'Strange World' Disney's 2022 Animated Film

[BuddyThomas]

People are different and like different things in movies.

Disney has been very successful with its princess movies, but I’m glad they’re branching out instead of doing the same thing again and again.

It takes a bit of courage and a willingness to fail when you explore new concepts and ideas. But what a boring world it would be if nothing ever changed.

I love your posts. They are always reasonable, balanced, and intelligent. On the other hand, I just post from gut emotion. I need to take a lesson from you.

 

[Chi84]

I love your posts. They are always reasonable, balanced, and intelligent. On the other hand, I just post from gut emotion. I need to take a lesson from you.

What a sweet thing to say!

The one thing I try to do (and sometimes I fail miserably) is to examine the intent of a comment before posting it. If the only intent is to insult, anger or upset someone, it’s probably not worth posting. (I self-delete a lot lol).

But everyone is human. It’s hard to sit back and read hateful or ignorant comments without responding, especially if you’re passionate about a subject.

 

[BuddyThomas]

What a sweet thing to say!

The one thing I try to do (and sometimes I fail miserably) is to examine the intent of a comment before posting it. If the only intent is to insult, anger or upset someone, it’s probably not worth posting. (I self-delete a lot lol).

But everyone is human. It’s hard to sit back and read hateful or ignorant comments without responding, especially if you’re passionate about a subject.

Like I said, I need to take a lesson from you, and a few other people on here could also do the same.

 

[Rich T]

Yes… sometimes I wonder what are some of these people doing on a Disney fan forum… with all the complaining… are they even fans

That’s part of what forums are for. I complain a lot over on the Disneyland forum, because I’m an older Disney fan who knows how fantastic Disney has been in the past, and it often frustrates me to see the park and company run by people who just don’t get it and don’t seem to care. A person wants to discuss those things and these forums are the most intelligent, balanced, and reasonable of all the Disney forums on the internet.

 

[LittleBuford]

That’s part of what forums are for. I complain a lot over on the Disneyland forum, because I’m an older Disney fan who knows how fantastic Disney has been in the past, and it often frustrates me to see the park and company run by people who just don’t get it and don’t seem to care. A person wants to discuss those things and these forums are the most intelligent, balanced, and reasonable of all the Disney forums on the internet.

I’m OK with people complaining. Fans hold the brands and entities they love to a high standard and are bound to grumble when they feel let down. But I’m not sure that’s what’s going on in this particular thread. There’s too much spite and glee at play for it to be the sincere frustration of disappointed fans. It’s as if some here actually want Disney to fail.

 

[DKampy]

That’s part of what forums are for. I complain a lot over on the Disneyland forum, because I’m an older Disney fan who knows how fantastic Disney has been in the past, and it often frustrates me to see the park and company run by people who just don’t get it and don’t seem to care. A person wants to discuss those things and these forums are the most intelligent, balanced, and reasonable of all the Disney forums on the internet.

I get that and I don’t think the company is perfect…there are things I wish were still the way they were in the past, but there is still some good in there too… some people here though don’t seem balance…I am not referring to your posts… as from what I have seen you are balanced… some complain about everything even seem to want Disney to fail This thread is a good example… there are people that seem to relish at SW failure

 

[BrianLo]

Also very substantial as not since "Waking Sleeping Beauty" Great Mouse Detective era has Disney not done well as their most famous game for the entire year this badly.

I know there has been a lot of glee around Lightyear and Strange World, but did everyone collectively black out on Encanto and Turning Red?

Pixar and Disney each had one bad movie this year (which are certainly not unheard of, but unlucky to have lined up), but one movie each is hardly the doom and gloom of the studios everyone keeps portending it is. Get back to me when Elementals AND Wish flop.

 

[BrianLo]

Why did Puss In Boots do gangbuster business in foreign countries, but Strange World did the exact opposite? And what is Burbank going to do to make sure that never happens again for a $140 Million investment several years in the making?

I hear very good thing about Puss in Boots! 300-ish million worldwide is NOT the definition of "gangbusters". Many modern animated films are often pushing towards a billion dollars.

It has broken profitability thanks to better budget spending out of Dreamworks in General, but it only looks good because Strange World is so particularly bad.

 

[TP2000]

I know there has been a lot of glee around Lightyear and Strange World, but did everyone collectively black out on Encanto and Turning Red?

