'Lightyear' Coming Summer 2022

[BuddyThomas]

It's not too early to make a financial judgement on Lightyear's box office performance. It bombed, the numbers will get much worse on Weekend #2, and it's going to cost the Disney company a few hundred million dollars. That's not a good business plan.

Again, we're talking the cold, hard facts of box office financials. Not the film's creative or artistic merits.

Heck, who knows, Lightyear could become a cult classic and 20 years from now play to packed houses of drunk college kids in the Student Union on weekends. Anything's possible!



Thank you. The box office take of a film's opening weekend is a classic way to tell if the film was financially succesful or not. This was not a succesful film by any stretch.



The facts are that the film made $51 Million domestically and $86 Million globally on its opening weekend. That's abysmal for a film with a $200 Million production budget, opening on a new 3-day holiday weekend in the USA.



Exactly. This discussion is more than just about Lightyear, it's about the long-term health of Disney's two animation studios in Burbank and Emeryville. This company can't keep spending hundreds of millions of dollars on each animated film and then lose huge money on them. It's not a business plan that can continue like this fiscal year after fiscal year. Something must change; either the movies must change or the business plan must change. Which will it be?

Disney will be fine.

 

[TP2000]

Good lord. Calm down. You’re practically giddy about this. Why?

I'm very old. I haven't been "giddy" about anything in many years.

But, I am interested in the financial health and creative success of the Walt Disney Company. That company just threw away a few hundred million dollars on a movie hardly anyone is going to see. Again. Why is that?

That's something worth discussing on, you know, a discussion board.

 

[BuddyThomas]

I'm very old. I haven't been "giddy" about anything in many years.

But I am interested in the financial health and creative success of the Walt Disney Company. That company just threw away a few hundred million dollars on a movie hardly anyone is going to see, during a summer of big box office blockbusters. Why is that?

That's something worth discussing on, you know, a discussion board.

Ya do recall that we are just coming out of a worldwide pandemic, correct?

 

[TP2000]

Ya do recall that we are just coming out of a worldwide pandemic, correct?

You do recall that Top Gun was released a month ago and is about to make a cool Billion, correct?

I get it that in New York City, much of west LA, and a few hip neighorhoods in DC, Portland and Austin Covid is still a thing, and people there pretend to be very concerned about it. But the rest of the country, and much of the world, moved on a year ago.

Which is why Spiderman did $1.9 Billion in box office six months ago at the same time West Side Story flopped as hard as Ishtar. The theaters in America were packed full for Spiderman!

Make a good movie in 2022, and people will pay to go see it. Regardless of what the world was like in 2020.

 

[Ghost93]

I'm very old. I haven't been "giddy" about anything in many years.

But, I am interested in the financial health and creative success of the Walt Disney Company. That company just threw away a few hundred million dollars on a movie hardly anyone is going to see. Again. Why is that?

That's something worth discussing on, you know, a discussion board.

Disney made almost a billion with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and will likely make similar amounts of money with Thor: Love and Thunder. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will make money, though I don't know if it will do a billion without Chadwick Boseman.

And if the live action remakes of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and the Lion King are any indication, the remake of The Little Mermaid should make about a billion next year. My point is, overall the company will be fine despite Lightyear being a financial dissapointment. They just need to stay the course and keep releasing the movies theatrically. They need to get people out of the habit of waiting for Disney Plus.

 

[TP2000]

Disney made almost a billion with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and will likely make similar amounts of money with Thor: Love and Thunder. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will make money, though I don't know if it will do a billion without Chadwick Boseman.

I'm not worried about Marvel. Their movies they release in theaters are cash cows, so long as they stick to the script and don't get too experimental with those. Apparently some of the Marvel stuff they are releasing via streaming isn't nearly as successful as the big, macho, testosterone fueled superhero movies.

Just don't mess with the Marvel formula to get American boys and men into the theaters at $15 per seat!

And if the live action remakes of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and the Lion King are any indication, the remake of The Little Mermaid should make about a billion next year. My point is, overall the company will be fine despite Lightyear being a financial dissapointment. They just need to stay the course and keep releasing the movies theatrically. They need to get people out of the habit of waiting for Disney Plus.

