ElvisMickey
Well-Known Member
Looking forward to keeping an eye on that stock price tomorrow lol…
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'Lightyear' Coming Summer 2022
- Thread starter NateD1226
- Start date
This deserves a separate reply.
Disney Live Action studios has not been profitable for decades and decades, if you only count the theatrical release window. Yes, they have a few huge hits making hundreds of millions. But then the rest are duds, not being profitable at the theaters.
So, that fact that the studio is still standing shows that Disney can wring money out of their theatrical content more than what they made while in theaters.
People who panic about the streaming business keep forgetting that Disney hit their four your goal in subscriptions in their first year. Disney's spending more money on content than any other streamer. They're now entering the phase of their streamers that two new titles are premiering each week (previously, it was just one).
If Disney's internal spreadsheets showed that D+ isn't going to be profitable when they said it would be (2024), they'd immediately drop it. Remember... Disney's an evil, money-grubbing bizness. They wouldn't knowingly set themselves up to fail.
Not to mention there's an ad-support tier coming to D+ this year. And that $8 fee is monthly, multiplied by over 100 million subscribers so far. It's not "nearly free."
And Disney's streaming bundle will be opening in 60 countries this year.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
What's even more concerning for Disney shareholders and the future of the studios is that it's just the latest flop in a string of box office flops or straight-to-streaming financial losses.
Remember, the studio industry rule of thumb is that you have to bring in double the budget at the global box office ticket sales to break even.
2021 - Luca: Production Budget - $150 Million, Global Box Office = $49 Million
2022 - Turning Red: Production Budget = $175 Million, Global Box Office = $19 Million
2022 - Encanto: Production Budget = $150 Million, Global Box Office = $256 Million
2022 - Lightyear: Production Budget = $200 Million, Global Box Office = $51 Million (opening weekend)
The closest thing to success for Disney/Pixar family films the past two years has been Encanto. But even then, owing to its bloated $150 Million budget, it did not turn a profit can cost Disney at least $40 Million in losses. From the Encanto page on Wikipedia...
"Factoring in both the film's production budget and marketing expenses, along with the theaters' share of revenues, Encanto was estimated to need to gross at least $300 million worldwide to break-even."
The other Disney/Pixar films were absolute dumpster fires full of cash that Burbank burned and lost. To the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars on Luca and Turning Red, and now Lightyear. This is not a business plan that is sustainable much longer. Disney/Pixar needs to make movies that people want to actually buy a ticket to see.
These were all release during a pandemic. The first two were only released in theaters in countries that had open theaters.
Encanto's theatrical run was cut short (30 days). And then became an Internet and top-of-the-charts success. I'm sure music sales pushed Encanto into the black.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
I agree. But in general here we are not talking about the live action movies Disney releases. We are talking about movies like Lightyear; the classic animated motion picture that Disney and Pixar have been releasing about twice per year for the past 25 years, usually a summer pic and then one released at Thanksging and/or Christmas.
Yes, the live action stuff is often duds. But that's a tradition over 50 years old now, going back to Herbie Goes Bananas and The Apple Dumpling Gang.
The issue at hand here is the mega-budget animation movies. Toy Story, Lion King, etc.
Again, not true.
Not the right figure. Not true.
Oh, god. So, this is going to be your new thing now. Multiple non-stop postings about how Lightyear and Pixar and Disney movies are all flops. How many posts are you aiming for? 10? 30? 50?
ElvisMickey
Well-Known Member
Exactly! This isn’t getting better anytime soon. It’s not like it’s a one off situation. Even if they cleaned house tomorrow, which obviously they’re not going to do, there’s no easy way out for them. In regards to Hollywood in general and what the audience does and doesn’t want to see, I believe these last few weeks may be a wake up call. Do you want to pander to Twitter or the people who actually pay to go see your movies?What's even more concerning for Disney shareholders and the future of the studios is that it's just the latest flop in a string of box office flops or straight-to-streaming financial losses.
Remember, the studio industry rule of thumb is that you have to bring in double the budget at the global box office ticket sales to break even.
