The Little Mermaid | Disney | May 26, 2023 | Queen Halle will rule the summer!

[joselowe]

3 hours ago, scytheavatar said:

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/the-flash-box-office-disappoint-pixar-elemental-flop-1235647927/

 

 

 

 

Variety officially declaring this movie a flop, thoughts? Movies involving water are notoriously expensive, so it was always going to be difficult to keep the budget low. So Disney can't blame the budget, they should have known it was never going to be cheap to make a live action TLM. That's also why Moana live action is such a dumbfuck idea. 

It’s not a flop, white people skipped the movie as expected but it made a cultural impact in the black American and Afro Latino communities around the world. The toys sold out and little black and brown girls around the globe look up to Halle and this character has broadened its reach. That’s far from a flop, trust me Halle’s Ariel didn’t make as much at the box office as Emma’s Belle or Naomi’s Jasmine but Halle’s Ariel will be remembered for decades for little black and brown girls just like Chadwick’s version of Black Panther did for little black boys. BP was far from a a flop but it wasn’t nearly as successful as Iron Man or many other Marvel superheroes but it’s the most memorable because of its impact.

[Zakiyyah6]

4 hours ago, scytheavatar said:

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/the-flash-box-office-disappoint-pixar-elemental-flop-1235647927/

 

 

 

 

Variety officially declaring this movie a flop, thoughts? Movies involving water are notoriously expensive, so it was always going to be difficult to keep the budget low. So Disney can't blame the budget, they should have known it was never going to be cheap to make a live action TLM. That's also why Moana live action is such a dumbfuck idea. 

My thoughts are, about darn time? The Little Mermaid might not be a bomb like The Flash will be but grossing 500-550mil on a 250mil budget is decidedly a disappointment. If that's a good gross on that budget then why has nobody ever claimed so with any other film? The Little Mermaid had to do around 650mil at least and it won't pull in those numbers. Yes the get woke, go broke people are horrible but that doesn't make The Little Mermaid a hit.

[ZattMurdock]

1 hour ago, joselowe said:

It’s not a flop, white people skipped the movie as expected but it made a cultural impact in the black American and Afro Latino communities around the world. The toys sold out and little black and brown girls around the globe look up to Halle and this character has broadened its reach. That’s far from a flop, trust me Halle’s Ariel didn’t make as much at the box office as Emma’s Belle or Naomi’s Jasmine but Halle’s Ariel will be remembered for decades for little black and brown girls just like Chadwick’s version of Black Panther did for little black boys. BP was far from a a flop but it wasn’t nearly as successful as Iron Man or many other Marvel superheroes but it’s the most memorable because of its impact.

Very well said. What people don’t understand about films like The Last Mermaid is that the film itself is just the tip of the iceberg. And even as the tip of the iceberg, I don’t see this one as a box office flop. It’s not about getting sequels, we aren’t getting a sequel for Beauty and the Beast either. It’s about presenting Ariel to this new generation. It wasn’t for me back then, it isn’t for me now but I’m glad kids get to grow up having this Ariel to see themselves and be inspired by.

[scytheavatar]

2 hours ago, joselowe said:

 BP was far from a a flop but it wasn’t nearly as successful as Iron Man or many other Marvel superheroes but it’s the most memorable because of its impact.

 

BP made 1.2B, more than any Iron Man movie and is one of the most successful MCUs ever....... don't think it is fair to use it to compare to TLM. 

 

I bet you that Mario made far bigger an impact to little black and brown girls than Halle’s Ariel and Disney should be concern about that fact. Cause things could get worse when the Zelda movie comes out. 

[scytheavatar]

13 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

Very well said. What people don’t understand about films like The Last Mermaid is that the film itself is just the tip of the iceberg. And even as the tip of the iceberg, I don’t see this one as a box office flop. It’s not about getting sequels, we aren’t getting a sequel for Beauty and the Beast either. It’s about presenting Ariel to this new generation. It wasn’t for me back then, it isn’t for me now but I’m glad kids get to grow up having this Ariel to see themselves and be inspired by.

