STRANGE MAGIC | 01.23.15 | Disney | final domestic gross: $12,429,583

[filmscholar]

Also for people saying "This will be Disney 1st Lucas film Flop", well Episode VII will make up for it, they will just write this off, lol.  I mean the out of nowhere late January release says it all. 

[Alpha]

They should really push this back into spring, where the only family competition is Home and Underdogs.

[CJohn]

They are releasing this one week after MLK weekend. They give no fucks about this.

[Alpha]

They are releasing this one week after MLK weekend. They give no fucks about this.

 

Yeah, unfortunately it looks like they're dumping this.

 

Which is a shame, since A Midsummer Night's Dream is a great play, and would make for a great animated movie.

[dudalb]

They should really push this back into spring, where the only family competition is Home and Underdogs.

Or maybe they want to release it quickly ,have it flop,and get it over with so as not to damage Lucasarts's image.

The lack of publicity and Dumping Ground release date tell you how much confidence the studio has in this move.

[dudalb]

Yeah, unfortunately it looks like they're dumping this.

 

Which is a shame, since A Midsummer Night's Dream is a great play, and would make for a great animated movie.

 

Correction:It Could make a great animted movie. Any source material can be ruined by poor handling, which might well be what happened here: A good idea that was badly handled.

Edited November 13, 2014 by dudalb

[dudalb]

The fact that Disney didn't even announce it/release a trailer before Big Hero 6 is a sign that they pretty much know it's fucked. Interesting enough, it's being distributed by Touchstone a la Gnomeo and Juliet and The Wind Rises.

That they have been so quiet about this film should tell you something......

 

It;s being dumped, end of story. Don't expect the Mouse to spend a lot marketing this;Disney has learned it lesson about spending huge amounts of money on marketing on a film that they think is just not very good.

[CloneWars]

Maybe they should have gone DTV or Direct to Netflix for this. 

[Melvin Frohike]

Also for people saying "This will be Disney 1st Lucas film Flop", well Episode VII will make up for it, they will just write this off, lol.  I mean the out of nowhere late January release says it all.

Yes, Episode VII will be the biggest flop in interstellar space, and will thereby totally eclipse Strange Magic flopping.

Just kidding (I hope).

 

 

They should really push this back into spring, where the only family competition is Home and Underdogs.

Good idea--it might actually win against these!

 

 

Maybe they should have gone DTV or Direct to Netflix for this.

Or maybe network TV on ABC?

[Melvin Frohike]

Supposedly, George Lucas was involved in this films production.

At the very least it seems that he made up the story for it (inspired by A Midsummer Night's Dream).

 

This makes me believe that as part of the acquistion deal, that Lucas could see this film to completion and Disney agreed for whatever reason.

My impression is that both sides were very agreeable, with Disney being generous with their offer (as they were with Pixar and Marvel previously) and Lucas throwing in his ownership of Indiana Jones for free (Paramount owned the movie rights, but this still must be worth something and it was left off the balance sheet anyway). I still don't know who paid for what regarding this movie, but its budget is undoubtedly rather small in relation to the deal as a whole, and Disney once again just wanted to get this done for sure and worry about details like this later.

 

Anyway, the studio that made it is LFLs signapore animation studio in Signapore, the same people who made the Clone Wars cartoons. So, seeing how it came out of a television cartoon studio, I am guessing the budget was relatively low. The most expensive aspect was likely the voice actors.

The songs might have been expensive, too, although I'm not sure how they compare in terms of scale.

As for the animation, based on the still frame we have it seems that a lot more technical work was done for this than for their TV movies. The Singapore studio has been growing, and along with the stateside studio and whatever ILM might have done, we might be talking about an operation the size of Blue Sky Studios. So the budget won't be the $150+M of WDAS or Pixar, or the somewhat smaller budgets of DWA, but somewhere south of $100 million...maybe like $60-70 million? Production budgets are always iffy anyway, and who knows how much they spent before the Disney acquisition, as this movie had been in development for a long, long time.

Whatever its actual cost, Lucasfilm seemed pretty darn determined to complete it (I've been hearing about it for years, but nothing since last June), which is why what is happening now is actually somewhat of a shock. It was pretty important to somebody at some point.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Melvin Frohike

[Alpha]

Or maybe they want to release it quickly ,have it flop,and get it over with so as not to damage Lucasarts's image.

