El Squibbonator

Yes, that was definitely a factor. But whenever I point that out, people seem to be in denial. It's not just a matter of "animated sci-fi adventure movies never do well", because, as I've pointed out, some of them have been successful.

A few years ago, I'd agree with that statement, but given that Netflix and HBO Max are shedding animated projects like there's no tomorrow, I'm not optimistic. If it's going to be a theatrical film, though, the only studio I can see taking a chance on something like this is Sony. Maybe DreamWorks if they're having a really good day, but Sony is by far the most likely. Disney is too hung up on their oh-so-precious "family-friendly image" to do anything truly experimental, while Paramount, Warner Bros. and Illumination play to younger audiences by default, which doesn't leave a lot of room for trying new things. This is one of those times when I look at all the amazing movies in the CAYOM game, and wish that was what our movie industry looked like. Then I remember we live in reality, and I'm sad.

I can definitely see Sony doing something like this (in fact, if you count Into The Spider-Verse as science-fiction, they arguably already have) but DreamWorks tends to err more on the comedy side of things. That said, they've been trying for a mix of comedy and action in things like Kung Fu Panda, How to Train your Dragon*, and Puss in Boots, and I can see that tone working in a sci-fi story. *Fun fact: Chris Sanders, who directed Lilo and Stitch, one of Disney's few successful sci-fi movies, moved to DreamWorks to make How to Train your Dragon. Maybe he thought Disney wasn't playing to his strengths?

As for who What animation studio do you think would be most likely to make such a movie? It definitely won't be Disney, but what about DreamWorks? Sony? Warner Bros.?

My big concern is that this is going to have an effect on the kind of movies Disney is willing to greenlight from here on out. A lot of people have already suggested that Wish looks more likely to be successful because it's more in line with what the public expects a "Disney movie" to be (not to mention it has a princess protagonist and an animal sidekick for them to merchandise the hell out of). So if Wish is more successful than Strange World, which is, of course, a very low bar to clear, what message will that send to Disney? Probably something like "Less experimenting with new genres! More generic fairy tales!" The last time something like this happened was in 1990. The Rescuers Down Under was a box-office failure, despite being the sequel to a successful 1977 movie, and one of the results of that was Disney refusing to make any animated movies that weren't musicals for almost a decade. The 1990s were a period of quality for Disney, but also a period of creative stagnation and unwillingness to move away from formula. And I'm kind of afraid that this is going to be Strange World's legacy too-- that Disney will take it as a sign that they shouldn't make any more movies in this genre.

If that's the case, how long do you think it'll be before Disney tries something like this again? And by "something like this", I mean an animated sci-fi adventure movie or a gay main character, take your pick.

I guess I was asking more about the movie as it exists IRL. If you were in charge of marketing Strange World, with the intent that it must be a box-office success, what would you do differently than what Disney has actually done? What aspects would you play up in advertising? What would you not promote?

How is the art style unappealing? That seems kind of subjective to me. And in any case it doesn't seem too different from most other 2010s/early 2020s Disney animated movies. That aside, do you think there's any scenario under which Strange World could have been a success if things had been different?

I disagree. In theory, a movie being bad shouldn't be any barrier to success. As I said, kids' movies are always in high demand and parents are notoriously uncaring as to whether they're any good. If The Emoji Movie and Norm of the North were able to more than double their budgets, bad reviews shouldn't have been a dealbreaker for Strange World. Emphasis on "in theory". The only reason it had no hook was because Disney didn't do a good job of advertising it with one. Heck, even the title reeks of studio disinterest. It's called Strange World, and the trailers were pretty much just showing us the setting and saying "Gee, this world sure is strange! Isn't that STRANGE that this WORLD is in a movie called STRANGE WORLD? Alsostarringabunchofpeopleandadog." In other words, there's no sense of the story, or why we should care about it. The working title, Searcher Clade, would have been a lot better at explaining what this movie is about and who the story revolves around.

I don't know whether this deserves a separate thread or not, but is there a reason animated sci-fi movies have such a poor batting average? I've heard it argued that it's because they don't "appeal to families", but I'm skeptical of that, because while you do get some that are darker and more violent (Atlantis, Titan A.E.) a lot of animated sci-fi flops aren't really any less family-appealing than any other animated movies (Planet 51, Meet the Robinsons). So is there something about the genre itself that people just don't associate with animation, like pineapple and pizza? For the record, here's a list of successful animated sci-fi movies. Note that I'm being very generous with the definition of sci-fi here, and including such things as superheroes and "science-fantasy" that genre purists might not classify as sci-fi in the strictest sense. Jimmy Neutron Lilo and Stitch The Incredibles Robots TMNT WALL-E Star Wars: The Clone Wars Monsters Vs. Aliens Megamind Home Big Hero 6 The Incredibles 2 Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse That's 13 movies. Out of the literally hundreds of successful American animated movies, only 13 have been sci-fi. I left out the Despicable Me/Minions movies because, while I suppose they technically qualify as sci-fi, this aspect was greatly downplayed in the marketing (and the movies themselves) in favor of silly Minion antics. The 13 movies here, then, are the only examples I know of successful American animated movies where sci-fi elements were prominent in their marketing.

Still, you'd think with a much better marketing push this movie could have done better than it actually is. Kid's movies are always in high demand, and parents are infamously uncaring as to whether they're actually good or not. However much money Strange World ultimately ends up losing, Disney only has themselves to blame for it.