Pixar and Disney each had one bad movie this year (which are certainly not unheard of, but unlucky to have lined up), but one movie each is hardly the doom and gloom of the studios everyone keeps portending it is. Get back to me when Elementals AND Wish flop.

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This gets us into that nebulous topic of "You Can't Count The Movies Released During 2020-2021 Because Of Covid!", where we aren't supposed to mention them at all.

That said, the "minutes viewed" metric seems iffy to me when everyone is spending the same 8 bucks a month to watch everything on Disney+ or the same 15 bucks a month for everything on Netflix.

We can't pretend that Encanto and Turning Red were greenlit with $150 Million budgets in 2018 with the Burbank conference room sales pitch "We'd like to spend $150 Million of the Company's money to make these movies, then barely show them in theaters or sell tickets in any real way and instead just send them to TV streaming for free!"

I hear very good thing about Puss in Boots! 300-ish million worldwide is NOT the definition of "gangbusters". Many modern animated films are often pushing towards a billion dollars.

It has broken profitability thanks to better budget spending out of Dreamworks in General, but it only looks good because Strange World is so particularly bad.

Good point. Puss In Boots is not a Top Gun Maverick style blockbuster by any stretch of the imagination. But Puss In Boots only cost $90 Million to make and is already pumping back tens of millions in profit back to Universal a month after it opened. It only seems like a blockbuster when compared to the complete and historical disaster of Strange World in all global marketplaces.

 

[BrianLo]

This gets us into that nebulous topic of "You Can't Count The Movies Released During 2020-2021 Because Of Covid!", where we aren't supposed to mention them at all.

That said, the "minutes viewed" metric seems iffy to me when everyone is spending the same 8 bucks a month to watch everything on Disney+ or the same 15 bucks a month for everything on Netflix.

We can't pretend that Encanto and Turning Red were greenlit with $150 Million budgets in 2018 with the Burbank conference room sales pitch "We'd like to spend $150 Million of the Company's money to make these movies, then barely show them in theaters or sell tickets in any real way and instead just send them to TV streaming for free!"

I’m not saying Chapek is a dolt for what he did to animation, but this needs to be contextualized. Encanto was watched through 3-4x more than the newest season of Stranger Things. Turning Red was not only the second most popular movie on the service, it also was watched through completion way more often than anything other than Encanto/Sing 2. Despite being a movie, it still had more minutes watched than Amazon’s lavish lord of the rings series, which had many more ‘minutes’ to watch. And some obscene budget.

Unless you are claiming Mandalorian, Stranger Things, Ozark, whatever other lavish series were all complete and total financial failures you guys need to let go of the box office on streamed content. Yes the 150mil spend is more than justified when the movie outperforms anything else on the service, in a fiscal year when the service generated 30 billion dollars in revenue you have to attribute some of that to the success stories on the service.

When Frozen has moved 10 billion dollars of merch, yes Encanto (which is still topping the list likely through 2023) will make the company plenty of money.

 

[celluloid]

I know there has been a lot of glee around Lightyear and Strange World, but did everyone collectively black out on Encanto and Turning Red?

Pixar and Disney each had one bad movie this year (which are certainly not unheard of, but unlucky to have lined up), but one movie each is hardly the doom and gloom of the studios everyone keeps portending it is. Get back to me when Elementals AND Wish flop.

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Encanto was a good musical hit, but people rewatching the songs kany times does not equal box office money. It's theatrical run was lackluster.
Turning red ONLY is viewable on Disney Plus. It did not make a dime anywhere else.

Not flops but one moderate and one broke even.

 

[networkpro]

Aside from this thread based on the merits of the content of the animation, I have yet to see any mention of it in normal media.

 

[DKampy]

Encanto was a good musical hit, but people rewatching the songs kany times does not equal box office money. It's theatrical run was lackluster.
Turning red ONLY is viewable on Disney Plus. It did not make a dime anywhere else.

Not flops but one moderate and one broke even.

To be fair Encanto came out when we were going through a huge uprise in Covid cases and the box office was cut short and sent to Disney plus early… which they announce ahead of time… I am sure most people thought they could wait it out as it would be on Disney Plus in just a couple of weeks…I am sure Disney sees Encanto as a rousing success

 

[RobWDW1971]

To be fair Encanto came out when we were going through a huge uprise in Covid cases and the box office was cut short and sent to Disney plus early…

Encanto came out 28 days before Sing 2, which grossed $400M+ worldwide.

