Disney Doesn't Know What They're Doing Thread (Previously The SNOW WHITE Thread)

[Monterey Jack]

"Dopey speaks" is as bad as the horrible Pinocchio remake ending with Pinocchio not turning into a real boy.



The ending is quite funny as well, as that would supposedly be a big "audience reaction moment", but...

[AndyDursin]

[AndyDursin]

Even better...

[AndyDursin]

[Paul MacLean]

^^

Here's an observation by a friend of mine, who is a clergyman and used to teach film at RIT...

https://film-prof.com/

[TaranofPrydain]

Disney is claiming a loss of "only" $115 million, but that seems dubious to me since they are predicting $100 million domestic, $125 elsewhere in the world. I doubt it will make it to the domestic figure especially (it was at $66 million as of yesterday), the release of Minecraft on Friday should eliminate most of the family trade that the notorious Disney dud was counting on.

[Monterey Jack]

Sinners made made more in the U.S. after a single week in theaters than this did in over a month.

[Monterey Jack]

"But why...?"

[AndyDursin]

Not enough product. Sad state of affairs.

[Monterey Jack]

Not enough product. Sad state of affairs.

This is the second weekend of the "summer movie season", and the biggest films opening are Shadow Force, Fight Or Flight and Juliet & Romeo (all of which will probably make less than Sinners will take in in week #4 ), and the biggest next weekend will be yet another Final Destination movie. You'd think there would have been some lite romcom for Mother's Day weekend, but it's nothing but violent action!

[AndyDursin]

What's sad is I know a handful of people, including my Mom, who watched NONNA'S on Netflix (the Vince Vaughn Italian restaurant dramedy) and loved it. That's the kind of Mother's Day-suited "adult movie" that Hollywood used to make -- and would've been in theaters 10 years ago.

No question they've lost a huge chunk of their audience and have basically given up on it -- it may not be the demographic the advertisers want, but it's bodies buying tickets and it carries over to everything else. What they're doing is unsustainable.

[Monterey Jack]

What's sad is I know a handful of people, including my Mom, who watched NONNA'S on Netflix (the Vince Vaughn Italian restaurant dramedy) and loved it. That's the kind of Mother's Day-suited "adult movie" that Hollywood used to make -- and would've been in theaters 10 years ago.

It's especially disappointing considering that 2023's romcom Anyone But You (which cost $25 million) and last summer's romantic drama It Ends With Us (which cost the same) ended up making a combined $570 million. There IS an audience that will roll out for things like this, but studios have become erroneously convinced that the only movies "worth" seeing on the big screen are noisy, F/X-crammed action blockbusters that have to be seen on an IMAX screen. Despite the fact that the runaway success of the spring was Sinners, which cost a relatively thrifty $90 million and is well on its way to tripling that budget after only a month. Comedies in general studios have given up on. The last time an out-and-out broad comedy cracked the top-ten at the U.S. box office was Ted...way back in 2012. Back in the 80s and 90s, often times a third of the U.S. top-ten at the box office would consist of comedies. The first actor ever to receive a $20 million dollar paycheck wasn't Stallone, Schwarzenegger or Harrison Ford...it was Jim Carrey.



That's how valuable it used to be to have a comedic actor who could consistently bring in over $100 mil domestic. But at some point in the mid-2010s, those kinds of "brand-name" comedic performers, like Adam Sandler and Melissa McCarthy, sold out to Netflix, Prime and Hulu, and big-screen audiences became starved for any sort of levity at the multiplex. I would have assumed, post-Pandemic, audiences would want a big, communal laugh at the theaters, but what do I know? Now it's just obnoxiously "funny" quips inserted into the latest superhero flick. 2023's No Hard Feelings had a buck-naked Jennifer Lawrence in it, and it couldn't crack $100 million worldwide. Think about that.

[AndyDursin]

Even though they don't often have much foreign appeal, comedies can be profitable and don't cost nearly as much to make. But as we've said repeatedly, all the mega-corporation-IP-owners care about now are turning out the worldwide-friendly FX blockbusters that (as we know Disney is always geared to do) swing for the $1 billion fence.

They don't care or see that SOME profit is better than NO profit and that those adult movies get viewers back to theaters...but they've lost it. It's turned into a marketplace where most adults like me are going to a movie once or twice every 6 months. They'll go to TOP GUN MAVERICK, they'll show up for SINNERS, but these kinds of phenomena are too separated and not regular enough to sustain the marketplace filled to the brim with IP garbage and stale old franchises (yay for another FINAL DESTINATION and I KNOW WHAT YOU DID...) -- which, sure, can make money here and there, but generally, it's diminishing returns and only one type of audience is being satiated now.

They're happy THUNDERBOLTS*NEWAVENGERS didn't decline as much as BRAVE NEW WORLD, but that's nothing to be happy about...its gross is right in line with THE ETERNALS and SANG-CHI. In other words, ZZZ....

[Monterey Jack]

[TaranofPrydain]

I keep waiting for it to be added to Wikipedia's list of the biggest box office bombs....

Sure, it's just barely pushed past $200 million worldwide, but that is still less than the film cost before reshoots. So it had lost a lot. Probably more than Disney is saying out loud.