The Disney Thread | Happy 90th to Donald Duck!

[Eric Prime]

 

[ZattMurdock]

Despite the flashy and salacious headline, I’d argue that this is a good analysis of Disney’s current year at the box office.

[MovieMan89]

Realizing the Fox acquisition may very well save Disney in the film department over the late 2022 to 2024 stretch is pretty wild considering how unnecessary that seemed at the time. A2 and Deadpool 3 may well be their only huge hits in that frame. 

[Porthos]

So Crater looks to be a film that, at a cursory glance, got next to no attention on this board while it was on D+, but it certainly is getting attention from some of the trades/internet now:

 

 

Near as I can tell, it was a fairly small movie at $54m budget and right now it's main (if not only) claim to fame is a gigantic heaping of Streisand Effect right about now.

 

And the thing is... I can see the argument (though don't agree with at all) about limiting movies/shows on a streaming service and why some companies are doing it (though, again, I don't agree with the logic or the underlying motive [understand why ≠ agree with]).  But with those provisos out of the way....

 

LESS THAN TWO FUCKING MONTHS TO BE ON A STREAMING SERVICE IS FUCKING IDIOTIC

 

Even six months is too extreme in my book (i.e. what happened to Willow), but drop kicking a movie less than seven weeks after debuting it is...

 

Well, I have all sorts of adjectives I could use, but I think I'll settle on "penny wise but pound foolish" as the one of the major points of streaming is (allegedly) the gigantic library and finding hidden gems at a random time.  I mean, that's what the Almighty Algorithm is supposed to be for, right?  Showing you things you might not be aware of or heard about and giving you a chance to see them.

 

Here though, it was punted into oblivion, almost certainly to avoid whatever revenue deals were due to the creators and crew and also probably because of tax write offs.

 

Even setting aside the whole idea of returning to the Bad Old Days of Ephemeral Content, where if one didn't see something immediately there was a decent chance you'd never see it, this is continuing a really bad precedent of writing off content to shore up the bottom line.

 

It was bad enough when Netflix was eliminating content after having it be on the service for a couple of years.  But winnowing down the viewing window to a couple of months?

 

This is bad bad baaaaaaad look even if the viewing numbers were really small for said movie.

 

(also all it's gonna do is give another shot in the arm to piracy or the black market of bootlegged DVDs/Blu-Rays)

[Potiki]

Agreed, I hate the removal of shows/movies and think yes it will lead to more piracy and distain of streaming services. 

 

I'm glad I watched Crater when it first came out as it was a pretty good mixture of coming of age young adult film and Sci-fi film, wild that as you mentioned it was only Disney+ for not even 2 months before being taken down. 

 

I really hope all of this is short term but feel that once WBD started this it really opened pandoras box and we may just be stuck with this now. This feels like what happened in gaming with internet delivered patches giving companies there an excuse to deliver a game that isn't finished/broken and fix it post launch, just a terrible proposition for the people that engage with these services. 

[LegionWrex]

8 minutes ago, Porthos said:

So Crater looks to be a film that, at a cursory glance, got next to no attention on this board while it was on D+, but it certainly is getting attention from some of the trades/internet now:

 

 

Near as I can tell, it was a fairly small movie at $54m budget and right now it's main (if not only) claim to fame is a gigantic heaping of Streisand Effect right about now.

 

And the thing is... I can see the argument (though don't agree with at all) about limiting movies/shows on a streaming service and why some companies are doing it (though, again, I don't agree with the logic or the underlying motive [understand why ≠ agree with]).  But with those provisos out of the way....

 

LESS THAN TWO FUCKING MONTHS TO BE ON A STREAMING SERVICE IS FUCKING IDIOTIC

 

Even six months is too extreme in my book (i.e. what happened to Willow), but drop kicking a movie less than seven weeks after debuting it is...

 

Well, I have all sorts of adjectives I could use, but I think I'll settle on "penny wise but pound foolish" as the one of the major points of streaming is (allegedly) the gigantic library and finding hidden gems at a random time.  I mean, that's what the Almighty Algorithm is supposed to be for, right?  Showing you things you might not be aware of or heard about and giving you a chance to see them.

 

Here though, it was punted into oblivion, almost certainly to avoid whatever revenue deals were due to the creators and crew and also probably because of tax write offs.

