Instagram recently got a promo for this year's Oogie Boogie Bash at California Adventure teasing new villains appearing for photo ops/meet and greets, but the ones teased were Dr. Doofenschmirtz and Hades (didn't realize they'd never used him before). To be honest, I thought they might include King Magnifico in that lineup given he seems to be the most popular character from the movie (and they jumped pretty quickly on using Agatha Harkness, who joined the lineup back in 2021). Maybe they will, but if so, why not include him in the teaser?
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Wish (Walt Disney Animation - November 2023)
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
Because they very probably won’t.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
You might as well ask why the Horned King isn't at Oogie Boogie. He would make a fantastic addition.
Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
Same reason why Princess Eilonwy has been shunned by the sorority.You might as well ask why the Horned King isn't at Oogie Boogie. He would make a fantastic addition.
I was actually thinking about The Horned King myself, because even after The Black Cauldron flopped he was featured in the finale of Tokyo Disneyland's Cinderella Castle Mystery Tour, which opened in 1986 and stuck around for years!
It's just telling that Disney Corporate has so little confidence that Wish has any audience at all -- given how calculated it was to be the next Frozen/Encanto (just thinking about it yesterday, were they hoping Dahlia would be a breakout character like Luisa was and that's why she had a lot more merchandise than her function in the film warranted?) that they're barely trying to push it even at events where it might work.
It's just telling that Disney Corporate has so little confidence that Wish has any audience at all -- given how calculated it was to be the next Frozen/Encanto (just thinking about it yesterday, were they hoping Dahlia would be a breakout character like Luisa was and that's why she had a lot more merchandise than her function in the film warranted?) that they're barely trying to push it even at events where it might work.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
I wonder why Princess Giselle was barred from the sorority too? Probably couldn't take the hazing where she had to make out with Quasimodo in a closet.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
I don’t really understand what you’re getting at. You’re implying it’s somehow surprising that they haven’t done more with Wish, whereas it’s very clear why. The film flopped badly; why would anyone expect them to push it needlessly?
The actual reason is prosaic: Because she was directly modeled on Amy Adams, she'd be owed royalties on any Giselle merchandise, so there was only a little bit of such when the movie was originally released and nothing since. After all, the whole "Disney Princess" branding is about the merchandise more than anything.
Mostly to make up the losses on the film's production, marketing, and merchandise! But also, it's striking that they are effectively admitting to themselves that they botched their oh-so-special centennial project that badly, that too few people like it to line up for stuff like meet-and-greets, that it's never going to get a second wind the way some other Disney films have managed over the years. It was supposed to be a genuine event, but it ended up just being a piece of disposable Disney-flavored "content", not actual cinematic art people cared about.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
It depends on the contract. Actors rarely get royalties on their image. The character of Giselle is owned by Disney. I doubt she gets anything from it. She kind of reminds me of a prototype of Rapunzel.
Yeah, IIRC the contract for the film's original release made it pretty clear she'd get a cut of royalties on stuff like dolls, and thus, they didn't really create a lot of tie-ins for it the way they do for the standard animated features. If that hadn't been an issue, they would have made Giselle an official Disney Princess and kept her around. (It's said the reason Jack Nicholson didn't voice Hades in Hercules is because Disney would have had to cut a deal with him for a cut of the merchandising, as he'd done to beaucoup bucks with the 1989 Batman movie, in which he got a share of any Bat-merch that sold!)
Royalty issues involving actors' images are said to be a reason why merch like Funko Pops! are so stylized. Often times, the companies are only paying for characters and iconography rather than the actual performers' images. It's also why tie-in merch for live-action franchises often downplays actual photos, etc. of the characters as opposed to illustrations, icons, etc.
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Phroobar
Well-Known Member
Makes sense. That must be why the sequel had no merch.
The Tonka sisters in the cantina scene in Star Wars was supposed to have rights to their images. That is why we never got figures of them. I guess that has changed recently since Hasbro is blanking them for the cantina playset.
MarvelCharacterNerd
Well-Known Member
There has been Giselle merch over the years - including a doll set at the 2019 D23 Expo and a pin at the 2022 Expo IIRC - but agreed not much. Not sure if it's likeness issues or art licensing issues since as I recall, Disney did not do the actual animation for the film, but sub-contracted it out. I would've thought they'd've secured the rights to it, but the lack of Enchanted merch, given its popularity, makes it questionable.
With other actor likeness issues - ala Julie Andrews - they've shifted to silhouette or cartoon/non-likeness versions of the character to create merch lately. They could potentially do the same for Giselle if it was just a likeness problem, which is why it makes me think maybe it's the art.
That's an interesting possibility, but then again there's the question of how popular Enchanted actually is these days. Yes, there was a sequel, but it came and went near-instantly, especially compared to Hocus Pocus 2 around the same time (both films having a lot of merchandise but as in the case of Mary Poppins going with silhouette/non-likeness illustrations). In this case the lack of merch might just be a reflection of Disney's marketing arm not seeing a big market for it.
Farerb
Well-Known Member
No. It was James Baxter's studio.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
Cool. That guy is all over the place in animation.
MarvelCharacterNerd
Well-Known Member
Probably because Disenchanted was a dull retread with no memorable songs. Huh - again appropriate for this thread.
Still, the original is charming and ironically, Enchanted is actually a far better tribute to 100 years of Disney animated films than Wish was.
Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
I actually saw Enchanted for the first time within the past year, and agree with that assessment. They deconstructed the tropes of Disney fairy tales quite cleverly, but ultimately reaffirmed the fundamental values of those tropes.Probably because Disenchanted was a dull retread with no memorable songs. Huh - again appropriate for this thread.
Still, the original is charming and ironically, Enchanted is actually a far better tribute to 100 years of Disney animated films than Wish was.
Wish was just a series of decontextualized member berries.
Amy Adams should have been nominated for academy Award…. This was my thought when I saw Enchanted over Thanksgiving the year it was released