Strange World | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Comes to Disney+ on December 23rd

[Macleod]

6 hours ago, imbruglia said:

you quote marvel film. spiderman charcater and sequal to Rocky Balboa.

the reality is those case are very few good apple, driven by obvious other big factor.

 

9 bad review out of 49 verifed review are like this, and who knows with other 0.5 star think. lol

1. Very inappropriate for kids

2. Its totally inappropriate to walk into a kids movie with no heads up that they will be presenting that. It ruined the whole movie. 

3. Sad day for Disney ... interracial couple has a son ... son has a boyfriend ... WTH is wrong with our society

4. besides the woke factor it wasn't to bad.

5. Movie was alright, just didn’t like the constant “sexuality” theme that Disney keeps trying to sneak into its movies.

6. Did not like the in your face sexuality of the young characters

7. Not good. Too woke for my taste

8. Very disappointed with the PC path Disney is choosing

9. wish there was a warning about homosexuality

 

anyway, sample is too small.

but ironically it has 87% score in homophobic south korea where gay marrige is illegal, lgbt is barely visible on media or society. 

so yeah. that 60% is clearly not all that and B cinema score was clearly lowered due to that audience.

 

Who are these people you are quoting?  Does a "verified" review mean they are any less biased than spammers?  Not really...  so ignore it.  Focus on real industry exit scores, CinemaScores, what the trades gather from reception, etc.  "Agendas" are always arguable, but I tend to doubt it's really why audiences are rejecting this movie...because they really aren't coming out to see it in the first place.  The demos released so far by Deadline indicated that (big surprise) men over 25 "hated it."  Same problematic/stuck-in-their-ways audience.  Women and younger audiences were much kinder.  

 

Stallone has said that ROCKY BALBOA (his 2006 return) didn't even play to his own demo (i.e. fans that were old enough to see the original ROCKY series in theaters) -- they didn't come out for it, in theaters, at least.  Some of that demo came back for CREED but it's largely its own new franchise, I think it's achieved that.  It remains to be seen how CREED III will perform, but I really don't think its success or failure will be down to the fact that Stallone's not in it.  

Edited November 24, 2022 by Macleod

[El Squibbonator]

15 hours ago, kkccoo said:

How did this thing get greenlighted? Recently, the weakest link of Disney animation is story telling. I feel many stories are forced or rushed. Disney need to go back to fairy tales/children's master pieces for their ideas. That is a short cut but works.

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. 

[JWR]

Dear God...

 

 

 

 

[BadOlCatSylvester]

6 minutes ago, JWR said:

Dear God...

 

 

 

I'm really curious where in the Disney bomba scale it will land when all is said and done. Could it lose even more money than John Carter?

[JWR]

31 minutes ago, BadOlCatSylvester said:

 

I'm really curious where in the Disney bomba scale it will land when all is said and done. Could it lose even more money than John Carter?

 

Maybe? It has a smaller budget, but Strange World be lucky if it makes even a fourth of the $284M that John Carter made.

[cookie]

1 hour ago, JWR said:

Dear God...

 

 

 

 

Tbf, it opened on a normal Wednesday in all of those markets for some bizarre reason, it was never gonna do well opening day. I’d at least hold out for weekend #.

Edited November 25, 2022 by cookie

[JWR]

Just now, cookie said:

Tbf, it opened on a weekday outside the summer or holidays. It was never gonna do well opening day.

 

The World Cup might have also been a factor. Besides, Thanksgiving weekend has almost always been Disney's usual slot for Animated films. 

Edited November 25, 2022 by JWR

[cookie]

25 minutes ago, JWR said:

 

The World Cup might have also been a factor. Besides, Thanksgiving weekend has almost always been Disney's usual slot for Animated films. 

I’m talking overseas. There’s no holiday happening in UK, Germany, France, etc. right now, so the Wednesday release made very little sense in those places. Neither kids nor parents had time to go see it. That’s why I find those opening day numbers misleading.

Edited November 25, 2022 by cookie

[JustLurking]

53 minutes ago, cookie said:

I’m talking overseas. There’s no holiday happening in UK, Germany, France, etc. right now, so the Wednesday release made very little sense in those places. Neither kids nor parents had time to go see it. That’s why I find those opening day numbers misleading.

