101 damnations
Well, well, well! The communards of the People's Republic of Portland Place are facing up to the fact that the awoken
of The Walt Disney Company have not had a wildly successful 2023 at the box office. Only one of Disney's six cinematic releases this year—Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3—turned a modest profit, while others bombed, some of them spectacularly. Nicholas Barber does his best to analyse the Mouse House's cinematic performance, without actually apportioning too much of the credit
He concludes that the gargantuan floppage is the result of a perfect storm of several factors: pandemic fallout; superhero fatigue
; the poor quality of the films themselves; and almost immediate streaming on Disney+. The first is one of Disney CEO Bob Iger's go-to excuses, yet it doesn't stand up in the face of several box office successes, not only this year, but also last: Barbenheimer; Avatar: The Way of Water; Top Gun: Maverick; and The Super Mario Bros Movie, among others, demonstrate that audiences are willing to attend theatres for the right film. The second is related to the third, and the interconnectedness of shit that wanes audience interest. The third and fourth are entirely of Disney's own doing.
And then there's the massive budgets thrown at these failing ventures. The bigger the budget, the bigger the hurdle to profitability; which's fine if the expenditure is measured and essential to the final outcome. But that's not always the case with last-minute rewrites and reshoots. It's not a problem that's specific to Disney, although Disney does seem to have a culture of not reining in unnecessary overheads in some departments.
When Barber critiques the individual reasons underlying the failures, however, he falls somewhat short: As diverse as they were, what they had in common was their sloppiness: the weak concepts, scrappy visuals, and muddled plots which must have been apparent to everyone who saw them.
This places the blame solely on the technical aspects of the film-making process. He dare not raise the possibility that the forced diversification and messaging might actually be part of the problem. Because that in itself would not go down at all well at MostDiverseAndInclusiveInternationalNewsBroadcaster Towers.
All he could say of The Little Mermaid was: The novelty of live-action remakes has worn off, and as this one involved talking sea creatures, it was obvious from the first trailers that it would have been better left as a cartoon.
He overlooks the possibility that race-swapping Ariel was a significant factor in the film performing poorly in Asia, if not elsewhere; and that major changes to the story, to appeal to modern audiences
, may not have been entirely popular with realio-dealio theatre-going audiences. You know, the ones who actually spend money.
Despite the novelty of live-action remakes having worn off, in his own words, he tries to spin a little hope for the upcoming Moana: the first of these remakes to feature the actors who did the voices in the cartoon.
So that's something to look forward to, I guess. (shrug)
Still, if there was a simple reason for Disney's troubles, the good news is that there is a simple solution to them, too. All the studio has to do is make better films. Admittedly, that's slightly easier said than done, but this year's failures should at least encourage the Company to be more adventurous.
Nicholas Barber, Disney at 100: Why the Mouse House flopped hard in its centenary year, BBC Culture
Unfortunately, Nick, that's much easier said than done than the BBC's politburo might be prepared for you to admit. It'd require root-and-branch removal of the activists who've replaced real storytellers. It's not gonna happen in time for Disney's Dalmatian anniversary, to be sure.
In the meantime, there are other studios making entertainment rather than propaganda. And there's music in the air…(music)
[ dances the DIE DISMAL DISNEY dance ]
The numbers don't lie; or at least it's not easy to get them to do so transparently.
Deadline's box office editor, Anthony D'Alessandro, presents the top five box office bombs of 2023. And Disney took four of those places:
- #1: The Marvels (-$237M)
- #3: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (-$143M)
- #4: Wish (-$131M)
- #5: Haunted Mansion (-$117M)
Between them, they lost the house of mouse a mellifluous $628M; or more, since D'Alessandro's calculations include revenues for TV and streaming of $355M, which essentially entail internal accounting. In addition, there are others that didn't make the top five, but which still failed to break even. So, the overall loss will be potentially much greater.
There's that music again…(music)
Sometimes people try to do thinking, and sometimes those same people let themselves down on a public forum. In this case, our hero's criticising the basis for D'Alessandro's calculations:
Your figures are incorrect: Disney includes its marketing costs within movie budgets – see their 10-k for confirmation of this.
Ooty, commenting on Disney Detonates Four Bombs In Deadline’s 2023 Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament, Deadline
The latest financial report from TWDC does not confirm Ooty's assertion. Under Theatrical Distribution (page 8):
The Company incurs significant marketing and advertising costs before and throughout the theatrical release of a film in an effort to generate public awareness of the film, to increase the public’s intent to view the film and to help generate consumer interest in the subsequent home entertainment and other ancillary markets. These costs are expensed as incurred, which may result in a loss on a film in the theatrical markets, including in periods prior to the theatrical release of the film.
The Walt Disney Company, Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Financial Report
This is reiterated under the Summary of Significant Accounting Policies (page 95), where it states that advertising costs are expensed as incurred. So, this is TWDC accounting policy.
Clearly the marketing and advertising costs are not included upfront within the production budget. Better luck next time, Ooty.