Considering its massive layoffs earlier in the year, falling stock prices, and its overall box office failures, the Mouse House seems ready for a makeover in 2024.
That’s despite that 2023 was Disney’s 100th anniversary in movie making, which should be reason for celebration. Instead, the studio’s damaged reputation from putting messaging over entertaining often makes more headlines than the films it releases. Looking back at the year, 7 out of 8 major theatrical releases from the studio greatly underperformed both nationally and internationally.
Those that flopped considerably included the pre-Thanksgiving release “Wish”; “The Marvels,” which also released in November; the widely anticipated “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”; the live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid”; and the summer remake “Haunted Mansion.”
Disney’s troubled year began with February’s flailing “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” despite its all-star cast.
Rusty Reboots
Amid its less-than-stellar Cannes premiere, weak 43 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating, and myriad “woke”-related controversies surrounding the studio in general, Disney’s latest Indiana Jones installment, released in the summer of 2023, had a lukewarm $60 million box office debut, according to Comscore numbers.“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” starring 81-year-old Harrison Ford, earned an estimated $130 million 3-day global weekend ($60 million domestic and $70 million international). Although it still managed to take the box office’s top spot, by some accounts, the numbers reflect a less than lackluster opening, considering it was a long-awaited continuation and the franchise’s ultimate finale.
Although the remake of “The Little Mermaid” earned a respectable $297 million domestically, it grossed only $267 million overseas, which with its $250 million budget was well below expectations.
Superhero Slump
Despite that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the biggest film franchises in the 21st century, Disney’s superhero flicks didn’t perform to superhero levels in 2023.Aged-Out Animation
Disney also struggled with the animated staples its legacy rests upon. After opening to a dismal $29 million, Pixar’s $200 million “Elemental” ended up earning just $154 million domestically and almost $500 million worldwide. Although that number sounds substantial, it pales in comparison to 2015’s “Inside Out,” which made $357 million domestically and nearly $860 million worldwide with a $175 million budget.Then there was “Wish,” which was meant to celebrate Disney’s 100-year anniversary, with the studio dubbing the film as “a century in the making.” Critics found the movie, which highlighted the Wishing Star that so many Disney characters have wished upon over the studio’s century-long history, to be disparate from classic Disney fare.
Snow White Kerfuffle
Disney’s live-action remake of “Snow White,” which was originally supposed to be released in March 2024, is now slated for March 2025, following negative publicity and intense backlash, as reported by The Epoch Times.Production was delayed by Hollywood strikes demanding regulation of artificial intelligence effects on the industry, and the project also experienced multiple setbacks. One revolved around the so-called unauthorized on-set photos that were leaked, which showed the movie’s supposed “seven dwarves” played by a multi-racial and gender-diverse cast. Only one of the “dwarfs” looked to be an actual dwarf.
Before that, the film received less than favorable publicity when older videos of its star Rachel Zegler, 22, showed the actress insulting the 1937 original Snow White. Ms. Zegler essentially made the movie’s prince character out to be a “creepy stalker.”
“It’s extremely dated when it comes to the idea of women being in roles of power and what a woman is fit for in the world,” Ms. Zegler said during an interview with cast-mate Gal Gadot, referring to the movie based on the Grimms’ fairy tale.
Lay-Offs and Stock Tumbles
Considering the less-than-stellar ticket sales, the thousands of jobs that Disney CEO Bob Iger slashed earlier in the year, and the fact that the company’s stock prices continue to decline, Disney’s bad year is one for the record books.According to Mr. Toto, the studio’s 7,000 layoffs represent 3.2 percent of Disney’s total headcount of about 220,000 employees worldwide as of Oct. 1, 2022, and are part of Disney’s efforts to make $5.5 billion in cost savings. Of that, $2.5 billion equates to “non-content costs” (including labor costs).
Mr. Toto pointed out that while executives have cheered shedding just $387 million in Q4, the company’s stock prices continue to acquiesce.
Emphasis on Messaging Rather Than Story-Telling Is Studio’s Demise
Even Mr. Iger has admitted the company’s error of focusing too much on quantity over quality during the COVID-19 pandemic.“We lost some focus,” he said during a recent earnings call.
Some analysts are noting a combination of factors behind Disney’s poor showing overall, including the studio’s continued inclusion of sexualized and other inappropriate themes in its content for younger viewers, to much lower ticket sales.
Regardless, the drop in movie ticket revenue has rippled down to film distributors, which doesn’t bode well for Disney.
“The studio’s zest for diversity at all costs is fine on paper,“ Mr. Toto said. ”But its creative eye should have been trained on classic stories first and foremost.”