Didn't he also make Big Hero 6? I liked Strange World well enough for what it was, but aside from the novelty of finally seeing a gay main character in a Disney movie, I felt that Big Hero 6 was an overall more interesting story with a more compelling cast.

I hope that was sarcasm. By the way, how long do you think it'll be before we get another movie like this?

So the million-dollar question is, why are they doing this? Do they simply not have faith in the movie, given their past failures in the same genre (in which case, why did they make it in the first place)? Did they get cold feet over the gay main character? Or is it something else entirely?

Exactly. This isn't normal. It's not just a matter of "animated sci-fi action movies tend not to do well". This movie is being handicapped.

Maybe so, but that still doesn't explain why Disney isn't marketing Strange World more. Regardless of how well they ultimately did, Disney had faith in Atlantis and Treasure Planet. They heavily promoted those movies, and it wasn't their fault people didn't come to watch them. But with Strange World, we aren't even getting that. It's like the studio is setting the movie up to fail on purpose. With Atlantis, Disney took a swing and a miss, but here they don't even seem to have gotten to the "swing" part.

So I got into a conversation on Twitter with a friend of mine who thinks that the reason Strange World is doing so badly is simply because of its genre. He pointed out that, superhero movies aside, animated sci-fi action movies (Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, Titan A.E., etc.) have a notoriously poor batting average in theaters, and audiences just don't seem to like them. To put it bluntly, I don't think that's likely. Disney marketed the HELL out of Atlantis and Treasure Planet. I was a kid when those movies were in theaters, and I remember seeing advertising for them everywhere. There were Happy Meal toys, spinoff comic books, video games, action figures, and all the stuff big animated movies get. It's just that nobody cared. With Strange World, we aren't even getting THAT. Atlantis and Treasure planet might have flopped in theaters, but Disney at least TRIED to market them; it wasn't their fault that they were aiming at an audience who wouldn't watch a Disney movie if you paid them. But with Strange World, they aren't even trying at all. There's trying and failing, and then there's just plain not giving a crap. Disney is usually very good about promoting its animated movies, even if they end up not doing well, so it really does seem like they're trying to bury Strange World on purpose, like they're embarrassed by it or something. Like I said, even Atlantis and Treasure Planet got far more promotion than Strange World is getting. There has to be another explanation. The only one I can think of is that there's some element of Strange World specifically that they would rather not be associated with, either because they think it would compromise their image or because someone at the company personally disapproves of it.

No, what they should be doing is branching OUT from fairy tales. Strange World was a good example of what that could look like, but unfortunately it didn't really take. We know Disney can do other genres, because we have Wreck-it Ralph, Big Hero 6, and Zootopia as proof of that. I just hope Strange World doesn't scare them away from making animated movies that aren't fairy tale musicals.

This is probably going to finish below DC Super-Pets. . . while costing twice as much. Jesus christ.

First Penguin/Simon and Schuster, and now this.

That's exactly what I said. If Disney makes another big purchase-- which isn't certain at this point-- it'll almost certainly be in an area they haven't done one in before.

You laugh, but the Infinity Gauntlet is an analogy I've made before. See, those purchases Iger made? They weren't random. Each one gave Disney a stake in a part of the market they didn't before. Think about it. Pixar gave them the ability to make successful animated movies, at a time when their in-house animated movies were struggling with competition. Marvel and Lucasfilm gave them movies that appealed to the teenage male audience, which Disney historically had trouble attracting. And finally, Fox gave them a whole host of R-rated properties, allowing them to make movies aimed at adults for the first time since retiring the Touchstone Pictures label, as well as giving them access to every other Marvel character. Each of those purchases filled a distinct gap in Disney's output, and now there really aren't as many of those gaps left. They've collected all the Infinity Stones, as it were. It would be redundant for Disney to buy more than one of them. The video shows them with DC, but that makes no sense under Iger's strategy, because they already have Marvel. Sony Pictures doesn't make sense either, because they already have Fox, which is not only bigger than Sony Pictures but has many more lucrative franchises. Literally the only reason I can think of that they would try to buy Sony would be to get the Spider-Man rights, but it's much less expensive to just pay Sony the licensing fee. So if Disney makes another big purchase, chances are it'll be in an area that they haven't before. A video game company seems most likely, and I've seen some people suggest Electronic Arts, Take2, Epic Games, or even Sega. A toy company like Hasbro or Mattel is another possibility.

Discovery didn't acquire WB, at least not the way Disney acquired Fox. A merger isn't the same thing as an acquisition, because unlike a merger, an acquisition doesn't result in the formation of a new company. Disney and Fox didn't become DisneyFox or something like that; Disney just swallowed Fox up and spit out the parts it didn't want. Warner Bros, and Discovery, on the other hand, became an entirely new entity called Warner Bros. Discovery. Acquisitions and mergers are both subject to regulatory approval, but the other way WB/Discovery was different from Disney/Fox is that WB and Discovery were, for the most part, working in different areas before they merged, so there was no risk of reducing competition. Disney and Fox, on the other hand, were working in the same area, which is why Disney buying Fox is often seen as a Bad Thing from the perspective of a healthy film industry. And most importantly, mergers don't require money to complete. Which means Discovery, regardless of what financial state it was in, could always afford to do a merger with WB.

I can't picture Disney making any more purchases the size of Marvel or bigger for at least the next two years.

I hope you're right. My friend suspects it'll happen because several Spider-Man-related shows have been removed from Netflix, the traditional streaming home of Sony content.