The lack of publicity and Dumping Ground release date tell you how much confidence the studio has in this move.

Correction:It Could make a great animted movie. Any source material can be ruined by poor handling, which might well be what happened here: A good idea that was badly handled.

That they have been so quiet about this film should tell you something......

 

It;s being dumped, end of story. Don't expect the Mouse to spend a lot marketing this;Disney has learned it lesson about spending huge amounts of money on marketing on a film that they think is just not very good.

 

I don't want to assume this movie is automatically bad because Disney is dumping it (although it's a clear sign they don't have much confidence in it).

 

Even if it isn't a great product, they should try and put it in a good position.

[Yandereprime101189]

Is this gonna end up being the next Delgo? Image looks like it came from that movie.

[kowhite]

Supposedly, George Lucas was involved in this films production. This makes me believe that as part of the acquistion deal, that Lucas could see this film to completion and Disney agreed for whatever reason. Anyway, the studio that made it is LFLs signapore animation studio in Signapore, the same people who made the Clone Wars cartoons. So, seeing how it came out of a television cartoon studio, I am guessing the budget was relatively low. The most expensive aspect was likely the voice actors.

It wasn't...cheap...

And yes, they're totally dumping it. That's all I have to say about that.

[dudalb]

Maybe they should have gone DTV or Direct to Netflix for this. 

George Lucas would not like that,and the Lucasarts deal made Lucas one of the biggest stockholders at Disney. Only the Steve Jobs estate owns more Disney stock. No way Lucas would let the Mouse DVR one of his films..and he has more then enough clout with his stock to stop the idea cold.

[dudalb]

I don't want to assume this movie is automatically bad because Disney is dumping it (although it's a clear sign they don't have much confidence in it).

 

Even if it isn't a great product, they should try and put it in a good position.

Problem is  putting a film in a good position can cost money,and Disney probably feels that spending a lot of money on marketing is just adding to the red ink.

[dudalb]

It wasn't...cheap...

And yes, they're totally dumping it. That's all I have to say about that.

This is a perfect example of "dumping a film".

 

And Lucasarts has never had much sucess with films outside the Star Wars and Indy Jones franchises

Edited November 14, 2014 by dudalb

[Melvin Frohike]

Is this gonna end up being the next Delgo? Image looks like it came from that movie.

Well, it looks quite a bit more technically accomplished than that piece of crap to me, whatever we might think of the designs.

 

 

It wasn't...cheap...

I'm sure that Lucasfilm and/or Disney spent more on this than on Lucasfilm's animated TV movies, in any case.

 

 

George Lucas would not like that,and the Lucasarts deal made Lucas one of the biggest stockholders at Disney. Only the Steve Jobs estate owns more Disney stock. No way Lucas would let the Mouse DVR one of his films..and he has more then enough clout with his stock to stop the idea cold.

But apparently not enough to stop them from dumping the movie and leaving it to die alone in the cold.

And not to be pedantic, but I see a lot of people (all around the Internet) saying "LucasArts" in reference to the company (now a division of Disney, of course). But isn't it just the video game unit of Lucasfilm? It used to develop games, but now it's just a publisher and licensor, and only has a handful of employees left. Lucasfilm--the whole company--is what Disney acquired. Or did I miss something?

[CloneWars]

Nope. You missed nothing. Disney bought Lucasfilm. Lucasarts was a division. I think people call it Lucasarts becuase lots of people play video games. But, yah, I find it annoying when people call Lucasfilm LucasArts. 

[Sal]

They may be dumping it in the Jan doldrums, but TLM has shown that being early in the year (at a so-called "bad" time) doesn't necessarily hurt a kids' film.  I think a lot of low-budget animated films try to slip in at odd times because kid-fare isn't solely limited to certain times of year.  

 

This year shows that people will watch movies they're interested in regardless of when they come out.  The dead periods are mostly there because of when studios choose to release.

[CloneWars]

They may be dumping it in the Jan doldrums, but TLM has shown that being early in the year (at a so-called "bad" time) doesn't necessarily hurt a kids' film.  I think a lot of low-budget animated films try to slip in at odd times because kid-fare isn't solely limited to certain times of year.  

 

This year shows that people will watch movies they're interested in regardless of when they come out.  The dead periods are mostly there because of when studios choose to release.

Well, the fact this is also announced two months before release without a trailer is also very telling. It's very hard for a film to make money if there is no marketing push.