MOANA | 394.6 M overseas ● 643.3 M worldwide

[James]

On 11/27/2016 at 9:22 PM, James said:

People's expectations for this are just silly and it might be deemed a disappointment despite making some great numbers. Reading this, people would call a sub-700m total meh. WTF? This is an original animation. Frozen and Zootopia were freaks of nature. Anything over 500m is a win for Moana. Based on early numbers and word from the foreign forums, I'd say around 250m DOM and 400m OS (which is a hell lot of money). 

Looks like my conservative prediction was too high. At this point it it depends on Japan, but I don't see more than 350m. If Japan doesn't explode, 350m won't happen. The openings in Mexico and especially UK are awful. 

[chrisman0606]

6 minutes ago, James said:

Looks like my conservative prediction was too high. At this point it it depends on Japan, but I don't see more than 350m. If Japan doesn't explode, 350m won't happen. The openings in Mexico and especially UK are awful. 

I am honestly shocked b/c I thought Doctor Strange was riskier than Moana for Overseas box office, but now is the opposite. I think Disney had Moana overshadowed by it's other releases around the same time like Doctor Strange and the upcoming Rogue One like promotion for them more than Moana.

Edited December 4, 2016 by chrisman0606

[James]

Just now, chrisman0606 said:

I am honestly shocked b/c I thought Doctor Strange was riskier than Moana for Overseas box office, but now is the opposite. I think Disney had Moana overshadowed by it's other releases around the same time like Doctor Strange and the upcoming Rogue One like promotion for them more than Moana.

I think that's only part of the problem. Moana is coming after 2 very well received blockbusters (DS and FB). Add Trolls to that mix and audiences were already satiated. But regarding UK, it's Disney's fault for putting it in that slot. How on earth did they thought it was a good idea to position it against Uk's home grown beast (no pun intended)?! Of course, not much room to choose from, but still.

[Olive]

The UK OW even makes its China numbers impressive.

[chrisman0606]

3 minutes ago, James said:

I think that's only part of the problem. Moana is coming after 2 very well received blockbusters (DS and FB). Add Trolls to that mix and audiences were already satiated. But regarding UK, it's Disney's fault for putting it in that slot. How on earth did they thought it was a good idea to position it against Uk's home grown beast (no pun intended)?! Of course, not much room to choose from, but still.

I agree b/c they should have done a staggered overseas release date like they did with Finding Dory like having Moana being released in few countries in 2016 where piracy is high than other places late in 2016, and others places like UK for example in 2017.

Edited December 4, 2016 by chrisman0606

[edroger3]

20 minutes ago, Olive said:

Dreadful opening in the UK.

It seems Europe don't love Moana at all. It is well under Tangled everywhere.  I Think Asia/Pacific saves her (despite China is a bit disappointing by now) from a Good Dinosaur/like OS run.

[yjs]

$2.7M UK is like TPATF's $2.3M opening there. LITERALLY all the others did $7M~$8M regardless of their varying totals from $30M to $65M

Maybe it really IS a thing, the colored-princess curse. At least it would match TPATF's $160M OS ?  $250M~$300M maybe.

[edroger3]

38 minutes ago, chrisman0606 said:

I am honestly shocked b/c I thought Doctor Strange was riskier than Moana for Overseas box office, but now is the opposite. I think Disney had Moana overshadowed by it's other releases around the same time like Doctor Strange and the upcoming Rogue One like promotion for them more than Moana.

Regarding promotion problems, don't forget that maybe for the first time a leading character of a Princess movie isn't the Disney's most important new brand for girls in Christmas season, as Moana is overshadowed by DCH's Princess Elena of Avalor in merchandising and licensing programs.

[titanic2187]

moana is not a white, it's not surprising that moana disappoint.....i'm not racist but number seem indicate so..... 

[yjs]

23 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:

moana is not a white, it's not surprising that moana disappoint.....i'm not racist but number seem indicate so..... 

