The Super Mario Bros. Movie not doing that great...

[celluloid]

So I guess the takeaway I'm getting from all of the Mario fans on this thread is that they want Disney movies to be more shallow.

I think Strange World was a total misfire, but I generally think that Disney and Pixar's trend of aiming for more depth and themes that appeal to both adults and children is good. I don't know how someone could look at something like Encanto or Soul and compare it to a movie like Mario — a film with almost no character depth whatsoever — and say that Mario is Superior.

I generally enjoyed the Mario movie for nostalgia as I grew up with the games, but on its own merits, it's not a great movie at all. It's pleasant. It will shut the kids up for two hours if parents need them to be distracted. But it's not making a billion dollars because it's an instant classic. It's making a billion dollars due to Mario being such a strong pre-existing IP. If Mario was an original movie, and there wasn't a gigantic pre-existing fanbase accumulating for 40 years, it wouldn't be making nearly as much money as it is. The success of the movie has little to do with the quality of the film itself and more to do with the popularity of Mario in general.

I'm just baffled by people on this thread acting like Illumination is now a master of animation. The people praising Illumination for making a lot of money off of IP's like the Minions franchise and Mario are the same hypocrites that whine about Disney being too IP-focused nowadays.

Oh it is not just Illumination. It is also Dreamworks under Universal still performing well, and far superior to Disney.

It is a mix of other studios catching up to the quality. Illumination loves remakes and Dreamworks loves franchising their characters to TV and reboot films now with the Shrek Characters, but they have been done and received and Disney is doing no better artistically with their big announcements being sequels and live action remakes of a movie less than ten years old.

Disney is more interested in remaking their animated classics to live action and odd business choices for the rest of their films that let Universal take the lead as family animated entertainment. The line is blurred and financially currently in favor of Universal for this generation of kids. We will see how long it lasts, but it is true as of now.

I won't be shocked if Trolls 3 or the new Illumination Migration movie makes a huge dent or outperforms Wish in the Thanksgiving to Christmas time market share. Particularly with lower ROI profit margin goals to hit as the budgets at Disney is another bad business move that tends to somehow happen.

It is a shame that they may have to have a Waking Sleeping Beauty level change if this keeps up. Star Wars having such saturation of film and tv can't be used more than currently and Marvel is going to struggle a bit with all the original phase people wrapping up and production cost of Disney Plus series so high.

 

[crispy]

So I guess the takeaway I'm getting from all of the Mario fans on this thread is that they want Disney movies to be more shallow.

I think Strange World was a total misfire, but I generally think that Disney and Pixar's trend of aiming for more depth and themes that appeal to both adults and children is good. I don't know how someone could look at something like Encanto or Soul and compare it to a movie like Mario — a film with almost no character depth whatsoever — and say that Mario is Superior.

I generally enjoyed the Mario movie for nostalgia as I grew up with the games, but on its own merits, it's not a great movie at all. It's pleasant. It will shut the kids up for two hours if parents need them to be distracted. But it's not making a billion dollars because it's an instant classic. It's making a billion dollars due to Mario being such a strong pre-existing IP. If Mario was an original movie, and there wasn't a gigantic pre-existing fanbase accumulating for 40 years, it wouldn't be making nearly as much money as it is. The success of the movie has little to do with the quality of the film itself and more to do with the popularity of Mario in general.

I'm just baffled by people on this thread acting like Illumination is now a master of animation. The people praising Illumination for making a lot of money off of IP's like the Minions franchise and Mario are the same hypocrites that whine about Disney being too IP-focused nowadays.

No, people just want to be entertained which is something Disney has forgotten how to do. If they wanted a two hour sermon, they would go to church.

 

[Ghost93]

No, people just want to be entertained which is something Disney has forgotten how to do. If they wanted a two hour sermon, they would go to church.

Movies can be entertaining AND deliver a message at the same time. They aren't mutually exclusive. The only Disney movie I felt in recent years that put message above storytelling was Strange World (and the movie suffered for it as it wasn't very entertaining), but on the whole, I think the company has struck the right balance in providing fun while simultaneously delivering good life lessons in its animated output.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

They aren't mutually exclusive.

They can be. Depends on who you're hiring.

I've used this example before, but when Dan Levy created Schitt's Creek, he wanted to create a hilarious show that also became a wonderful example of LGBT inclusivity and representation. When Billy Eichner created Bros, he wanted to create a "gay movie" and that's all he cared about.

One of those has been tremendously successful, and one of them has been a disaster. Because Dan Levy is charming and hilarious, and Billy Eichner is preachy and obnoxious.

Disney has given creative control to too many Billy Eichners, each with their own raison d'être.