2021 - Luca: Production Budget - $150 Million, Global Box Office = $49 Million
2022 - Turning Red: Production Budget = $175 Million, Global Box Office = $19 Million
2022 - Encanto: Production Budget = $150 Million, Global Box Office = $256 Million
2022 - Lightyear: Production Budget = $200 Million, Global Box Office = $51 Million (opening weekend)
The closest thing to success for Disney/Pixar family films the past two years has been Encanto. But even then, owing to its bloated $150 Million budget, it did not turn a profit can cost Disney at least $40 Million in losses. From the Encanto page on Wikipedia...
"Factoring in both the film's production budget and marketing expenses, along with the theaters' share of revenues, Encanto was estimated to need to gross at least $300 million worldwide to break-even."
The other Disney/Pixar films were absolute dumpster fires full of cash that Burbank burned and lost. To the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars on Luca and Turning Red, and now Lightyear. This is not a business plan that is sustainable much longer. Disney/Pixar needs to make movies that people want to actually buy a ticket to see.
My point in bringing up the Live Action Studios often not being profitable is that a spate of non-profitable animated features not having gangbuster Box Office is not the death knell for a studio as you make it out to be.I agree. But in general here we are not talking about the live action movies Disney releases. We are talking about movies like Lightyear; the classic animated motion picture that Disney and Pixar have been releasing about twice per year for the past 25 years, usually a summer pic and then one released at Thanksging and/or Christmas.
Yes, the live action stuff is often duds. But that's a tradition over 50 years old now, going back to Herbie Goes Bananas and The Apple Dumpling Gang.
The issue at hand here is the mega-budget animation movies. Toy Story, Lion King, etc.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
I'm not a studio exec, but that's also what I saw online in a bit of research.
I was purposely lowballing the numbers that Disney needs on Lightyear so as to make it as clear as possible that Lightyear is a massive box office failure that will cost the company a few hundred million dollars. There are some here who are saying that it's no big deal that Lightyear bombed, and it may even recover during Weekend #2. The reality for those apologists is not pretty.
Yikes! Judging by the miserable box office for Lightyear, using your numbers it appears that Lightyear may cost Disney nearly Half a Billion Dollars this fiscal year. That's gonna leave a mark.
Lightyear is the one-off. The others were mostly straight to D+, or a shortened theatrical window, released during a pandemic when other family friendly movies didn't do well.
There is no apples-to-apples comparisons here.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
A few bombs are part of the business, that is true. Not everything can be Frozen or Toy Story.
But when a studio (in this case the flagship Disney/Pixar animation operations) gets in a rut where year after year they release nothing but box office bombs, with only one weak fiscal performer in Encanto, that's just not a sustainable business plan.
Let's also not forget Burbank lost hundreds of millions of dollars on West Side Story just a few months ago.
Disney/Pixar just bombed again, this time most spectacularly in 4,200 theaters, with Lightyear. They desperately need a hit. When does that happen?
Attempts to do business in this economic milieu has hurt a lot of businesses.Yikes! Judging by the miserable box office for Lightyear, using your numbers it appears that Lightyear may cost Disney nearly Half a Billion Dollars this fiscal year. That's gonna leave a mark.
There are already at least 6 feature films that had losses of potential income due to the pandemic.
ElvisMickey
Well-Known Member
I understand what you’re saying but there have been plenty of movies released in theaters recently that have done great at the box office. When you look at Disney as a whole, the box office is dropping, the stock price is dropping, there’s negative article after negative article OR, You Tube video, out about this company. And now they have Disney + shows like Ms. Marvel tanking as well. Anyone can spin it any way they want, but they have a serious problem.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Okay, but that excuse is now over. And it doesn't explain the box office megahits of 2021 like No Time To Die, the latest Fast & Furious, or Spiderman that was released in theaters at Christmas, 2021.
Spiderman released December 17th, 2021: Global Box Office = $1.9 Billion (with a B)
Encanto released November 24th, 2021: Global Box Office = $256 Million
West Side Story released December 10th, 2021: Global Box Office $76 Million (with an M)
If you produce a movie that Americans want to see, they'll rush to the theaters in droves and pay $18 a pop. See: Top Gun Maverick, now heading to over a Billion in ticket sales.