I literally just wrote a similar thing on the UK thread and got an epiphany why I'm particularly more obsessed with Moana's run than other Disney movies'.

The fact that she's non-white really matters, at least to me as another non-white, and I wanted to see it wildly succeed "despite" that and "because of" that. And I was more confident than ever cause it had great reviews on its side. Maybe its overall underperformance has a little to do with the race issue and the problem is more about the marketing failure, but the very fact that I cannot completely shed away that same suspicion that you have, it makes me feel a little disappointed. History shows that there hasn't been a SINGLE yearend top-10 movie that was led by a colored woman for the last decade or two (since Mulan, actually, if I'm remembering it right) and I wanted Moana to change that so badly.

 

No offense to other movies, and I also enjoy them vastly, but all these super hero movies and stuff we have like 10 a year, I don't know when we'll get another potential worldwide hit that actually stands a chance to make a lot of money, with a colored female title role. 

Edited December 4, 2016 by yjs

[Purple Minion]

That opening in Mexico is not good at all. Depending on the actuals in lc, may be the smallest OW by Disney Animation or Pixar tn years.

[Omni]

Yeah, the ethnic factor is most likely the decisive one. The strength of Disney Princesses is that every girl can connect with at least one of them, but it looks like being white is a decisive factor for the connection. Disney trying to make her look more "occidental" is the proof they were aware of the danger.

 

Pocahontas: the movie that ended the magical streak; and as a princess, she DOESN'T SELL

Esmeralda: forgotten

Mulan: still vaguely popular, but then again she doesn't look exotical at all

Tiana: epil fail

 

Rapunzel: white and classically beautiful girl with problems that can easily connect with teens and semi-teens

Elsa & Anna: just the perfect couple

Moana: bland, an half-black girl with some magical powers (merchandise for it has already started here, and sales are extremely poor)

 

In fact, if not for the possible post-Frozen effect, I would have started a sub-BH6 WW club some weeks ago.

[edroger3]

11 minutes ago, Omni said:

Yeah, the ethnic factor is most likely the decisive one. The strength of Disney Princesses is that every girl can connect with at least one of them, but it looks like being white is a decisive factor for the connection. Disney trying to make her look more "occidental" is the proof they were aware of the danger.

 

Pocahontas: the movie that ended the magical streak; and as a princess, she DOESN'T SELL

Esmeralda: forgotten

Mulan: still vaguely popular, but then again she doesn't look exotical at all

Tiana: epil fail

 

Rapunzel: white and classically beautiful girl with problems that can easily connect with teens and semi-teens

Elsa & Anna: just the perfect couple

Moana: bland, an half-black girl with some magical powers (merchandise for it has already started here, and sales are extremely poor)

 

In fact, if not for the possible post-Frozen effect, I would have started a sub-BH6 WW club some weeks ago.

Perfect analysis. Add to this what I said about the internal competiton with the first Disney's latina princess.

[Jason]

There was a graph made a couple years ago that compared the eBay merchandise sales (from May 2013-2014, represented by the size of a circle) against the skin tone/hair colour of Disney princesses:

 

 

Gizmodo article here. It notes the following:

Quote

You can argue that the data may be skewed in favor of Elsa since Frozen has been the latest Disney hit, so it's where demand should be. If you take her out of the picture, however, the white princesses still win by a wide margin, with an oldie like Cinderella capturing the first spot and Snow White following closely.

 

Then again, you can argue that the correlation may not be related to the the skin and hair color but to the success of the movies themselves. It would be interested to see the total movie gross income visualized in the graphic too. One thing to consider is that, after so many years, re-runs, ad re-editions, Cinderella and Snow White are more imprinted in pop culture than any other Disney princess ever produced.

 

So perhaps it's not the fact that Tiana and Jasmine racial features make their merchandise less popular than Elsa or Ariel, but the fact that the movies of the former weren't as "good" and successful as the films of the latter.

 

However, it's also worth pointing out that Mulan and Pocahontas didn't even have enough sales on eBay to show up in the original data source used to create the graph.