 

[erasure fan1]

Movies can be entertaining AND deliver a message at the same time. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Well, that most would agree with you. I don't think anyone says a film can't have any sort of message. But when you are making family movies, maybe focus more on an entertaining story.

but on the whole, I think the company has struck the right balance in providing fun while simultaneously delivering good life lessons in its animated output.

I'd say they haven't. Their first priority hasn't been a fun entertaining story. And I would say the box offices have reflected that.

 

[Ghost93]

I'd say they haven't. Their first priority hasn't been a fun entertaining story. And I would say the box offices have reflected that.

How can you make a fair box office comparison when Soul, Luca and Turning Red went straight to Disney Plus and Encanto had a very short theatrical window in which Disney advertised in advance that people only had to wait until Christmas to see the movie for free on Disney Plus? Onward had only one week in theaters before the COVID-19 shutdowns began (and only two weeks in theaters altogether). Raya was released before most people had the chance to get the vaccine AND it had a simultaneous Disney Plus launch.

All of those movies were harmed by COVID and by Disney Plus. By the time Disney finally came to their senses and decided to release Lightyear in theaters, audiences were already conditioned to wait for movies to be made available for free on Disney Plus.

I think of all of the horrible, horrible mistakes Bob Chapek made during his time as CEO of Disney, the worst was treating $150-$200 million animated features as "direct to video" content. It did severe damage to the Disney and Pixar brands.

 

[flynnibus]

How can you make a fair box office comparison when Soul, Luca and Turning Red went straight to Disney Plus and Encanto had a very short theatrical window in which Disney advertised in advance that people only had to wait until Christmas to see the movie for free on Disney Plus?

Easy - talk to real people and see how many of seen the films or sought them out or told others to do so. None of them have gotten traction, even in the Disney community who do have access to watch them for free.

Ignore the box office excuse - the films aren't resonating with their audience.

 

[erasure fan1]

How can you make a fair box office comparison when Soul, Luca and Turning Red went straight to Disney Plus and Encanto had a very short theatrical window in which Disney advertised in advance that people only had to wait until Christmas to see the movie for free on Disney Plus?

All of those movies were harmed by COVID and by Disney Plus. By the time Disney finally came to their senses and decided to release Lightyear in theaters, audiences were already conditioned to wait for movies to be made available for free on Disney Plus.

While I agree with you that Disney+ has harmed their box office. As for covid, how do you explain spider man, F9 or no time to die? All released during covid, all making around 800mil or more. Turning red came out in 2022! Spiderman made nearly 2 billion dollars releasing at the end of 2021. Obviously even Disney thought it wasn't all that great or they would have released it. Sure Onward was cut short, but it opened to a pretty terrible 39mil. So the extra couple weeks made all the difference for spiderman but Encanto was killed by covid? Disney either pulled the plug on the theater or pulled it early because they knew they had mediocrity at best in my opinion.

 

[Ghost93]

While I agree with you that Disney+ has harmed their box office. As for covid, how do you explain spider man, F9 or no time to die? All released during covid, all making around 800mil or more. Turning red came out in 2022! Spiderman made nearly 2 billion dollars releasing at the end of 2021. Obviously even Disney thought it wasn't all that great or they would have released it. Sure Onward was cut short, but it opened to a pretty terrible 39mil. So the extra couple weeks made all the difference for spiderman but Encanto was killed by covid? Disney either pulled the plug on the theater or pulled it early because they knew they had mediocrity at best in my opinion.

Disney informed people that Encanto would be on Disney Plus for free less than a month after its initial release. I would imagine many people who might have gone to the theaters in normal circumstances decided to wait a few weeks since they would be able to view it at no extra cost. Spider-man: No Way Home, in comparison, never went to Disney Plus.

Also, Spider-man and F9 — like Mario — were preexisting IPs with HUGE fanbases. Encanto was an original, untested property, and people had to discover for themselves that it was a great movie.

I just hope Disney doesn't put Elemental or Wish on Disney Plus for at least six months after their theatrical debuts. Regardless of how well they perform, Disney needs to untrain people to simply wait for things to come to streaming for free. Spending $150 million-$200 million on animated movies to give away for free on Disney plus is a money-losing strategy.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I just hope Disney doesn't put Elemental or Wish on Disney Plus for at least six months after their theatrical debuts. Regardless of how well they perform, Disney needs to untrain people to simply wait for things to come to streaming for free. Spending $150 million-$200 million on animated movies to give away for free on Disney plus is a money-losing strategy.

I agree with all of this, but I think the desperation to have new content on Disney+ ASAP to keep subscribers in the short term will continue.

 

[celluloid]

How can you make a fair box office comparison when Soul, Luca and Turning Red went straight to Disney Plus and Encanto had a very short theatrical window in which Disney advertised in advance that people only had to wait until Christmas to see the movie for free on Disney Plus?

Disney thought Encanto had a chance at making more money before Disney Plus, they would have extended that theatrical window.