Again, let me go over this carefully:
Soul, Luca, and Turning Red were released directly to D+ in the U.S. They were released only to some theaters worldwide. That's why they didn't make a profitable Box Office.
But you're including them in a list of bombs. They didn't bomb. They couldn't bomb. They weren't released in such a way that they could bomb because they didn't have a wide release at all.
Your claim that there's been bombs "year after year" is so apparently false, it's hard for me to consider you're engaging in this discussion in good faith.
Here are their critical and audience reviews:
Do you see how Soul, Luca, and Turning Red don't have a CinemaScore? THAT'S BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T RELEASED WIDELY IN THEATERS TO GET A SCORE.
And if they weren't released widely, then it was impossible for them to be profitable IN THE THEATERS.
That doesn't make them bombs.
That was Pixar. Now for DAS:
Raya was released in theaters and on D+ at the same time as a premier access. So, during the pandemic, people stayed home and payed to watch Raya there. So, we don't know how it did in total.
And when Encanto was released, it was announced it would be on D+ in just 30 days. Which was just stupid. It obviously affected the Box Office. But then Encanto became a cultural touchstone.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
I can give them a pass on Luca, released Christmas, 2020 when we were still in the pandemic grips.
But Turning Red was a bomb. And they knew it was going to be a bomb because they released it straight-to-streaming. Turning Red was released 90 days after Spiderman had packed theaters for months and made over a Billion dollars, so we can't pretend that theaters were still closed due to the pandemic in the spring of '22.
They bombed at the box office. They failed to turn any profit for their studio, and they cost their studio hundreds of millions of dollars. That's a bomb.
I haven't said that those 2021-22 box office bombs were artistically or creatively a bad movie. But I have said they were box office bombs that caused huge financial losses for their studios.
I don't care what the movie critic at the LA Times said about Turning Red. As a former Disney shareholder and a guy who still has a passing (yet waning) interest in the Disney company, I only care how much money they are making from their products.
The financial information you provided on these box office bombs proves that they are... bombs.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
My flawed agenda that Lightyear is a box office bomb?
That's not my "agenda", that's my opinion backed up by financial data and ticket sales statistics.
What "facts" are we missing that Lightyear only made $51 Million in box office this past opening weekend? Fill us in on the missing facts, if you please.
Disney Pixar's 'Lightyear' Huge Flop At Box Office | Cosmic Book News
Disney Pixar's Lightyear appears to be a huge flop this weekend at the box office as estimates have dropped by a lot.
cosmicbook.news
Prince-1
Well-Known Member
My flawed agenda that Lightyear is a box office bomb?
That's not my "agenda", that's my opinion backed up by financial data and ticket sales statistics.
What facts are we missing that Lightyear only made $51 Million in box office this past opening weekend? Fill us in on the missing facts, if you please.
It is to early to make a judgement on Lightyear but even if it under performs you are ignoring all your other claims about how bad Disney/Pixar is doing. Conveniently ignoring that several Pixar movies went straight to video because of the Pandemic but using them to prove a point is an "agenda". Or blind ignorance.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
They sent Turning Red straight to streaming this past spring because they obviously weren't confident with it. They also made that decision on Turning Red several months after the American box office had huge public turnout and Billion+ ticket sales in theaters for movies like Spiderman and No Time To Die.
That's a box office bomb.
Disney can not continue to spend $150 Million to $200 Million to produce movies that they then won't release in theaters. That $150 Million per film business model is based on a family of four spending at least $60 on four movie tickets at the multiplex, not spending $8 for unlimited viewings in their family room.
Lightyear is just the latest box office bomb for Disney/Pixar animation. What's next on the schedule? What's released this Christmas in theaters?
ElvisMickey
Well-Known Member
Sorry, but it’s definitely NOT too early to make a judgement on Lightyear. This was OPENING WEEKEND. Disney should be embarrassed…