 

Even setting aside the whole idea of returning to the Bad Old Days of Ephemeral Content, where if one didn't see something immediately there was a decent chance you'd never see it, this is continuing a really bad precedent of writing off content to shore up the bottom line.

 

It was bad enough when Netflix was eliminating content after having it be on the service for a couple of years.  But winnowing down the viewing window to a couple of months?

 

This is bad bad baaaaaaad look even if the viewing numbers were really small for said movie.

 

(also all it's gonna do is give another shot in the arm to piracy or the black market of bootlegged DVDs/Blu-Rays)

If anything this is extra exposure for Crater as this got a couple of my irl friends to watch it out of curiosity (through piracy cause literally the only way to at this point) and all of them said it was actually pretty good so it sucks to see that this otherwise pretty pretty good film wasn't given the chance to stand out.

[Hatebox]

I wonder if there’ll be a physical media resurgence for films as there has been with vinyl. I follow the 4k blue ray Reddit and it seems like a serious cult hobby for some, often collecting hundreds of movies regardless of liking them.  

[YM!]

35 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

This is a good article in that it shows how industry really preceives "muh legs" disappointments that some BOTers use to cope about underperformance:

 

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/disney-box-office-failures-indiana-jones-elemental-ant-man-1235660409/

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK this is hilarious. They totally forgot about The Marvels. 

 

 

 

Muh legs don't compensate for ridiculous budgets.

 

 

 

But but she keeps swimming! - Luis Fernando 

 

 

 

Amen. It's a big company it will be fine but they need to stop the overbudgeting for recycled crap.

 

 

From the same article: “More than its competitors, Disney can withstand some of its movies functioning as loss leaders. In addition to racking up ticket sales, the studio’s films are designed to boost interest in toys and theme parks. So although “The Little Mermaid” barely floated past the $500 million mark, the return of Ariel is helping to sell themed Legos, backpacks, dolls, bedding and nail polish. The same goes for underperforming Marvel adventures like “Ant-Man,” which brings an influx of interest to Avengers Campus, a Marvel Cinematic Universe–themed area at the Disney California Adventure park.

“They may not make it at the box office, but Disney will make up for it in merchandise sales and the longevity of the property,” says Bock. “That’s a lot different than Paramount or Sony, who needs to make all their money back at the box office.”

 

Figured you could’ve have enough reading comprehension to read the article in full, huh. Like by no means is Disney having a good year (and tbh the tentpole all-time every-time strategy is starting to clash with the Plus eating into it) but in fairness, apart from Guardians, most 200m budgeted tentpoles are struggling currently. Mission and maybe Dune should be the big rebounds but I think the issue as a whole is it’s getting harder for the 200m tentpole unless it’s exceptionally good and/or longer streaming windows.

[filmlover]

3 hours ago, Porthos said:

So Crater looks to be a film that, at a cursory glance, got next to no attention on this board while it was on D+, but it certainly is getting attention from some of the trades/internet now:

 

 

Near as I can tell, it was a fairly small movie at $54m budget and right now it's main (if not only) claim to fame is a gigantic heaping of Streisand Effect right about now.

 

And the thing is... I can see the argument (though don't agree with at all) about limiting movies/shows on a streaming service and why some companies are doing it (though, again, I don't agree with the logic or the underlying motive [understand why ≠ agree with]).  But with those provisos out of the way....

 

LESS THAN TWO FUCKING MONTHS TO BE ON A STREAMING SERVICE IS FUCKING IDIOTIC

 

Even six months is too extreme in my book (i.e. what happened to Willow), but drop kicking a movie less than seven weeks after debuting it is...

 

Well, I have all sorts of adjectives I could use, but I think I'll settle on "penny wise but pound foolish" as the one of the major points of streaming is (allegedly) the gigantic library and finding hidden gems at a random time.  I mean, that's what the Almighty Algorithm is supposed to be for, right?  Showing you things you might not be aware of or heard about and giving you a chance to see them.

 

Here though, it was punted into oblivion, almost certainly to avoid whatever revenue deals were due to the creators and crew and also probably because of tax write offs.

