'Lightyear' Coming Summer 2022

[TP2000]

One other thought that I haven't seen in the endless media reports on Lightyear bombing on the box office is...

The lack of John Lassetter. It's been about five years since he left Pixar in scandal for creating a harassing workplace environment. All of the Pixar movies from 2021-2022 were brought into production after his departure. It seems to me that, despite his alleged personal faults and workplace harassment, he made darn good movies that were huge box office successes.

How many more flops does Pixar get to have before people start mentioning that the absence of Lassetter might have something to do with that reality?

 

[TwilightZone]

I think Pixar needs a real shake up...it's not just Lassetter is gone ( I am sure if he didn't have scandals he would have fallen down in quality...remember Cars 2?), but there's just too much old guard in pixar. Pixar forgot what made Pixar so beloved. Hire some new people who grew up with "old Pixar" and I am sure that some things could be fixed.

 

[TwilightZone]

I decided to look into wikipedia (and double checked the sources)...here's some movies that were in production before Lasseter's controversy making papers in November 2017 and his firing in 2018. Now what levels did he had on each films' creations is unknown, but I am sure he had some degree of overlooking these.

• Coco (released October 20, 2017)
• Incredibles 2 (announced during a shareholder meeting in March 2014)
• Toy Story 4 (announced during an investor's call during 2014. While Lasseter was due to be director, he stepped down due to his multiple positions at the time)
• Onward (announced July 2017)
• Soul (began development January 2016)
• Turning Red (pitched October 31 2017...cutting close to the news story but not too close)
• Lightyear (started some point after Finding Dory in 2016)

This makes Luca (which has no pre release mentions on wikipedia, other than it being announced in 2020) and possibly Turning Red the only 2 "post-Lasseter Pixar" movies to not possibly involve him.

The most confirmed involvement is TS4, which seems to have had a very rocky development, with Lasseter having to drop his role as director due to too much on his plate (and two screenwriters stepping down). What's left of Lasseter's vision of TS4 (if anything at all) that's left in the released production is unknown.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I think Pixar needs a real shake up...it's not just Lassetter is gone ( I am sure if he didn't have scandals he would have fallen down in quality...remember Cars 2?), but there's just too much old guard in pixar. Pixar forgot what made Pixar so beloved. Hire some new people who grew up with "old Pixar" and I am sure that some things could be fixed.

My impression is that there has been some renewal in recent years, with both Turning Red and Luca directed by first-time Pixar directors (even if particularly Enrico Casarosa had been at Pixar for quite a while). My feeling is that this has been for the best and, Lightyear not withstanding, the studio is becoming at least a little interesting again. I don't know the ins and outs of Lasseter's last days at Pixar, but, although the sequels were a license to print money, it seemed to me like they were kind of operating on autopilot with the odd Coco and Inside Out sprinkled in to show they could still do something original and interesting.

 

[MisterPenguin]

One other thought that I haven't seen in the endless media reports on Lightyear bombing on the box office is...

The lack of John Lassetter. It's been about five years since he left Pixar in scandal for creating a harassing workplace environment. All of the Pixar movies from 2021-2022 were brought into production after his departure. It seems to me that, despite his alleged personal faults and workplace harassment, he made darn good movies that were huge box office successes.

How many more flops does Pixar get to have before people start mentioning that the absence of Lassetter might have something to do with that reality?

Only one Pixar movie that had a wide theatrical release is underperforming in the Box Office, and that's Lightyear.

All the other ones had limited Box Office release, and so, there's no data that they flopped because they had no opportunity to either succeed or fail.... all due to the pandemic.

So, nice try sneaking in a blatantly false premise in your question.

 

[Kirby86]

Only one Pixar movie that had a wide theatrical release is underperforming in the Box Office, and that's Lightyear.

All the other ones had limited Box Office release, and so, there's no data that they flopped because they had no opportunity to either succeed or fail.... all due to the pandemic.

So, nice try sneaking in a blatantly false premise in your question.

Yeah we have to wait and see for all we know this is a fluke and the next Pixar movie will join the billion dollar club. Could this be the start of a trend? Absolutely but we won't know till later.

 

[TP2000]

Only one Pixar movie that had a wide theatrical release is underperforming in the Box Office, and that's Lightyear.

