mickEblu
Well-Known Member
They re losing their @$$ with D+
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Elemental (Pixar - June 2023)
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
They re losing their @$$ with D+
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Apparently. Covid only makes American families stay away from Pixar or WDAS movies.
Ghost93
Well-Known Member
Elemental shouldn't go to Disney Plus until Christmas Day. The Little Mermaid remake should go on Disney Plus Feb 14 (taking advantage of both Valentine's Day and Black History Month).
TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
Don’t send Elemental to D+ at all. Break the habit. The predictability is a large part of what’s keeping people from paying for theatrical.
Vegas Disney Fan
Well-Known Member
The problem with that approach is then they have to spend even more money developing new D+ shows to attract and retain D+ subscribers.
Adding movies to D+ should be a free way of enticing subscribers, they just need to find a release date compromise so the movies recoup their costs in the theaters before being poached.
They released movies on dvd and BluRay around the 6 month mark and it worked, I think that’s the secret time frame between long enough to get people in theaters but also new enough to still be a big benefit of paying for the service.
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
No they don't. This is what they misunderstood about their own service from the very beginning.
They retain subscribers by people watching The Lion King, Frozen, Moana, Star Wars IV - VI, Beauty and the Beast, Coco, Ratatouille, Encanto, and Toy Story over and over and over again.
Kids and families don't consume streaming content the way adult audiences do. Adults treat content as disposable. They stream a show, and then they're done with it, likely forever. They might re-watch something to prepare for the release of a sequel or a second season, but nobody is going back and re-watching Andor right now. Or even Stranger Things. Services need new, high quality content to attract new audiences, but they retain audiences in different ways. Adult services retain audiences with a high volume of low-quality content to fill up their hours in between tentpole releases, while kids and family services retain audiences with a smaller number of high-quality titles that people will watch repeatedly. The only adult content that behaves like kids content in rewatchability is The Office.
Disney+ has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
Minions went to Peacock. Puss in Boots went to Peacock. Mario is coming to Peacock. The Way of Water is on Disney+. Maverick is on Paramount+. The streaming excuse is Pete Docter trying to blame his own failures on Kareem Daniel.
Disney's animated releases are failing because they're making audiences that people don't care to see.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
That is gonna move the needle…for sure. Everybody wants the stuff…they just refuse to show their hand and actually got watch it.
I swear!!!
Thinking about Bob iger’s corporate Disney failing at EVERY turn can have the effect of a warm glass of milkThis is too much! I'm going to bed!
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
Counterargument: nobody is signing up or staying on D+ to see Elemental. For all we know there’s contractual language saying it has to go there by a certain point. But Disney needs to experiment with something different because their current approach is a disaster. Get ready for a repeat when Wish comes out.
Again, Lasseter didn't write, direct, and produce each Pixar movie. There was no panic over his departure.
He hasn't had a "producer" credit since the early 80's (but 'executive producer' on everything else because of his position in the company).
His writing credits for feature films are for Cars 1-2 and Toy Story 1-3 and A Bug's Life. And that's it.
His directing credits for feature films are for Cars 1-2, Toy Story 1-2, and A Bug's Life. And that's it.
All the other Pixar movies were written, directed, and produced by others.
After Lasseter left, Incredibles 2 came out, then Toy Story 4. Both billion dollar box office and excellent reviews.
Soul, Luca, and Turning Red went straight to D+. They all got very good reviews and wound up on the top ten streaming lists without Lasseter's input.
Lasseter brought the "Pixar method" to Disney Animation Studios. And DAS went from Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Home on the Range, Chicken Little, and Meet the Robinsons to: Bolt, Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana, etc... without Lasseter's direct input (except for Bolt).
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
They gotta another one in the tubes for 6/30…
Let’s see how “irresistible” Bob’s IP is?
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
You’re being too literal…
Pixar itself has stated that the original brain trust - which lasseter had been apart of - came up with the first 10 concepts…roughly though ratatouille
There was a noticeable pivot after that when it became sequel Central.
It’s not all about lasseter or close…it’s more about a pivot when the new lords took control that has gone that way.
So, I saw Elemental last night and I liked it.
I wouldn't say it was 'excellent.' I would have a hard time thinking of any romcom I thought was excellent. But, for a romcom, it was very enjoyable.
The visuals were astounding as usual. The soundtrack great.
The theme of immigrant integration was fine. Way too simplified to make the movie excellent, but, it gives the broad strokes appropriate for a family film.
Comfort food.
Too bad, tho, that something merely 'comfort food' has to compete with so many tentpoles. This would have been better released near Valentine's day and marketed as a romance.
I wouldn't say it was 'excellent.' I would have a hard time thinking of any romcom I thought was excellent. But, for a romcom, it was very enjoyable.
The visuals were astounding as usual. The soundtrack great.
The theme of immigrant integration was fine. Way too simplified to make the movie excellent, but, it gives the broad strokes appropriate for a family film.
Comfort food.
Too bad, tho, that something merely 'comfort food' has to compete with so many tentpoles. This would have been better released near Valentine's day and marketed as a romance.
TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
D+ has something to do with it. “Making movies that people don’t want to see” is restating the obvious for a box office failure. The company has fouled up their branding, which is part of the problem as well.
But based on concepts alone, there’s no reason why Wall-E (liberal environmentalist message) or Inside Out (teenage girl’s emotional life) should have been big hits while Elemental (high concept love story) had the weakest opening weekend in Pixar history.
Ghost93
Well-Known Member
Elemental would have been better suited for Valentine's Day, July 28 (instead of the Haunted Mansion) or August.
doctornick
Well-Known Member
It's also true that D+ has a much higher subscription base than Peacock - especially (anecdotally I admit) among families, the people most likely to go and see this animated fare in theaters. The option of "should I see in theaters or wait for streaming" is different if you don't actually subscribe to the streamer.
Also, I'd note that every one of the "big hits" for animation movie post-pandemic has part of an established franchise so that may be a big motivation to get people to go watch in theaters. If anything this argues for more Toy Story, Inside Out, etc sequels as opposed to original concepts which I think most here aren't in favor of.
TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
This is from an Entertainment Weekly article from earlier in the year. It doesn’t feel like the movie really captures what Sohn is describing here:
If you think about it, the biggest obstacle to the romance is the immigrant father. The (white?) progressive water family doesn’t object to Ember at all. Talk about a missed opportunity! So the metaphor weirdly vilifies the immigrant father because of *his* prejudice and the pressure Ember feels to keep her romance secret (not to mention not wanting to follow his plan to turn the store over to her).
The fact that the water family doesn’t object at all really oversimplifies the class/interracial relationship dynamics — something that Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is far more honest about. Both white and black parents are uneasy about their children’s marriage.
If you think about it, the biggest obstacle to the romance is the immigrant father. The (white?) progressive water family doesn’t object to Ember at all. Talk about a missed opportunity! So the metaphor weirdly vilifies the immigrant father because of *his* prejudice and the pressure Ember feels to keep her romance secret (not to mention not wanting to follow his plan to turn the store over to her).
The fact that the water family doesn’t object at all really oversimplifies the class/interracial relationship dynamics — something that Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is far more honest about. Both white and black parents are uneasy about their children’s marriage.
