Disney Continues Decline at the Box Office as Flagship Films Plummet

A screen shows the announcement of the "Disney 100 - The Exhibition" show in the small Olympic hall in Munich on April 17, 2023. (Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images)

The Walt Disney Co. is bleeding big money on its recent studio releases.

That’s according to box office analyst Valliant Renegade whose recent YouTube video estimated that the House of Mouse has lost a staggering $890 million on its last eight films, including highly anticipated releases The Little Mermaid and Elemental.

Elemental, which features Pixar’s first-ever non-binary character in a theatrically released movie, has become the lowest-grossing debut ever for the animation studio’s opening weekend, according to reports. It earned an estimated $29.5 million over the June 16-18 time period, less than the $31 million in domestic sales that box office experts had predicted. That makes it the worst three-day weekend release in its history behind Pixar’s Toy Story, which made 29.1 million but when adjusted for inflation, Elemental did worse. The film, directed by Peter Sohn, is set in the fictional world of Element City, where “the peoples of fire, water, earth, and air live together.”

“The Walt Disney Company’s The Little Mermaid live-action remake and more recently Elemental from Pixar Studios are just the two latest entries in a long list over the last 12 months from the House of Mouse of box office disasters,” said the analyst known as Valliant Renegade.

Studio Sees Recent Film Flops on Many Fronts

Valliant Renegade also noted the multiple Disney blockbusters that have lost money or barely broken even, despite what he said was the news media promoting them as successful. These include the films Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, which each cost $400 million to make; while Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania cost $350 million, Lightyear cost $300 million, and Strange World cost $200 million.

Valliant added the studio could see more losses—up to $1 billion he predicts—because these same titles will go to the Disney+ streaming service rather than the top streamers such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, where more revenue would be possible.

“That can’t go on forever. It’s just simple numbers, folks,” he said. “That’s where we are. The Walt Disney Company is just making all the wrong decisions not only creatively, but in the distribution channels as well.”

Christian Toto, host of the right-leaning Hollywood in Toto podcast, told The Epoch Times that box office number crunching is oftentimes tricky.

“We don’t know how the figures are computed behind the scenes nor all the money a particular film requires to reach the public—budget, P/A, etc. That makes exact guesstimates a challenge,” said Toto, noting that it’s possible to get a rough idea of successes and failures based on comparisons to recent hit films and how the numbers stack up from overseas theaters. “By most measures, some Disney films have been undeniable flops (Lightyear, Strange World, and due to its weak box office overseas, The Little Mermaid).”

Foreboding Financials

However, it’s also been reported that Disney faces other financial problems. Current CEO Bob Iger has been working to eliminate $5.5 billion in spending with the layoff of some 7,000 workers globally.

Those layoffs occurred after a bleak 2022 when Disney’s stock plummeted 44 percent, its worst year in five decades. That’s while the company’s former CEO Bob Chapek was abruptly fired in November on the heels of his last quarterly report.

All this comes amidst controversial developments in the last couple years as the company increasingly embraces transgenderism, critical race theory, and other forms of “woke” politics in its entertainment aimed at children. This has led many lifelong fans to criticize what used to be a traditional family-friendly brand. A specific example of a “woke” move in its movies includes the company’s decision to incorporate a same-sex kiss in Pixar’s latest Toy Story installation.

Political Controversies in an Already Fickle Industry

Politics has also encompassed the company. In 2022, following the passage of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, Disney’s now-ousted CEO Bob Chapek stepped back from his stance to not give in to woke demands after Disney employees demanded the company condemn the legislation. This has led the watchdog organization the New Tolerance Campaign to include The Walt Disney Company in its 2022 ranking as the “Worst of the Woke” for the second year in a row, according to a report by Fox News.

Still, others like Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for media measurement and analysts company Comscore, said the ups and downs of any studio’s box office fortunes are “enough to cause whiplash in even the most jaded observer.”

“Disney as one of the most high profile and most scrutinized entertainment brands has been the subject of much analysis and often criticism for decisions both creative and strategic that have led to some missteps and as such has fueled debate as to the root causes of these issues,” Dergarabedian told The Epoch Times.

“To be fair, you could place any of the major studios under such a microscope and you would bring into focus many of the same issues and challenges and Disney has boasted some wins as well.”

Overall, Toto said the studio’s preoccupation with catering to the louder advocate-like voices will ultimately lead to its demise.

“Disney is obsessed with appealing to a small, vocal minority of its fans while alienating a larger, more passionate bloc. It’s a bad decision on many fronts,” said Toto. “The Disney brand, once beloved and darn-near bulletproof, is now in free-fall for many Americans. Rebuilding that trust could take decades.”

“It’s hard to pinpoint a single reason for a film’s box office failure. What we’ve seen in recent years, though, is when a project focuses on woke box-checking, the quality of the storytelling often suffers,” said Toto. “That, combined with an increasingly savvy movie-going public, has hurt the Disney brand significantly.”

That said, Toto noted some of the studio’s bad choices.

“Strange World was a horrible title. Lightyear booted Tim Allen from his voice actor’s chair, a terrible decision across the board. Recent MCU movies lack the sparkle of films we rushed to see in the past,” he said.

The Epoch Times reached out to Disney for comment.