 

This is completely anecdotal, but Mulan is vastly more popular among my Chinese-Canadian friends and family than she is among my white friends and family.

 

Edit: I'm not personally of the opinion that we should ascribe Moana's OS performance at this point to having a non-white princess. I think it's too early to tell, and even in the long run there are likely to be multiple factors. Just shared the above graph/article to show that this concern is plausible and has been raised before.

Edited December 5, 2016 by Jason

[ttr]

Yeah, the ethnic factor is most likely the decisive one. The strength of Disney Princesses is that every girl can connect with at least one of them, but it looks like being white is a decisive factor for the connection. Disney trying to make her look more "occidental" is the proof they were aware of the danger.
 
Pocahontas: the movie that ended the magical streak; and as a princess, she DOESN'T SELL
Esmeralda: forgotten
Mulan: still vaguely popular, but then again she doesn't look exotical at all
Tiana: epil fail
 
Rapunzel: white and classically beautiful girl with problems that can easily connect with teens and semi-teens
Elsa & Anna: just the perfect couple
Moana: bland, an half-black girl with some magical powers (merchandise for it has already started here, and sales are extremely poor)
 
In fact, if not for the possible post-Frozen effect, I would have started a sub-BH6 WW club some weeks ago.

Very good points and I want to agree, but why Moana does well in US? And why Frozen did well in "non-white" countries?

[Jason]

14 minutes ago, ttr said:

Very good points and I want to agree, but why Moana does well in US? And why Frozen did well in "non-white" countries?

 

The United States is actually close to 40% non-white. The United Kingdom is under 15% non-white. Not saying that I'm certain that race is the reason for the disparity in Moana's performance, just that demographic differences make it a plausible explanation.

 

As for Frozen doing well in non-white countries, it's known (from research) that exposure to other races/cultures make it easier to identify with them. So in this context, I think that Anglo-American/European cultural dominance means that even non-whites don't have much trouble identifying with white princesses.

 

I suspect the converse is true as well: that whites living in more diverse places would find it easier to identify with non-white princesses.

[titanic2187]

17 minutes ago, ttr said:

Very good points and I want to agree, but why Moana does well in US? And why Frozen did well in "non-white" countries?

well, the white-oriented hollywood blockbusters has long invaded non-white world, with all international appeal like Harry Potter, Star wars, titanic, ++++many more were all feature white, so why would non-white world come to against "white"princess all of sudden?
 

[ttr]

well, the white-oriented hollywood blockbusters has long invaded non-white world, with all international appeal like Harry Potter, Star wars, titanic, ++++many more were all feature white, so why would non-white world come to against "white"princess all of sudden?
 

Fair enough. So at the end of the day, everybody loves white.
Anyhow I believe everybody is happy to see that WDAS does "diverse princess movies", despite how they manage BO-wise.

[edroger3]

1 hour ago, ttr said:

Very good points and I want to agree, but why Moana does well in US? And why Frozen did well in "non-white" countries?

Moana, at the moment, is doing "normal" (it's a bit behind Frozen, that had a "normal" run until week 4), if it will do "well" or "very well" we will know in next weeks. 

Frozen maybe has some simple concepts in its story that are recognizable all over the world.

[wildphantom]

6 hours ago, chrisman0606 said:

I agree b/c they should have done a staggered overseas release date like they did with Finding Dory like having Moana being released in few countries in 2016 where piracy is high than other places late in 2016, and others places like UK for example in 2017.

 

Beasts has been a much bigger hit than I anticipated in the U.K.  Yet there was still plenty of room for Moana to do great here, just as it has in America. 

 

I don't want to have these movies opening later than everywhere else. I'm glad it opened up close to the rest of the world. Waiting for a Disney movie in this day and age is ridiculous. 

 

I don't buy that it had a bad weekend to release. It just hasn't quite landed yet, for some reason. Let's just watch it's legs. 

 

I can't be doing with going back to the dark ages of Disney movies opening months later over here.