 

Tip of iceberg?  The Little Mermaid is the last Disney Renaissance classic that hasn't been adapted, the last silver bullet for Disney. What else from Disney is worth adapting to live action? We could be seeing the beginning of the end to the Disney live action adaptation trend.

 

Hopefully afterwards instead of presenting old characters to a new generation Disney can learn to create new characters. Like what the Spider verse films did successfully. 

[ZattMurdock]

3 minutes ago, scytheavatar said:

 

Tip of iceberg?  The Little Mermaid is the last Disney Renaissance classic that hasn't been adapted, the last silver bullet for Disney. What else from Disney is worth adapting to live action? We could be seeing the beginning of the end to the Disney live action adaptation trend.

 

Hopefully afterwards instead of presenting old characters to a new generation Disney can learn to create new characters. Like what the Spider verse films did successfully. 

Not debating you my dude.

 

What some people clearly in bad faith try to claim what these classics remakes were supposed to do, clearly wasn’t what they were aiming for. If that was the case we would have seen sequels for them long ago.

[ZattMurdock]

10 minutes ago, scytheavatar said:

 

BP made 1.2B, more than any Iron Man movie and is one of the most successful MCUs ever....... don't think it is fair to use it to compare to TLM. 

 

I bet you that Mario made far bigger an impact to little black and brown girls than Halle’s Ariel and Disney should be concern about that fact. Cause things could get worse when the Zelda movie comes out. 

Hahaha yeah flark this bs.

[scytheavatar]

11 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

Not debating you my dude.

 

What some people clearly in bad faith try to claim what these classics remakes were supposed to do, clearly wasn’t what they were aiming for. If that was the case we would have seen sequels for them long ago.

 

Sequels to these live action adaptations are coming, already we are getting a prequel to The Lion King. It was always going to be an inevitable path for Disney once they run out of animated series to adapt to live action. 

 

Will they be easy money like you seem to think they are? We will see, but so far I suspect that Lion King prequel is going to flop. 

Edited June 19, 2023 by scytheavatar

[ZattMurdock]

1 minute ago, scytheavatar said:

 

Sequels to these live action adaptations are coming, already we are getting a prequel to The Lion King. It was always going to be an inevitable path for Disney once they run out of animated series to adapt to live action. 

Where is the Beauty and the Beast sequel? Or Jungle Book’s? Come on dude, find another to try bad mouth this for reasons. Not me. I see through this shit.

 

[BadOlCatSylvester]

You can tell from all the interviews with Halle that everyone involved were clearly hoping for another Black Panther-style phenomenon, which evidently didn't happen. Hell, they even greenlit an animated spinoff starring the reimagined Ariel, so they were counting on that new image sticking. I wonder how the studio feels about next year's Snow White now.

[joselowe]

54 minutes ago, scytheavatar said:

 

Tip of iceberg?  The Little Mermaid is the last Disney Renaissance classic that hasn't been adapted, the last silver bullet for Disney. What else from Disney is worth adapting to live action? We could be seeing the beginning of the end to the Disney live action adaptation trend.

 

Hopefully afterwards instead of presenting old characters to a new generation Disney can learn to create new characters. Like what the Spider verse films did successfully. 

Last I heard from the Renaissance era Disney is going to soon start production on the live action versions of Hercules and Hunchback.

[Willowra]

3 hours ago, Zakiyyah6 said:

My thoughts are, about darn time? The Little Mermaid might not be a bomb like The Flash will be but grossing 500-550mil on a 250mil budget is decidedly a disappointment. If that's a good gross on that budget then why has nobody ever claimed so with any other film? The Little Mermaid had to do around 650mil at least and it won't pull in those numbers. Yes the get woke, go broke people are horrible but that doesn't make The Little Mermaid a hit.

People want to apply the 2.5x budget formula to every blockbuster movie, but reality is that it can't be applied to a movie that makes $280 million in revenue just from TV and home entertainment, and when you add another $250 million from theatrical revenue, TLM easily crosses its total cost of $475 million. I think that Variety guy was smoking something when he wrote that article, as he should know that Disney Princess movies make a lot of money from TV as well as home entertainment.

