hit, they don't help too much.
 
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