I'm out of the loop on the upcoming movie slate, but that seems very heavy on remakes. But I thank you for the update.

The whole streaming Disney Plus thing baffles me. No matter how many of the Smart Set try and explain it to me, I just can't figure out how an $8 per month streaming service with unlimited viewings can replace a family of four spending $60 on movie tickets.

Replacing theater box office revenue with an $8 per month subscription just doesn't pencil out for me. So I don't know how it works for the sharp pencil boys in Burbank either, at least not long term.

 

[Ghost93]

I'm out of the loop on the upcoming movie slate, but that seems very heavy on remakes. But I thank you for the update.

The whole streaming Disney Plus thing baffles me. No matter how many of the Smart Set try and explain it to me, I just can't figure out how an $8 per month streaming service with unlimited viewings can replace a family of four spending $60 on movie tickets.

Replacing theater box office revenue with an $8 per month subscription just doesn't pencil out for me. So I don't know how it works for the sharp pencil boys in Burbank either, at least not long term.

I also forgot to mention Avatar: The Way of Water is coming out by this year, and Disney will get the profits off of that. It remains to be seen whether the general public will be interested in an Avatar sequel. But even if that movie only makes half of what the first one made, it would still be well over $1 billion.

I also agree that streaming subscriptions can't be enough to sustain movies with $150 million to $200 million budgets. This is why sending Luca and Turning Red straight to streaming was so baffling to me.

 

[Kirby86]

Make a good movie in 2022, and people will pay to go see it. Regardless of what the world was like in 2020.

Good movies have flopped in years before the pandemic and good movies will flop post pandemic. Sure if you make a good movie you have a better chance of makeing money, but let's not act like box office is the end-all be-all to spot a quality movie.

 

[GimpYancIent]

Disney made almost a billion with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and will likely make similar amounts of money with Thor: Love and Thunder. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will make money, though I don't know if it will do a billion without Chadwick Boseman.

And if the live action remakes of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and the Lion King are any indication, the remake of The Little Mermaid should make about a billion next year. My point is, overall the company will be fine despite Lightyear being a financial dissapointment. They just need to stay the course and keep releasing the movies theatrically. They need to get people out of the habit of waiting for Disney Plus.

50 / 50 Live action remakes on the whole have not generally been good performers pre-pandemic so I will not be expecting the optimistic numbers you are projecting.

 

[GimpYancIent]

Good movies have flopped in years before the pandemic and good movies will flop post pandemic. Sure if you make a good movie you have a better chance of makeing money, but let's not act like box office is the end-all be-all to spot a quality movie.

In the case of Disney I look at merchandise sales post initial release of the movie. There are more measures of success than the box office.

 

[BuddyThomas]

Good movies have flopped in years before the pandemic and good movies will flop post pandemic. Sure if you make a good movie you have a better chance of makeing money, but let's not act like box office is the end-all be-all to spot a quality movie.

Exactly. Wasn't The Wizard of Oz a flop when it first opened? I'm not saying that Lightyear is The Wizard of Oz, but still.

 

[erasure fan1]

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.

That's a good point. Luca and soul I get going to D+. Theatres weren't really open yet so ok, that's fine. But Turning red had zero reason to go to D+, and Spider man is the proof of that. While I wouldn't call it a bomb, I would call it a failure. Whatever you call it there isn't a good way to spin it outside of, more D+ content.

The problem I see with pixar is this. They have yet to fill the shoes of Lasseter. He was the creative heart of Pixar. He put story above all else, except maybe cars 2, Lol. I can't say I hate anything they've done on the animation side, but I haven't loved anything either.

 

[Kirby86]

In the case of Disney I look at merchandise sales post initial release of the movie. There are more measures of success than the box office.

Yeah however I think if a kid wants a Buzz Lightyear they are going to want the Toy Story version not this one. I think Sox is only new character that will have some good toys sales.

 

[Ghost93]

50 / 50 Live action remakes on the whole have not generally been good performers pre-pandemic so I will not be expecting the optimistic numbers you are projecting.

I think it's important to keep in mind that the most successful live-action remakes are those from the Disney Renaissance. The animated version of BATB, The Lion King and Aladdin were top 10 box office hits in the 90s. When the remakes came out about 25 years later — the people who saw the animated movies as children in the 90s were grown adults and they saw the remakes with their children. Hence the box office successes of those three remakes.