All the other ones had limited Box Office release, and so, there's no data that they flopped because they had no opportunity to either succeed or fail.... all due to the pandemic.

So, nice try sneaking in a blatantly false premise in your question.

I don't know that I "snuck" anything in. I typed it out quite clearly for all to see. The question is, how financially successful is Pixar now that Lassetter is long gone and none of the movies being released from here on out will have had his creative input and stewardship?

As for cultural impact of these direct-to-streaming movies, I get that Encanto had a pop song go big with Bruno. Although Burbank hadn't really planned for it to go big, so perhaps the better phrase to use is the song went "viral" and Burbank tried to quickly catch up.

But other than that Bruno song fad from Encanto, my sense is that Luca, Soul, and Turning Red were not culturally impactful in any big way. I see kids and young adults with Marvel t-shirts on constantly around town, but I never see a Turning Red t-shirt anywhere (cue someone to Google a photo of someone wearing a Turning Red shirt to prove it's happened). And yet again, Halloween trick-or-treaters are an excellent way to check the pulse of youth culture; I expect to see lots of US Navy fighter pilots at my door this October 31st, but very few Sox cats or Canadian pre-teens with Motorola flip phones.

 

[erasure fan1]

All the other ones had limited Box Office release, and so, there's no data that they flopped because they had no opportunity to either succeed or fail.... all due to the pandemic.

True, you can't put a financial fail label on movies that didn't get the chance to hit the big screen. I do think there's something to be said for Lassetter not being there. The overall quality just hasn't been there. I don't think Luca and Soul were bad, but they were very average in my opinion. As for turning red, there was no excuse for not releasing it in the theater. Spidey made more than most movies did before the pandemic started. So covid can't be the reason. I'm ready to call turning red a misfire. I wouldn't say failure because it enabled them to advertise D+. But I can't see that would be the desired outcome from Disney.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

My impression is that there has been some renewal in recent years, with both Turning Red and Luca directed by first-time Pixar directors (even if particularly Enrico Casarosa had been at Pixar for quite a while). My feeling is that this has been for the best and, Lightyear not withstanding, the studio is becoming at least a little interesting again. I don't know the ins and outs of Lasseter's last days at Pixar, but, although the sequels were a license to print money, it seemed to me like they were kind of operating on autopilot with the odd Coco and Inside Out sprinkled in to show they could still do something original and interesting.

The mere existence of Cars 3 and Toy Story 4 are further proof of this.

 

[MisterPenguin]

I don't know that I "snuck" anything in. I typed it out quite clearly for all to see. The question is, how financially successful is Pixar now that Lassetter is long gone and none of the movies being released from here on out will have had his creative input and stewardship?

You said there have been a string a flops. So yeah, I clearly saw it.

And I'm saying it's not true. Nor false. They never had a wide release to be a Box Office flop or success.

But you called them flops. That's not verifiable. So, yeah, you slipped in a premise that wasn't true.

As to your ""question""... the response is the same. We don't have the data yet due to the pandemic and the lack of wide releases in the worldwide theatrical market.

We do have data that some of the Pixar movies have been wildly popular on D+.

For as long as the Pixar movies were in Neilsen's list of top 10 streaming movies they had this many BILLION streaming minutes:

• Encanto: 20.5 (and still climbing)
• Turning Red: 7.6
• Luca: 10
• Soul: No data

 

[MisterPenguin]

True, you can't put a financial fail label on movies that didn't get the chance to hit the big screen. I do think there's something to be said for Lassetter not being there. The overall quality just hasn't been there. I don't think Luca and Soul were bad, but they were very average in my opinion. As for turning red, there was no excuse for not releasing it in the theater. Spidey made more than most movies did before the pandemic started. So covid can't be the reason. I'm ready to call turning red a misfire. I wouldn't say failure because it enabled them to advertise D+. But I can't see that would be the desired outcome from Disney.

I'm not even addressing the Lasseter issue. Just want the claims being made to be verifiable rather than wild guesses and suppositions.

