Phroobar
Well-Known Member
In Hollywood, You’re only as good as your last performance.
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Elemental (Pixar - June 2023)
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
If that were so, there would never have been a Disney Renaissance.
Peaks and troughs are an inevitable part of any company’s history, Disney’s included. The catasrophising in these threads is more than a little premature.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
Absolutely. In a 100 year history, Disney has had plenty of flops, and plenty of hits.
Any studio has.
Heck, films that are considered flops may be far better films artistically than some of the biggest box office hits. It's all so subjective...
But studios will keep on making 'em, and studio will keep on having hits and flops. (to be determined by various factors).
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
I’ve mentioned this before, but Sleeping Beauty—today acknowledged as one of the company’s greatest masterpieces—lost money at the box office upon its release. And it wasn’t the only beloved classic to do so.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
I mean, anyone engaging genuinely surely knows that critical success does not always equate to financial success, and the reverse is also true.
Prince-1
Well-Known Member
Obviously you aren't in Hollywood because that's not true at all.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
It also isn’t the end of the world if a film is a critical failure and a box-office flop. Studios bounce back from such situations all the time.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
Very true.
And back on course, from what little we have to go on, Elemental looks like a great addition to the Pixar library, and I hope it truly is.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
But what if it's the third animated box-office flop in a row? For an animation company that spends $150 to $200 Million to make each movie that then flops? Do they just take another $300 Million loss and say "Don't forget, it got a good review in the LA Times! Fourth time will be the charm!"
If they're going to spend upwards of $200 Million per film, when their direct competition is spending half of that, they need to get a hit every other movie or so. A Google search just now has industry trade sources claiming Elemental cost Pixar between $175 and $200 Million to make.
Using a conservative "Double The Box Office To Break Even", the DisCo's last two family animated films lost them $380 Million.
Using the "Triple The Box Office To Break Even" ratio that more people here like to use, their last two films lost them $700 Million.
Give or take $20 Million, of course. And plenty of catered lunches.
This is not a business model that can continue like this without getting a hit. Elemental really needs to be a hit!
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
No need for guess work on these ones. Deadline published the numbers. 300 million between the two, but Strange World was absolutely the bigger train wreck.
The Biggest Box Office Bombs Of 2022: Deadline’s Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament
Lightyear, Strange World, Amsterdam, Devotion and Babylon were among the biggest box office bombs of 2022.
deadline.com
Lightyear maybe, eventually, could find a path if the Disney machine was behind it. Which it isn't really since the pivot to Toy Story 5. Strange World is getting buried like a WDAS 2000-era film though.
It isn't.
Pixar: Soul, Luca, and Turning Red were straight to D+ and all three got excellent reviews.
DAS: Frozen 2 made $1.4B. Raya was direct release to D+. Encanto had a shortened theatrical run. F2 had good reviews. Raya and Encanto had excellent reviews. Encanto became a sensation and is still showing up in Nielsen's Top Ten streamed movies two years later.
But we've been thru this before and you're still pedaling a false narrative.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
Still not the disaster that some here (seemingly with much relish) predict.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
I wasn't talking about Frozen 2 from 2019 (that seems like a generation ago after what we've been through in the last 4 years!).
I was talking about the last two big-budget animated films from Walt Disney Company. That would be Strange World last Thanksgiving, and Lightyear last June. Elemental is the third movie in that string, thus my question...
Their last two family animated films were flops. Strange World in particular was an Epic Flop. They need this third one to not flop.
My apologies, I misread that to mean in the previous three years, not just the two plus the imminent one this year.I was talking about the last two big-budget animated films from Walt Disney Company. That would be Strange World last Thanksgiving, and Lightyear last June. Elemental is the third movie in that string, thus my question...
It won't be that big of a deal. The two recent flops are from two different studios. So, so far, each has had a flop of one in a row.
We'll see if Elemental and Wish are canaries in the coal mine or can rectify the studios' reputations.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
Isn’t it a bit intellectually dishonest to lump Burbank and Emeryville together—I’m using your terminology here—while omitting the other divisions of the Walt Disney Company from your gloomy assessment? Why don’t the recent Avatar and Guardians of the Galaxy films count?I wasn't talking about Frozen 2 from 2019 (that seems like a generation ago after what we've been through in the last 4 years!).
I was talking about the last two big-budget animated films from Walt Disney Company. That would be Strange World last Thanksgiving, and Lightyear last June. Elemental is the third movie in that string, thus my question...
Their last two family animated films were flops. Strange World in particular was an Epic Flop. They need this third one to not flop.
View attachment 715411
TP2000
Well-Known Member
I was lumping "Family Animation" into one group. That's Pixar and WDAS.
Marvel is something entirely different, with an entirely different demographic (13 to 30 year old men and a few of their very patient dates).
Avatar is, well, that's James Cameron. And he's so out there he is his own demographic, but it's basically an action/drama mega-movie for anyone 15 to 65. I even know a few folks over 65 who went to see Avatar 2, but they knew to turn their hearing aids down during the previews.
But family animation, that's something Disney built it's entire brand on. Walt got the ball rolling, but they had more financial success with it long after Walt in the 1980's, 90's and 00's. They were so successful, for a time they had two independent animation studios 400 miles apart making slightly different yet wildly successful box office movies for the same family demographic. Pixar and WDAS.
Judging on the past few years though, they've now got two independent studios 400 miles apart making nearly indistinguishable movies that continue to flop at the box office.
Elemental needs to not flop.
I'm rooting for it, if only because of Miss Catherine O'Hara, who I've been a huge fan of since Jimmy Carter was in the White House and my TV had a UHF dial that got Canadian stations because I was so close to the border.
Last edited:
TP2000
Well-Known Member
One other thing that seems to prove that family animation is its own box office demographic, especially in summer in North America, is the box office results from the past 50 years. Take 2022 for instance, it had several Billion dollar blockbusters all overlapping each other from Memorial Day through August.
But many of those movies made big money (Top Gun Maverick, Jurassic World, Minions, Thor), while one lost their studio money (Lightyear). In the same suburban multiplexes all playing the same movies for free consumers to choose from in a free market. During summer vacation.
And those results were clear. Multiple movies can do Billion Dollar+ business all in the same season at the same multiplex.
Last edited:
I think given the amount of competition around it and coming after Lightyear's massive flop, it'll be a morale boost to Pixar if Elemental just gets critical acclaim and breaks even financially. It will hopefully bode better for Elio to be a legitimate hit, though that faces some stiff competition as well.
I do think it would be not good if this flops. Would probably mean at least another nine months before Disney is comfortable greenlighting anything else original.
I do think it would be not good if this flops. Would probably mean at least another nine months before Disney is comfortable greenlighting anything else original.
