But can’t you see how these things are connected? It’s not “Disney doesn’t care about ROI” (they’re a business, of course they do!), it’s that they’re investing in a monumental shift in their business. They’ve known that to be viable in DtC they were going to have to invest like crazy, so they have. Now they’re doing what any business does and lowering margins, raising prices, and adding revenue streams.
No need to assume a wild ideological conspiracy. It’s just business.
This is just simply not true. If it were, we'd see more and more expansion in the parks with less IP infusion. ROI is of no concern to the Studios & D+ as they have the parks to supplement their income.
I have really soured on Iger over the last few years also, prior to about 2016 I was a fan of pretty much everything he did, DCA 2.0 was amazing, Pandora was amazing, buying Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel set up endless potential for Disneys movie division and D+… he had the Midas touch… had he retired then I’d have said he was the best leader since Walt.
Even this isn’t true. At most, they’re not obsessed as people arguing in bad faith about a rudimentary formula that only measures one revenue stream.
Thinks for the correction. What is happening right now is all part of a plan they (Iger) had all along.
There is one other option— that Disney knew recent offerings might perform poorly (maybe just not how poorly) at the box office, but released them anyway because they are looking bigger-picture at the investment in their Direct-to-Consumer strategy to try to get a good mix of content for D+ viability.
I also don't think Disney is interested in the not releasing to tax write off pipeline with their studio projects, I think they'd rather just release it D+. These films have been in production for years, they weren't just not going to release them.
I mean, you’ve been around and followed the news out of Disney long enough to see that, right? Way back when Disney announced they were going all in on Direct-to-Consumer, they made it clear this was how it was going to play out.
They thought they'd make money because of brand loyalty. Then rushed them into production with half-baked scripts from inexperienced writers & largely inexperienced directors (Indy 5's James Mangold excluded).
Just, no. They weren’t looking for box office duds and underperformance to somehow magically support Disney+. Negativity doesn’t drive that sort of interest.
I didn’t say they were looking for box office duds. That would make no sense!
Totally angree. Everything Disney does is intended and planned and is decided by a room full of people, not just Iger. Disney is free to create their art as they wish and in my opinion, if they could control the budgets when creating content for the big screen or DTC, they would be In a better position.
Fair enough. I agree we’ll see soon enough. And I agree that if they miss the projection, Iger will talk his way out of it.
In the real world, if a business loses money for several years, and then finally stop losing money that doesn’t mean they are profitable. They aren’t profitable until they make up what they lost for several years! Haha.
I totally agree and it irks me to no end because it feels like once a company gets big enough, there seems to be a lot they can get away with without consequence, somehow.
Nah, they seem like they’d end up with Paramount given how much they currently own of it, 15.4%.
It’s pretty typical for businesses to leverage existing revenue streams to invest in new revenue streams.