 

[TwilightZone]

Coco (released October 20, 2017)

• Incredibles 2 (announced during a shareholder meeting in March 2014)
• Toy Story 4 (announced during an investor's call during 2014. While Lasseter was due to be director, he stepped down due to his multiple positions at the time)
• Onward (announced July 2017)
• Soul (began development January 2016)
• Turning Red (pitched October 31 2017...cutting close to the news story but not too close)
• Lightyear (started some point after Finding Dory in 2016)

Considering how long movies take I doubt we have seen the last of "pitched in the mid 2010s" Pixar films yet. Unless of course the failure of Lightyear causes ALL of them to be cancelled except a few.
It's interesting to note how sporadic the pitches seem to be...when Pixar first launched they had a big giant pitch meeting of ideas. These pitches seem to have been made all over the map. Not sure if that's a good thing.
Two of these movies also had a rough, long, and rocky development (Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4). Combine those with "Good Dinosaur" and we have a series of Pixar films that had high fanfare, with meh output...not so good for public perception.
The two movies per year model also seems to be hurting Pixar in the long run. Maybe if they went back to 1 per year the movies might turn out better. One pixar movie per year made it feel like a big event, which most Pixar movies now are lacking. The last "big event" Pixar film I can think of is Incredibles 2, but that's because of the sheer length it took between films, a guaranteed return of the director, plus a legacy IP that many fans already adored.

But really this thread is becoming way off topic...I will make a "what should Pixar do" thread soon. Or something along those lines.

 

[MisterPenguin]

If you count the upcoming Elemental, there are 27 Pixar movies.

Nine of them were sequels (2 of the 9 were more spin-offs: Dory & Lightyear).

So, only one-third of Pixar movies were sequels.

There were never more than 2 sequel-movies in a row.

Including Elemental coming out next year, in the last 6 Pixar movies, only one is a sequel (more of a spin-off).

If one sequel in the last six is setting off "too many sequels!!" alarms... I don't know... then y'all have a pretty low sequel threshold.

 

[TwilightZone]

But really this thread is becoming way off topic...I will make a "what should Pixar do" thread soon. Or something along those lines.

And done

It's clear that the latest tragectory of Pixar has been...not so good. While there's some golden movies, with high fan reception (Luca, Soul, Inside Out, Coco, and Turning Red) these movies are few and far between. Most of the new Pixar output has been forgettable at best and downright disappointing at worst (Incredibles 2 comes to mind). With the recent failure of Lightyear (now number 5 in the box office on its second week), what should Pixar do to bring itself back up as a studio.

 

[TP2000]

You said there have been a string a flops. So yeah, I clearly saw it.

And I'm saying it's not true. Nor false. They never had a wide release to be a Box Office flop or success.

But you called them flops. That's not verifiable. So, yeah, you slipped in a premise that wasn't true.

They were financial flops. Again, I've never discussed their artistic merits as films. (Mostly because I will never see them and could care less how "good" they are as art.)

There's absolutely no way that each of these films were greenlit back in 2017 with $150 Million to $200 Million production budgets with the executive conference room pitch "We'd like to spend a few hundred million bucks of the company's money making this major film, and then not release it in theaters but instead just put it on an $8 per month streaming bundle along with reruns of The Suite Life With Zack & Cody. It's the wave of the future!"

Sure, the pandemic screwed up the box office for 2020 and much of '21, but there's no way they got all their money back on those released films via $8 Disney+ subscriptions. They were box office flops, because there was no box office. All of Hollywood had to deal with that.

But it makes the need for Disney/Pixar to start releasing blockbuster family films in theaters even more dire. They've got to right their ship of family films ASAP, as the huge financial losses they've incurred on Luca, Turning Red, Soul and now Lightyear are adding up fast.

 

[TwilightZone]

I'm pretty sure merch wise, Luca made its cash back, there was reports of sold out merch everywhere here in the states.

 

[TP2000]

I'm not even addressing the Lasseter issue. Just want the claims being made to be verifiable rather than wild guesses and suppositions.

A discussion of business models and financial returns on a message board like this is going to have to rely on guesses and suppositions. No one is going to be attaching internal financial documents from a hacked Burbank email here. I think we need to just make sure they are reasonably educated guesses and understandable suppositions though.

Using your valid info you provided on viewing minutes, I'm not sure how that matters to Disney's bottom line. It doesn't matter if your kids have watched Luca over and over repeatedly for the last two weeks, or if they've only been binge-watching Season 2 of The Suite Life With Zack & Cody for the last two weeks. Mom and Dad still only pays eight bucks for the Disney+ subscription.