 

Even setting aside the whole idea of returning to the Bad Old Days of Ephemeral Content, where if one didn't see something immediately there was a decent chance you'd never see it, this is continuing a really bad precedent of writing off content to shore up the bottom line.

 

It was bad enough when Netflix was eliminating content after having it be on the service for a couple of years.  But winnowing down the viewing window to a couple of months?

 

This is bad bad baaaaaaad look even if the viewing numbers were really small for said movie.

 

(also all it's gonna do is give another shot in the arm to piracy or the black market of bootlegged DVDs/Blu-Rays)

This is why having a theatrical run is important for your movie IMO. Studios (well, most of them) abandoning the multi-year output deal that they used to do with the premium networks (and were still doing as recently as four years ago) is one of the bigger losses of the rise of streaming if you ask me.

Edited July 6, 2023 by filmlover

[Valonqar]

37 minutes ago, YM! said:

 

 

Figured you could’ve have enough reading comprehension to read the article in full, huh. Like by no means is Disney having a good year (and tbh the tentpole all-time every-time strategy is starting to clash with the Plus eating into it) but in fairness, apart from Guardians, most 200m budgeted tentpoles are struggling currently. Mission and maybe Dune should be the big rebounds but I think the issue as a whole is it’s getting harder for the 200m tentpole unless it’s exceptionally good and/or longer streaming windows.

 

My reading comprehension is fine. I knew you would zero on toys like all copers but the point is that lackluster boxoffice is viewed as lackluster period toys or no toys and the article points out that other studios don't have toys to fall back on so they are budgeting better and producing better movies. Spiderman may sell tons of toys but AtSV didn't count on that to save it so it had resonable budget (100M) and high quality. 

[YM!]

21 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

 

My reading comprehension is fine. I knew you would zero on toys like all copers but the point is that lackluster boxoffice is viewed as lackluster period toys or no toys and the article points out that other studios don't have toys to fall back on so they are budgeting better and producing better movies. Spiderman may sell tons of toys but AtSV didn't count on that to save it so it had resonable budget (100M) and high quality. 

And I’m not saying it’s not lackluster. Dude my quote even says this year sucked, the fact that other studios have a sizable library of mid budget hits which even though aren’t reaching the same hits pre-pandemic are still great to have, and the box office is mediocre. Which you would’ve gotten those points, if you had read my post.
 

Apart from Bailey, I could give a rat’s ass about TLM. Fast X, Transformers, Dungeons, Flash those are movies are also in the same lackluster boat as Mermaid, Elemental and Indy with about the same if not lesser quality due to big budgets and still recovering box office. So far, we only have 11 films that have hit 100m domestic iirc. The only successful mega-blockbusters this year are Mario, Guardians and Across (which according to the one animation article is more so 150m than 100m).

My point is while box office is obviously lackluster, the problem as a whole comes down to budget in regards to todays climate, an issue which we may not see correct until later along the lines. And even then while not good and still yes dare I say bad, it’s not the end of the world. 

Edited July 6, 2023 by YM!

[Valonqar]

5 minutes ago, YM! said:

 

My point is while box office is obviously lackluster, the problem as a whole comes down to budget in regards to todays climate, an issue which we may not see correct until later along the lines. And even then while not good and still yes dare I say bad, it’s not the end of the world. 

 

We are in absolute agreement here. Boxoffice is recovering from covid, people changed their viewing habits in that they can wait for movies to come to streaming and go to cinemas only for something very special. Therefore, studios should budget reaosnably. But it seems that Disney thought a number of non-special movies were very special and could easily make a profit on an enormous budget. It wasn't so. 

[Eric Prime]

Moderation

 

@Valonqar there is no need to make fun of other BOT posters with baiting like “muh legs” and name calling like “copers”. People are in fact allowed to have their own opinions and viewpoints on box office and making fun of others like this is uncalled for. Please treat others here with respect or you will see a threadban.

[Valonqar]

30 minutes ago, Eric Bunny said:

Moderation

 

@Valonqar there is no need to make fun of other BOT posters with baiting like “muh legs” and name calling like “copers”. People are in fact allowed to have their own opinions and viewpoints on box office and making fun of others like this is uncalled for. Please treat others here with respect or you will see a threadban.

 

Noted. My apologies. 