[grey ghost]

3 hours ago, scytheavatar said:

 

BP made 1.2B, more than any Iron Man movie and is one of the most successful MCUs ever....... don't think it is fair to use it to compare to TLM. 

 

I bet you that Mario made far bigger an impact to little black and brown girls than Halle’s Ariel and Disney should be concern about that fact. Cause things could get worse when the Zelda movie comes out. 

 

Did you say Mario had a bigger impact on black little girls than The Little Mermaid?  

 

 

[Bob Train]

35% of TLM audience was black. Assuming it makes 300m, that'll mean out of it's gross black people contributed roughly 105 million. 15% of Super Mario Bros audience was black. Assuming it makes 575m, black people would've contributed 87 million roughly. So not that big of a difference between the two.

 

More black people watched No Way Home and Avatar 2 than The Little Mermaid

Edited June 20, 2023 by Bob Train

[Valonqar]

On 6/19/2023 at 3:49 AM, BadOlCatSylvester said:

You can tell from all the interviews with Halle that everyone involved were clearly hoping for another Black Panther-style phenomenon, which evidently didn't happen. Hell, they even greenlit an animated spinoff starring the reimagined Ariel, so they were counting on that new image sticking. I wonder how the studio feels about next year's Snow White now.

 

But why? The movie had low appeal with men while BP has much broader appeal. Ditto Aladdin (adventure), BatB (action and monster) and TLK (photo real animals). 4 quad won't happen if at least 1 quad isn't on board.  

 

If Disney missed this important distinction and approved enormous budget than they set themselves up for fail. I understand if they overestimated OS interest which turned out to be low even among women and girls but to overestimate interest with male demo is another story.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Valonqar

[Willowra]

53 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

 

But why? The movie had low appeal with men while BP has much broader appeal. Ditto Aladdin (adventure), BatB (action and monster) and TLK (photo real animals). 4 quad won't happen if at least 1 quad isn't on board.  

 

If Disney missed this important distinction and approved enormous budget than they set themselves up for fail. I understand if they overestimated OS interest which turned out to be low even among women and girls but to overestimate interest with male demo is another story.

A movie that cost 160M in 2018–19 now costs 200M. Ticket prices have increased by 20–25%, but the cost of production has also increased. Disney couldn't have made a live-action TLM movie with a $200M budget; if they had, it would've looked like a 160M budget movie of the pre-pandemic era. I think this series of underperformances and flops will continue until ticket sales reach pre-pandemic levels.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Willowra

[ZattMurdock]

 

[DAJK]

Hopefully this scrapes together a decent worldwide total in the coming weeks. Otherwise I feel like, box office wise, this will have a similar legacy as TRON: Legacy (no pun intended). Not an awful run by any stretch, but Disney was clearly hoping for something special, and while it wasn’t a financial failure that lost them hundreds of millions of dollars, it’ll merely be viewed as “fine” years down the line. Which I guess is “better than it could have done” but also “not as good as it could have done” either.

[kayumanggi]

52 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

 

 

If you read the article, you'll see how crazy my country has been for this. Some people even wore mermaid and merman costumes in the cinema. 🤣🤣🤣 The pictures are in the article.

[Vector Sigma]

I saw a woman from Japan post on Instagram how much she loved the movie and it was filled with racist comments (from English speakers too lol). I despise these kinds of movies but gave it a shot after reading those comments and was pleasantly surprised. I loved the movie. Bailley has an innocent charm to her and even her cadence is like Bailley. They didn't advertise the movie well. Lots of people don't even know it takes place in Jamaica. Makes way more sense to have a Black Ariel. I'm a Jamaican and we have plenty of folk tales about mermaids, so it felt natural to me. Most of the movies that have flopped this year have been with White leads. Do we stop giving White actors roles because of this summer? C'mon man. 

Edited June 22, 2023 by Vector Sigma