For as long as the Pixar movies were in Neilsen's list of top 10 streaming movies they had this many BILLION streaming minutes:

• Encanto: 20.5 (and still climbing)
• Turning Red: 7.6
• Luca: 10
• Soul: No data

You could also take that viewing minute statistic and add in the financial info we have educated guesses on budgets and solid box office data about:

• Encanto: 20.5 Billion Minutes, Production Budget $150 Million, Box Office $228 Million
• Turning Red: 7.6 Billion Minutes, Production Budget $175 Million, Box Office $19 Million
• Luca: 10 Billion Minutes, Production Budget $200 Million, Box Office $49 Million
• Soul: No Data, Production Budget $150 Million, Box Office $121 Million
• Lightyear: Not on Disney+, Production Budget $200 Million, Box Office thru 6/27 $91 Million

Using the very conservative assumption that a studio has to get double the production budget in box office revenues to break even (apparently now closer to triple the production budget, but we'll keep it very conservative), Disney/Pixar is in the red on those last five films by about $700 Million so far. Yikes! Turn that ship around and get paying butts in theater seats ASAP!

Total Production Budget $875 Million, Total Box Office Revenue $508 Million

 

[Disney Irish]

You could also take that viewing minute statistic and add in the financial info we have educated guesses on budgets and solid box office data about:

Encanto: 20.5 Billion Minutes, Production Budget $150 Million, Box Office $228 Million
Turning Red: 7.6 Billion Minutes, Production Budget $175 Million, Box Office $19 Million
Luca: 10 Billion Minutes, Production Budget $200 Million, Box Office $49 Million
Soul: No Data, Production Budget $150 Million, Box Office $121 Million
Lightyear: Not on Disney+, Production Budget $200 Million, Box Office thru 6/27 $91 Million

Using the very conservative assumption that a studio has to get double the production budget in box office revenues to break even (apparently now closer to triple the production budget, but we'll keep it very conservative), Disney/Pixar is in the red on those last five films by about $700 Million so far. Yikes! Turn that ship around and get paying butts in theater seats ASAP!

Total Production Budget $875 Million, Total Box Office Revenue $508 Million

I still don't think you're understanding D+ and why $8 per month can cover this.

As of the end of Q2FY22 D+ has 44.4M subs in the US. At an average of $8 per month Disney is bringing in $355.2M per month on those subs. That is $4.2B per year on just the US subs for D+, that doesn't include the almost Hundred Million subs for Hulu, ESPN+, or D+ outside the US which will add Billions more revenue.

Also remember that a majority of content on D+ is already bought and paid for long ago, so other than operating expenses its only the new content costing money. So just the US subs alone covers the cost of the new content that went to D+ between 2020 to now, including even Lightyear.

Yes Disney would love to ALSO get BO revenue, what company wouldn't, but they aren't hurting if they put a movie on D+ or if the BO is lackluster for a film like Lightyear. I mean just last quarter alone they made $19.2B in revenue, so they aren't hurting for money right now.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

I still don't think you're understanding D+ and why $8 per month can cover this.

Disney+ is losing money. That’s a fact.

Disney wants to get to Netflix level numbers by 2024 which is when they “expect to make a profit.” - but Netflix has stopped growing in subscribers. This model isn’t going to work.

Disney is the only company that has a chance (other than Netflix of course). But I think it’s a losing race. We shall see.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

I still don't think you're understanding D+ and why $8 per month can cover this.

As of the end of Q2FY22 D+ has 44.4M subs in the US. At an average of $8 per month Disney is bringing in $355.2M per month on those subs. That is $4.2B per year on just the US subs for D+, that doesn't include the almost Hundred Million subs for Hulu, ESPN+, or D+ outside the US which will add Billions more revenue.

Also remember that a majority of content on D+ is already bought and paid for long ago, so other than operating expenses its only the new content costing money. So just the US subs alone covers the cost of the new content that went to D+ between 2020 to now, including even Lightyear.

Yes Disney would love to ALSO get BO revenue, what company wouldn't, but they aren't hurting if they put a movie on D+ or if the BO is lackluster for a film like Lightyear. I mean just last quarter alone they made $19.2B in revenue, so they aren't hurting for money right now.

Just to interject that even US ARPU isn't $8/month. Maybe $6? And global ARPU as I recall (I don't care to bother to look it up) was around half that $8 - around $4 and change? But I'll defer to you on the rest of the math because I hate math. lol