[Potiki]

Quote

We can knock Disney all we want over less-than stellar post-Covid results on Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm titles, but the fact of the matter is the brands are still delivering, making the theatrical motion picture studio the continued box office leader with $3.4 billion worldwide for the period of Jan. 1-July 2. 

 

That breaks out to $1.35 billion domestic and $2.05 billion abroad, and this is off of seven theatrical releases so far in 2023.

...

Disney’s global take so far this year is 3.9x that of Paramount’s ($871M with five movies), 3.8x that of Warner Bros ($898M with six movies) and 3.1x that of Sony ($1.1 billion with 15 movies) and more than Paramount and Warner Bros combined. Universal is second for the year to date with an estimated $2.89 billion off 14 titles, propelled by Illumination’s Super Mario Bros at $1.33 billion, the highest grossing film of 2023 YTD. 

 

Disney is also leading at the U.S./Canada box office towering ahead of Universal ($1.13B), Sony ($589M), Paramount ($398M) and Warner Bros ($264M). As we told you a few days ago, Disney is also No. 1 at the summer stateside box office with $811M, generating 44% of the near $1.9 billion season for May 1-July 2.

...

Among the top 20 grossing films of the year to date, Disney owns five of them: GOTG3 ($837M), Little Mermaid ($525M, No. 5), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ($476M at No. 6), Elemental at No. 12 with $188M and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny with $131M at No. 16. 

source: https://deadline.com/2023/07/disney-2023-box-office-summer-marvel-indiana-jones-1235431049/

 

All of I removed was some fan war nonsense between Marvel/DC and the normal streaming is bad talk that Anthony does so you are not missing much if you don't click the link LOL. 

[Bob Train]

On 7/5/2023 at 2:02 PM, MovieMan89 said:

Realizing the Fox acquisition may very well save Disney in the film department over the late 2022 to 2024 stretch is pretty wild considering how unnecessary that seemed at the time. A2 and Deadpool 3 may well be their only huge hits in that frame. 

Avatar: The Seed Bearer isn't coming out until Dec 2025 iirc

[Porthos]

Netflix and Disney’s Ad Tiers Are Winning Over New Subscribers | Exclusive (The Wrap)

 

Quote

Six months after the launch of Netflix and Disney+’s ad-supported tiers, the offerings have seen strong adoption among new subscribers to the services.

 

According to findings from a survey of 2,506 U.S. adults by Samba TV and HarrisX

 

 

...

 

...

 

Fine.

 

Under Protest, the rest of the meat of the article.

 

Quote

Six months after the launch of Netflix and Disney+’s ad-supported tiers, the offerings have seen strong adoption among new subscribers to the services.

 

According to findings from a survey of 2,506 U.S. adults by Samba TV and HarrisX shared exclusively with TheWrap, 19% of Disney+ subscribers and 11% of Netflix subscribers took advantage of the services’ ad-supported tiers. Within these groups, only 15% of each downgraded from a previous subscription. The remaining 85% signed up after the ad-supported tier was introduced.

 

In comparison, 26% used Netflix’s ad-free basic tier, 29% used the standard plan and 24% used the premium plan. As for Disney+, 29% of subscribers surveyed used the premium plan, 15% used the Disney+ Trio Premium bundle, 13% used the Disney+ Trio Basic bundle and 9% used the Disney+ Duo Basic bundle. Meanwhile, 8% of Disney+ subscribers and 6% of Netflix subscribers reported using someone else’s login information.

 

But the GIF reaction pretty much sums up my opinion of the worth of the "survey".

Edited July 7, 2023 by Porthos

[ZattMurdock]

Huh, this is cool, actually:

 

 

 

[dudalb]

On 6/29/2023 at 11:46 AM, AniNate said:

I'm frustrated they're not showing any of the Pixar movies that never got a theatrical bout

I wish they would go further back into the vault and show the classics from the Golden Age; I would love to see "Fantasia" on a big screen.

[dudalb]

Dinsey has a strategic advantage in that it has so many other major sources of income outside of movies and TV then the other studios.

Yes, I know Universal has it's "Studio" parks, but that is small potatos compared to the Disney resort empire.

I don't think any other Hollywood studio has a fleet of cruise ships, for example. And the Disney cruises are incredibly lucrative.

Edited July 11, 2023 by dudalb