Wednesday opening is normal in those markets though, it's not like it had an early release or something.

[cookie]

29 minutes ago, JustLurking said:

Wednesday opening is normal in those markets though, it's not like it had an early release or something.

Not so much for family movies outside of summer. Only recent example I could find was Encanto. Bad Guys was a Friday releaese in most of these markets.

Edited November 25, 2022 by cookie

[Morieris]

So is this out in France on D+ now or later?

[El Squibbonator]

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. 

 

Edited November 25, 2022 by El Squibbonator

[AniNate]

I think it's really hard for mainstream animation studios to execute a sci-fi adventure premise to a similarly satisfying degree as auteurs like Cameron or Lucas can. They can't really go hard on battle sequences or political allegories, so they're left with their biggest hook being nostalgia and homage.

 

The one recent exception is WALL-E, which I think sold itself largely on its central romance. If it were just about a robot trying to get a plant back to a space cruise ship full of fat humans, probably would not have been received as well. Representation aside, there doesn't look like a ton of novelty to the character arcs in Strange World based on marketing and reviews.

Edited November 25, 2022 by AniNate

[JWR]

3 minutes ago, AniNate said:

I think it's really hard for mainstream animation studios to execute a sci-fi adventure premise to a similarly satisfying degree as auteurs like Cameron or Lucas can. They can't really go hard on battle sequences or political allegories, so they're left with their biggest hook being nostalgia and homage.

 

The one recent exception is WALL-E, which I think sold itself largely on its central romance. If it were just about a robot trying to get a plant back to a space cruise ship full of fat humans, probably would not have been received as well. Representation aside, there doesn't look like a ton of novelty to the character arcs in Strange World based on marketing and reviews.

 

And even then, Wall-E made less than other Pixar movies at the time. 

[El Squibbonator]

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. 

Edited November 25, 2022 by El Squibbonator

[AniNate]

I dunno if you can really compare their marketing campaigns fairly from an outside perspective. I probably saw more Treasure and Atlantis ads only because I was watching Disney Channel and Nickelodeon a lot more in the early 2000s. Will say they did try to push Strange World pretty hard the last week.

[PlatnumRoyce]

1 minute ago, AniNate said:

I dunno if you can really compare their marketing campaigns fairly from an outside perspective. I probably saw more Treasure and Atlantis ads only because I was watching Disney Channel and Nickelodeon a lot more in the early 2000s. Will say they did try to push Strange World pretty hard the last week.

In their weekend article, Deadline quoted third party data showing Disney's tv ad spending(?) for Strange World basically matching or slightly exceeding that of Devotion and the Menu. It's well below what you'd expect for a big tentpole film. 

 

the quorum's tracking of basic film awareness for Strange World had it below the 5 random animated films released in the past year at the same number of days before release. However, their tracking does also show it got a solid final marketing boost. There's really no reason why more people should know 14 days before release that Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile is an upcoming theatrical release than that Strange World is Disney's big new animated feature film.

[El Squibbonator]

Quote

In their weekend article, Deadline quoted third party data showing Disney's tv ad spending(?) for Strange World basically matching or slightly exceeding that of Devotion and the Menu. It's well below what you'd expect for a big tentpole film. 

 

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. 

Edited November 25, 2022 by El Squibbonator

[Verrows]

1 minute ago, El Squibbonator said:

I watch a lot of Disney Channel too (yes, even though I'm 29), and I haven't seen nearly as much promotion for Strange World as I did for Treasure Planet as a kid. And that's not even getting into the fact that Treasure Planet and Atlantis also had video games, Happy Meal toys at McDonald's, comic books, action figures, and all kinds of other merchandise. Strange World doesn't have anywhere near as much of that. 

In my opinion you're absolutely right about the lack of marketing. I said it before, past Walt Disney animations felt more "present" than Strange World does. When they released a new animated film, people knew it. They started getting familiar with the new characters and the new setting etc. It took its place in the public consciousness.

 

Strange World? It seems no more in the public consciousness than Devotion.

[El Squibbonator]

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?