 

[BrianLo]

The amount of merchandise you still see from Encanto, plus its massive streaming success, means Encanto is very much a success, probably their most successful non-sequel animated film since Coco.

Anybody who continues to argue that Encanto is anything other than an unqualified success knows nothing about finance or cultural impact.

Exactly, it was no coincidence Josh’s Blue Sky make believe session discussed Moana, Zootopia, Encanto and Coco. They are all juggernauts for Disney post theatrically.

The whole point is not to prove strange world is anything but a bomb (I doubt it will pick up post theatrically, but we’ll find out this year), it’s that Disney just came off the heels of another Moana/Frozen and are being accused of being directionally rudderless. So far it’s been one big miss after a big hit. Likely headed back to a big hit with Wish. Maybe this time also theatrically if the D+ expectancy can be reset.

People need to move on from this movie… Disney already did before it was even released.

 

[Chi84]

Exactly, it was no coincidence Josh’s Blue Sky make believe session discussed Moana, Zootopia, Encanto and Coco. They are all juggernauts for Disney post theatrically.

The whole point is not to prove strange world is anything but a bomb (I doubt it will pick up post theatrically, but we’ll find out this year), it’s that Disney just came off the heels of another Moana/Frozen and are being accused of being directionally rudderless. So far it’s been one big miss after a big hit. Likely headed back to a big hit with Wish. Maybe this time also theatrically if the D+ expectancy can be reset.

People need to move on from this movie… Disney already did before it was even released.

So did a lot of posters here. Check out the first five pages of this thread.

 

[celluloid]

To be fair Encanto came out when we were going through a huge uprise in Covid cases and the box office was cut short and sent to Disney plus early… which they announce ahead of time… I am sure most people thought they could wait it out as it would be on Disney Plus in just a couple of weeks…I am sure Disney sees Encanto as a rousing success

That would be relevant if there were not other features that did comparably well and in some cases, far better against the animation juggernaut that is Disney.
And many other films stomped it. Moderate hit.
It is not at the same level as many other Disney hits.

As pointed out by others, Sing 2, Venom, a Michael Myers Slasher reboot sequel, all beat it that year and some close to it's release.

 

[DKampy]

Encanto came out 28 days before Sing 2, which grossed $400M+ worldwide.

Sing 2 was not on Disney plus for free… and even if it was on Peacock…more families have Disney plus than Peacock and it is not even close

 

[DKampy]

That would be relevant if there were not other features that did comparably well and in some cases, far better against the animation juggernaut that is Disney.
And many other films stomped it. Moderate hit.
It is not at the same level as many other Disney hits.

As pointed out by others, Sing 2, Venom, a Michael Myers Slasher reboot sequel, all beat it that year and some close to it's release.

None of those are even comparable to a Disney plus family movie that was going on Disney Plus for no extra charge by Christmas

By the Halloween Kills crashed and burned… So I don’t know what your trying to prove with that title

 

[celluloid]

None of those are even comparable to a Disney plus family movie that was going on Disney Plus for no extra charge by Christmas

By the Halloween Kills crashed and burned… So I don’t know what your trying to prove with that title

How did it crash and burn? Halloween Kills grossed more domestically than Encanto, and as a Blumhouse feature had a huge profit margin for what it cost the studio. It was a Rated R feature that outperformed a Disney animated Holiday release. It was a fact to point out.

You may be thinking of Halloween Ends, from just this last fall, which did not do great but was also on Peacock with the same logic you give Encanto. It still doubled it's budget domestically so it was a success, just a third in a series of reboots. Ha.

It is cool that Encanto caught on with Disney Plus for a bit as it was released rather quickly. But plenty of movies out performed it and as far as cultural relevance,

Chicken Little was bigger financial hit and as far as how cultural impact goes I remember the Toys, the video game and the presence in the parks including painting the soundstage shaped building of The Brown Derby.

It does not always last.

Encanto is not even Hercules, it is just a recent moderate hit.


And back to the present, financially receptive as a film is what the discussion has been:

Disney's recent attempts have not been doing well. Even with all the formula of timing and laurels in place.
Pixar and Disney Animation both fizzled.

Universal's Illumination and DreamWorks both hit their marks.