You also said how Mario is not that entertaining to you, but that is all subjective. You also say movies can be entertaining and have a message. Mario, does. It has a message about brotherhood and togetherness. It is not deep, but not everything has to be either. Minions Rise of Gru was available to stream on Peacock only three months after its release. They did a similar quick release for PussnBoots did the same thing in March after coming out in December.

Disney animation reputation has hurt for a lot of reasons. It is going to take a few really good hits for it to come back. In show business you are only as good as the last thing you produced.

Encanto also rested on the laurels of Lin Manuel's popularity. It would be easy to dismiss all the rest of the movie after seeing that. It is not fair to do to Mario. I don't get why one can say Mario is ONLY doing good because of nostalgia and video game history. It is not like Mario is not still relevant. Mario and Luigi are in multiple video games every few years that have all been sellers. Its like saying Mickey is only Nostalgia. He is, and he is also more.

The Disney Plus quick release is not likely to stop. It has not hurt Comcast with Peacock for Universal's hits.

 

[Phroobar]

The Disney Plus quick release is not likely to stop. It has not hurt Comcast with Peacock for Universal's hits.

Interesting point. Peacock doesn't hurt Universal's releases but somehow Disney+ hurts Disney's releases. Maybe the Disney releases weren't popular enough when they were released in the first place?

 

[CaptainAmerica]

How can you make a fair box office comparison when Soul, Luca and Turning Red went straight to Disney Plus and Encanto had a very short theatrical window in which Disney advertised in advance that people only had to wait until Christmas to see the movie for free on Disney Plus? Onward had only one week in theaters before the COVID-19 shutdowns began (and only two weeks in theaters altogether). Raya was released before most people had the chance to get the vaccine AND it had a simultaneous Disney Plus launch.

All of those movies were harmed by COVID and by Disney Plus. By the time Disney finally came to their senses and decided to release Lightyear in theaters, audiences were already conditioned to wait for movies to be made available for free on Disney Plus.

I think of all of the horrible, horrible mistakes Bob Chapek made during his time as CEO of Disney, the worst was treating $150-$200 million animated features as "direct to video" content. It did severe damage to the Disney and Pixar brands.

Minions: Rise of Gru was released in theaters on July 1. It was released on Peacock on September 23, 84 days later. It did $939 million box office.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was released in theaters on December 21. It was released on Peacock on March 10, 79 days later. It did $454 million box office.

Jurassic World: Dominion was released in theaters on June 10. It was released on Peacock on September 2, 2022, 84 days later. It did $1 billion box office.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was released in theaters on May 6. It was released on Disney+ on June 22, 47 days later. It did $956 million box office.

 

[MrPromey]

I can claim the movie was only succeeding due to the IP because most of Disney's recent animated movies have been original movies. Onward, Soul, Luca, Encanto, Raya and the Last Dragon, Turning Red and Strange World were all original. And with the exception of Strange World, I thought all of those were solid family movies.

I think featuring a scene about the sexual awakening of a 13 year old and talking about stripper music were bold choices for a "family" movie.

Disney seems to agree which, I assume, is why you can't get to Turning Red if you're logged into a kid's account.

Soul was another misfire for kids but for entirely different reasons.

There's nothing wrong with either of these two movies targeted to adults who enjoy animation.

We have a weird thing about that in the west but obviously, it's a totally accepted thing in other parts of the world.

But as an adult watching these movies for yourself, I think you're not seeing them through the eyes of an actual kid or their parents.

Personally, I think Pixar managed to thread the needle with Luca but that's just my take.

Anyway, if Pixar wants to move more in this direction of producing animation and telling stories targeted at older audiences, I'm cool with that but it's going to be at the cost of box office return and popularity simply because the market for that isn't fully mainstream, here.

Maybe they can change it, though.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Is the number of days before a movie goes to streaming pre determined or does it depend how it does in the box office week to week?

If a given movie has “no legs” and drops off in the box office, can theaters choose to not screen it thereby forcing it on to the stream?

 

[Ghost93]

Well, I think featuring a scene about the sexual awakening of a 13 year old and talking about stripper music were bold choices for a "family" movie.

Disney seems to agree which, I assume, is why you can't get to it if you're logged into a kid's account.

I think Turning Red is completely appropriate for kids 10 and up (potentially earlier if they are more mature), but I think a problem is — in America — all animation is viewed as something that must be okay for kindergarten-aged kids, and a lot of times parents feel angry if a movie opens up a conversation they weren't ready to have.

This is one reason why it's kind of disappointing that the G rating is no longer used anymore. When completely unobjectionable movies like Frozen are given the same rating as movies that are a bit edgier like Turning Red, it makes it difficult for parents to discern which movies are appropriate. Back in the 90s/early 2000s you really had to earn a PG rating. When movies like Shrek, the Road to El Dorado and Atlantis got PG ratings, parents knew the content of those movies may not be okay for very young children and were only appropriate for older children. But now that PG has become the new G, there really isn't a good way to categorize movies like Turning Red that are a bit more mature than the typical Disney film, but not filled with enough content to warrant a PG-13 rating.

