Wish (Walt Disney Animation - November 2023)

[TP2000]

Not sure how that's your takeaway from the D+ argument. Mine is based on how people are lazy and cheap. You only have to look at how people talk about every streaming service. "You want me to pay $12? A month? For access to more entertainment than I could possibly consume in my lifetime? How dare you? Way too expensive."

I subscribe and cancel to several streaming services for a month at a time only. I subscribe to Netflix when a new season of The Crown debuts, then I cancel it 30 days later. I just subscribed "for free" to HBO+ to watch The Gilded Age because my sister insisted it was going to be a mandatory topic for the Thanksgiving weekend, then I cancelled HBO+ after I'd watched my episodes and could get charged for the next month. (I really enjoy The Gilded Age, by the way. A bit campier than Downtown Abbey, but fun!)

I worked hard my entire life and retired into a comfortable lifestyle. I want for nothing, but I'm smart enough to cancel a streaming service after 30 days when it has served its purpose.

I imagine a lot of people do that. It's fun, really! 20 years ago we were all locked into cable TV subscriptions and to cancel them they made you sit on hold for a half hour before you were allowed to speak to a human whose entire job was to not let you cancel. It was hell. But cancelling streaming is the opposite of that; fast and kind of fun to do!

Whoever designed streaming to be cancelled, re-subscribed, and cancelled again with only two clicks from a remote control in 10 seconds or less is a genius!

 

[TP2000]

On the above anecdote, I imagine a lot of families do that with Disney+...

Subscribe for 3 months for summer vacation, then cancel when the kids go back to school. Or subscribe for December to watch Christmas stuff on school break, etc.

Or perhaps there are parents who are watching their pennies who simply subscribe for a month only, then take a few months off, then subscribe for another month when the kids complaints get too loud. It's so easy to do with streaming, that I'm sure there's a lot of automatic churn in those subscription numbers month to month. Consumers coming and going.

 

[brideck]

I subscribe and cancel to several streaming services for a month at a time only. I subscribe to Netflix when a new season of The Crown debuts, then I cancel it 30 days later. I just subscribed "for free" to HBO+ to watch the first two seasons of The Gilded Age because my sister insisted it was going to be a mandatory topic for the Thanksgiving weekend, then I cancelled HBO+ after I'd watched my episodes and could get charged for the next month. (I really enjoy The Gilded Age, by the way. A bit campier than Downtown Abbey, but fun!)

I worked hard my entire life and retired into a comfortable lifestyle. I want for nothing, but I'm smart enough to cancel a streaming service after 30 days when it has served its purpose.

I imagine a lot of people do that. It's fun, really! 20 years ago we were all locked into cable TV subscriptions and to cancel them they made you sit on hold for a half hour before you were allowed to speak to a human whose entire job was to not let you cancel. It was hell. But cancelling streaming is the opposite of that; fast and kind of fun to do!

Whoever designed streaming to be cancelled, re-subscribed, and cancelled again with only two clicks from a remote control in 10 seconds or less is a genius!

Bully for you? My point is that the market generally won't bear a cost that actually supports what it takes to produce quality entertainment. The thought that I'm paying too much at the cost of 2-3 lbs of ground beef or 1-2 movie tickets (depending on the service) is anathema to me. Television production costs were supported by ads and sponsorships. Today it's all supported by nothing but a begrudging public.

Some of this is because companies are just producing too much content, but the public seemingly expects something new every day.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

Equivalent in the sense of what would motivate someone to participate. The stakes -- giving up your life's dream vs shelling out $2 for a lotto ticket -- are far different.

On the level of deceit, though, Asha's reaction is the equivalent of somebody walking into the lottery headquarters, being scandalised when she realises most people won't win the lottery, and then leading all the people who buy lottery tickets to lock up the CEO.

 

[brideck]

On the level of deceit, though, Asha's reaction is the equivalent of somebody walking into the lottery headquarters, being scandalised when she realises most people won't win, and then leading all the people who buy lottery tickets to lock up the CEO.

I mean, if a lottery CEO rigged the lotto so all the winning numbers were between 40-49, but the tickets still used all the numbers between 1-49, they'd go to jail for fraud, wouldn't they? [This particular analogy is getting more and more frayed as we go, but I hope my point is still clear.]