The live-action remakes based on older Disney movies, however, have been more hit or miss. Maleficent and Alice and Wonderland made money, but their live action sequels flopped. Dumbo — a remake of a movie from 1941 — flopped. The 1977 Pete's Dragon wasn't a huge hit and neith was the live action remake. Mary Poppins Returns and the CGI Winnie the Pood didn't set the world on fire either.

The live-action Mulan is a tricky case because the animated movie — while beloved by millennials — wasn't as successful as the early Disney Renaissance movies, and the remake was plagued with multiple controversies. Also, many didn't feel like spending $30 to watch the movie on Disney plus.

I believe the live action Little Mermaid will perform similarly to the live action remakes of BATB, The LIon King and Aladdin. I think the live action remake of Pinocchio would have probably flopped, which is why I believe Disney is sending it straight to Disney Plus.

 

[Ghost93]

Exactly. Wasn't The Wizard of Oz a flop when it first opened? I'm not saying that Lightyear is The Wizard of Oz, but still.

Most Disney classics made during Walt's lifetime were flops. Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi and Sleeping Beauty were all financial disappointments in their day, but slowly earned their status as animated masterpieces after multiple theatrical and home video re-releases.

 

[BuddyThomas]

Most Disney classics made during Walt's lifetime were flops. Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi and Sleeping Beauty were all financial disappointments in their day, but slowly earned their status as animated masterpieces after multiple theatrical and home video re-releases.

What about Song of the South? Ducks and runs.

 

[Ghost93]

What about Song of the South? Ducks and runs.

I know it's a joke but Song of the South — for a time — benefitted from re-releases and nostalgia and was at one point viewed as a classic. When the movie came out in 1946, it made $3.3 million domestically. While not the financial debacle that Fantasia was, it was a bit of an underperformance. The movie was also plagued by controversy from the get-go, with people actually protesting outside movie theaters due to the film's racist depictions. Critics gave the movie mixed reviews, praising the animated segments but complaining about the live action story.

However, while the film itself was seen as a disappointment, the Brer characters were promoted through toys, comic strips, little Golden books and eventually the theme parks. The song Zip-A-Dee-Doo Dah also won an Oscar and became a major hit. So even while the movie itself was a disappointment and not widely seen, elements of the movie were successful and entered the broader pop culture consciousness.

Children who grew up with Song of the South-related merchandise in the 40s and 50s eventually grew a nostalgic attachment to the movie — a nostalgia that blinded them to the movie's shortcomings. So when the movie was re-released in 1972, it was the most successful re-release of a Disney movie. Critics were kinder to it in the 70s. Walt Disney's passing may have made people softer on the movie, and a revisionist narrative grew that the movie was "fair for its day" in terms of its depictions. Re-releases of Song of the South in 1980 and 1986 were also profitable, which is a big part of the reason why SOTS was used as the theming for Splash Mountain. While the movie was viewed as a controversial misfire in 1946, nostalgia and re-releases led to it being viewed as a "Disney classic" in the 70s and 80s.

Of course, the past three decades haven't been at all kind to SOTS and now the film is known more for being the banned racist movie than for any of its artistic achievements.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

The problem I see with pixar is this. They have yet to fill the shoes of Lasseter. He was the creative heart of Pixar. He put story above all else, except maybe cars 2, Lol. I can't say I hate anything they've done on the animation side, but I haven't loved anything either.

I think this is the biggest problem, they are still finding their way without their founder and leader. Soul and Onward were probably the last movies with a story supervised by Lasseter, the movies since then (Luca and Turning Red) have a very different look and feel from what we’re used to with Pixar. I haven’t seen Lightyear yet so not sure if that feels like a traditional Pixar film or not.

 

[Prince-1]

”Underperform” is an UNDERSTATEMENT. When was the last time a Disney PIXAR film finished second to any movie in its opening weekend? Especially something with Toy Story ties? The answer would be never.

Never? There has never been another Pixar movie that opened second on it‘s opening weekend. Hmmmmmmm. You might want to do a little research on that and get back to me.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Just get back from seeing Lightyear. Good movie. I give it five meows.