 

[MrPromey]

I think Turning Red is completely appropriate for kids 10 and up, but I think a problem is — in America — all animation is viewed as something that must be okay for kindergarten-aged kids, and a lot of times parents feel angry if a movie opens up a conversation they weren't ready to have.

That's me.

I wasn't at all ready to talk about strippers or their music to my ten year old when he asked me what was bad about stripper music.

As a parent, I question both how that line made it into the final cut and why anyone thought it was a good idea to begin with given who both Disney and Pixar make movies for.

To me, that was 100x worse than the under the bed scene because at least that one didn't explicitly state what was going through her head so he just thought it was a funny scene with her getting sweaty and acting weird.

I mean, the whole joke is that these 13 year old girls don't understand what it means so... doesn't it seem like someone at Disney or Pixar would have realized other kids that age or younger wouldn't, either?.. and that just maybe, that scene might make them wonder, too just like the kids on-screen?

I mean really, opening up the doors to discuss sex work was not one of the things I thought I ever had to be concerned with from a Disney or Pixar movie prior to that.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I think Turning Red is completely appropriate for kids 10 and up, but I think a problem is — in America — all animation is viewed as something that must be okay for kindergarten-aged kids, and a lot of times parents feel angry if a movie opens up a conversation they weren't ready to have.

This is one reason why it's kind of disappointing that the G rating is no longer used anymore. When completely unobjectionable movies like Frozen are given the same rating as movies that are a bit edgier like Turning Red, it makes it difficult for parents to discern which movies are appropriate. Back in the 90s/early 2000s you really had to earn a PG rating. When movies like Shrek, the Road to El Dorado and Atlantis got PG ratings, parents knew the content of those movies may not be okay for very young children and were only appropriate for older children. But now that PG has become the new G, there really isn't a good way to categorize movies like Turning Red that are a bit more mature than the typical Disney film, but not filled with enough content to warrant a PG-13 rating.

It has nothing to do with appropriateness, it has to do with commercial viability. If you want to make a movie that ONLY appeals to girls 10-13 and their mothers, that's fine. But you don't get to do with a $175 million production budget and a $100 million marketing budget.

I won't belabor the box office point because COVID is too much of a black swan event to evaluate the revenue side fairly, but please just for a second consider the fact that Turning Red had NEARLY DOUBLE the production budget of Mario. Even in the rosiest, most optimistic, pretend-COVID-never-happened-and-Disney-Plus-never-existed scenarios, that's insane!

 

[MrPromey]

It has nothing to do with appropriateness, it has to do with commercial viability. If you want to make a movie that ONLY appeals to girls 10-13 and their mothers, that's fine. But you don't get to do with a $175 million production budget and a $100 million marketing budget.

I won't belabor the box office point because COVID is too much of a black swan event to evaluate the revenue side fairly, but please just for a second consider the fact that Turning Red had NEARLY DOUBLE the production budget of Mario. Even in the rosiest, most optimistic, pretend-COVID-never-happened-and-Disney-Plus-never-existed scenarios, that's insane!

Honestly, I think the main appeal of that movie is young adults and up because frankly, I think it's hard for anyone who doesn't have a little distance on the other side of puberty to appreciate what's going on there and see it and understand both the daughter and mother. I also think that's why it takes place in the era it does rather than in current times - it's a look back for adults.

Just like Soul hits with me in a way it doesn't with my 10 year old son because he's not a middle-aged man thinking about the regrets of his life and pondering the meaning of our existence...

Again, nothing wrong with these stories - they're great stories - but these were never going to make half a billion dollars at the box office with family audiences, regardless of COVID.

I'm sure people at Pixar were unhappy to see their work miss the big screen but I think someone at Disney was thankful they didn't have to blow $150 million each trying to market these to theater-goers on top of their production budgets.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Honestly, I think the main appeal of that movie is young adults and up because frankly, I think it's hard for anyone who doesn't have a little distance on the other side of puberty to appreciate what's going on, there and see it and understand both the daughter and mother. I also think that's why it takes place in the era it does rather than in current times - it's a look back for adults.

Just like Soul hits with me in a way it doesn't with my 10 year old son because he's not a middle aged man thinking about the regrets of his life...

That's a good point. The creators aren't making movies for their audiences, they're making movies for themselves. Compare:

"I make movies for that little boy who loves the characters so much that he wants to pack his clothes in a Lightning McQueen suitcase."

"This film is one of the first, if not the first film, at least from Pixar, that really shines a light on and highlights the Chinese Canadian community."