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Disney would have to start outsourcing animation in order to bring their budgets in-line with others' movies, no? I always thought that the "Made in America" aspect of Disney movies was supposed to be a feature of the brand.

Disney has had animation studios supporting their feature and TV production in the past outside of the US, including Japan, France and Australia. They still do animation in Vancouver, Canada too.

So no, "made in America" is not their brand. Disney is.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

If the grand deceit at the heart of the film is equivalent to people buying lottery tickets or betting in a casino when they almost certainly won't win, that gives some perspective as to why it all feels a little ambivalent at least to some people.

If nothing else, Magnifico Casino: Win Your Wish! should be a hit when it opens on board the Disney Treasure next year.

 

[brideck]

Disney has had animation studios supporting their feature and TV production in the past outside of the US, including Japan, France and Australia. They still do animation in Vancouver, Canada too.

So no, "made in America" is not their brand. Disney is.

I knew that plenty of their TV work was. If you know, which feature films have animation from outside North America? I couldn't think of anything recent at all.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I knew that plenty of their TV work was. If you know, which feature films have animation from outside North America? I couldn't think of anything recent at all.

The studio near Paris was the first, starting with Hunchback. Though I'm not sure if DuckTales: The Movie and A Goofy Movie were mostly animated in Australia?

I believe the Vancouver studio still does a lot of stuff for Pixar and WDAS.

 

[brideck]

The studio near Paris was the first, starting with Hunchback. Though I'm not sure if DuckTales: The Movie and A Goofy Movie were mostly animated in Australia?

I believe the Vancouver studio still does a lot of stuff for Pixar and WDAS.

This article seems to indicate that the Vancouver studio (which only opened in 2021) does not do feature work. Specifically "Back in Burbank, the flagship animation studio will expand its over 900 employees and remain the exclusive home for film projects..."

Walt Disney Animation Opens New Vancouver Studio for Long-Form Series Production

Walt Disney Animation Studios is opening a new production facility in Vancouver, dedicated to long-form series for Disney Plus

variety.com

From doing some quick reading, I think that the Paris studio is the only one that ever touched the "animated classics" and their last work was Brother Bear.

 

[Disney Irish]

On the above anecdote, I imagine a lot of families do that with Disney+...

Subscribe for 3 months for summer vacation, then cancel when the kids go back to school. Or subscribe for December to watch Christmas stuff on school break, etc.

Or perhaps there are parents who are watching their pennies who simply subscribe for a month only, then take a few months off, then subscribe for another month when the kids complaints get too loud. It's so easy to do with streaming, that I'm sure there's a lot of automatic churn in those subscription numbers month to month. Consumers coming and going.

This actually belongs in the D+ thread but...

Disney's churn rate for D+ is about 44%, but yet continue to have increases in subs yearly. So not only do those churn subs tend to re-sub at some point but they are replaced and additional new subs come online for overall gains to the service.

So for what its worth, the churn factor only becomes a problem when the service no longer gets gains and replacement subs.

Not only that but a large majority of those churn subs are on the ad tier. This means that not only do sub fees come into play, but also ad revenue.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I mean, if a lottery CEO rigged the lotto so all the winning numbers were between 40-49, but the tickets still used all the numbers between 1-49, they'd go to jail for fraud, wouldn't they? [This particular analogy is getting more and more frayed as we go, but I hope my point is still clear.]

I don't really think so, because they know the king decides which wishes to grant and that is precisely what he does.

I have a feeling we'll never see eye-to-eye on this, but I am getting the feeling that a determining factor as to whether you can look past what might to others look like plot holes is the extent to which you buy into the central premise that the most important part of a human being is their wishes and dreams. I guess if you accept that, it might help you to move beyond the fact that they really knew they were giving their wish up, because they could not know just how much they were giving up by agreeing to this bargain. That could also help get you to accepting that, however good their life was in Rosas, it could never be enough to compensate for giving up their wish to climb mountains, fly, sing songs, etc.

 

[_caleb]

Disney would have to start outsourcing animation in order to bring their budgets in-line with others' movies, no? I always thought that the "Made in America" aspect of Disney movies was supposed to be a feature of the brand.

This is part of why the distinction between Disney's animation studios/groups will increasingly be blurred in the streaming era. The churn-fighting production demands of D+ are going to result in a restructuring more like the video game industry, where individual animation studios/teams within Disney compete for (through bidding) individual projects.

 

[Disney Irish]

I don't really think so, because they know the king decides which wishes to grant and that is precisely what he does.

I have a feeling we'll never see eye-to-eye on this, but I am getting the feeling that a determining factor as to whether you can look past what might to others look like plot holes is the extent to which you buy into the central premise that the most important part of a human being is their wishes and dreams. I guess if you accept that, it might help you to move beyond the fact that they really knew they were giving their wish up, because they could not know just how much they were giving up by agreeing to this bargain. That could also help get you to accepting that, however good their life was in Rosas, it could never be enough to compensate for giving up their wish to climb mountains, fly, sing songs, etc.

Well the question is, do the subjects of Rosas really know what they are giving up by giving their wishes/dreams to Magnifico to hold and potentially grant later? That is not made apparent. Its made to seem that because they have no memory of what they told Magnifico, because its a secret between them and Magnifico, that they never really know what they ultimately gave up.

I guess you could call it a plot hole if you really think that the subjects of Rosas can't be ignorant of the situation and can't be better overall by knowing their wishes/dreams to achieve them on their own.

 

[DKampy]

Source?

I think you misunderstand Disney's fundamental streaming strategy. It's not just the old release and distribution model, but with streaming instead of DVDs. It's flipped. Direct-to-Consumer literally means cutting out the middlemen, such as movie theaters and cable companies.

Films are filling gaps in the Disney+ content library. They release them theatrically in an attempt to make some quick money and promote the film, which was intended from the beginning to be on Disney+.

This is what most studios are doing now…they now have the data which is telling the studios films do better on streaming when released to theaters first as opposed to straight to streaming…We are probably seeing some streaming movies push to theaters first instead for this reason… like The upcoming Alien film which was moved to theaters from Hulu

How many movies are released on Netflix that the general population have no idea of?

 

[_caleb]

This is what most studios are doing now…they now have the data which is telling the studios films do better on streaming when released to theaters first as opposed to straight to streaming…We are probably seeing some streaming movies push to theaters first instead for this reason… like The upcoming Alien film which was moved to theaters from Hulu

How many movies are released on Netflix that the general population have no idea of?

Exactly. Which is why I believe any thoughtful discussion of Disney at the box office should take this new approach into consideration.

 

[brb1006]

Wish just had its Japanese release which is paired with Once Upon A Studio.

 

[drizgirl]

I'm actually a little concerned that Disney does not know how to constrain costs while producing good content. Their costs are completely out of control, which suggests poor financial management at many levels of the company. Somebody like Peltz might come through with a hatchet.

Disney shouldn't consistently require 2x the resources of their competitors just to get a film to market.

And I'm actually a little concerned that Disney does not know how to make good content any more.

 

[Stitch's Grandfather]

And I'm actually a little concerned that Disney does not know how to make good content any more.

And perhaps counterintuitively, cutting out a ton of process, rewrites, reshoots, etc. will not only drive down costs but potentially improve quality. Disney may have too many cooks in the kitchen, stifling young talent.

If I were an exec in the Disney Animation space, I would try to understand current bottlenecks and if overhead/process are helping in any way. There's probably entire layers of that org that could be eliminated and not only would nothing be lost, things would improve.

Looking at the original storyboards for Wish, it seems like the most interesting aspects of the story were whittled away by timid beancounting execs. What was the cost to make all the changes from the leaked storyboards to the final product? And did those changes help in any way?

 

[Stitch's Grandfather]

On the above anecdote, I imagine a lot of families do that with Disney+...

Subscribe for 3 months for summer vacation, then cancel when the kids go back to school. Or subscribe for December to watch Christmas stuff on school break, etc.

That's us right now. Canceled all our streaming services since we're gone most often than we're home this month. Kids can get by with Amazon, PBS, etc. for a few days.