Business Disney’s “Wish” Fails to Perform at the Box Office

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Disney’s “Wish” Fails to Perform at the Box Office​

Disney didn’t score big at the box office with its latest animation film, “Wish.”

The studio’s latest film, with Ariana DeBose as the main character and Chris Pine as the big bad, bombed with moviegoers over the holiday break, TMZ reported.

“Wish” only reigned in $31.7 million through the 5-day “weekend, a significant difference to the projected $45-$50 mil over the same 5 days.

The film didn’t do well internationally either, pulling in just $17.3M.

Disney is typically a powerhouse that dominates the box office during this time of year, with releases like Encanto and Coco in the past.

However, this movie, which got good reviews, may have been impacted by the SAG strike. Now it joins the list of other Disney films that didn’t do so well, like ‘Indiana Jones’ and “The Haunted Mansion.”

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

A lot of baffling, weird shit seems to have happened with Wish. First of all, the $200 million budget. Where did the money go? The movie looks worse, literally, than any Disney film I can remember in my lifetime, hand-drawn or CG. There's no artistry to any of it. There are rumors that the entire thing was scrapped multiple times and the final product was animated in 3-4 months.

Second, basically everyone in a leadership role behind the scenes is a B lister at best. The main songwriter is a pop singer you're unlikely to have ever heard of, who has no background in musical theater. The two directors consist of a storyboard artist with no previous experience directing an animated feature (but who seems to be a personal favorite/sycophant of Jennifer Lee, the current president of Disney Animation Studios), and a company man who has worked on second-tier features almost exclusively for his entire career at Disney. Far and away the most professionally accomplished people in this production are the three principal voice actors.

While I'm sure the full story is an immense tangle of interlocking bullshit, I think a fundamental issue is that Disney learned all the wrong lessons from the success of Frozen, which was really just utter lightning-in-a-bottle fluke if you read up on the story of that production.

 

[Fareal]

I thought The Princess and The Frog was pretty good. Dr. Facilier was a strong villain, and the animation was very nice. I thought it might herald a return to "traditional" animation, but didn't for some reason.

The princess being a nignog didn't even feel forced/shoehorned in, surprisingly.

I actually love it. It is a hugely underrated film. Tiana has a JOB and GOALS and is likeable! Her prince is kind of a lazy fuck but he's funny and charming! Their romance is actually really well written! Some of the wypipo are actually good folks!

The frog designs are *chefs kiss*. The animation is lovely. It deserves more love.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

The frog designs are *chefs kiss*. The animation is lovely. It deserves more love.

What it needs was a bad guy who was more integrated into the plot. They had Keith David playing him and everything, and give him this all-timer of a villain song, but Doc Facilier was only a threat because Naveen is a retard, he's not a part of Tiana's story really at all.

 

[Sarcastic sockpuppet]

Despite the massive differences between the book and film and change of ending, I felt the film somehow preserved the themes of the book quite well. A modern version won’t even recognize Notre Dame de Paris as a church let alone have more utterances of ‘God’ than any other Disney film. Quasimodo and Esmerelda will be Moslems and Frollo will have a Southern accent.

I would take Hijabi Esmeralda over the farting gargoyles
Also, come on, they would let the cathedral be a Cathedral. If you long for more God Talk, they could just make Frollo a man of Faith again instead of a judge like they did in the movie.

A lot of baffling, weird shit seems to have happened with Wish. First of all, the $200 million budget. Where did the money go? The movie looks worse, literally, than any Disney film I can remember in my lifetime, hand-drawn or CG. There's no artistry to any of it. There are rumors that the entire thing was scrapped multiple times and the final product was animated in 3-4 months.

Second, basically everyone in a leadership role behind the scenes is a B lister at best. The main songwriter is a pop singer you're unlikely to have ever heard of, who has no background in musical theater. The two directors consist of a storyboard artist with no previous experience directing an animated feature (but who seems to be a personal favorite/sycophant of Jennifer Lee, the current president of Disney Animation Studios), and a company man who has worked on second-tier features almost exclusively for his entire career at Disney. Far and away the most professionally accomplished people in this production are the three principal voice actors.

While I'm sure the full story is an immense tangle of interlocking bullshit, I think a fundamental issue is that Disney learned all the wrong lessons from the success of Frozen, which was really just utter lightning-in-a-bottle fluke if you read up on the story of that production.

They really lucked out with Frozen but i don't feel like i find what i consider the chore "Frozen elements" in the later movies:

The sister's relationship anchors the movie emotionally.
The early trauma they suffered with losing their parents/Elsa isolating herself allows to hand-wave a lot of how weak the plot is later and how dumb / quirky / emotionally stunted they act.
Olaf is somewhat not as annoying as he should have been. He relies a lot on existential and morbid humor (the gag is that he is a fragile being that will inevitably die but doesn't seem to realize it) and i guess it spice up the tired shtick of a character that exists mostly to pander to the smaller children in the audience.
Limited rooster of characters

 

[anustart76]

Not sure how true this is, but I have heard that the basic premise of this film was supposed to be sort of an origin point of the "When you wish upon a star" shit and have it tie a ton of Disney shit together, but after certain people got ahold of it, it changed to "lmao, girl takes power from man!" and it just steadily devolved into this.

I was watching Chris Gore of Film Threat talk about this the other day, and that sounds right. Basically the original team working on the movie all quit or something so a bunch of inexperienced people took over and turned it from a celebration of Disney and the song to this woke bullshit.
You can still see a little bit of the original premise in the story with the girl literally wishing on a star.
Gore has a lot of industry connections (and he's been involved in the industry a long time), so I'm inclined to believe him.

The Film Threat clip:

What's insane to me is that this is what they ended up with for Disney's 100th anniversary. Why the fuck would you not do a celebration of your literal flagship character Mickey Mouse? A character that to this day is still beloved by people everywhere? But I guess we should count our blessings, because they'd probably find a way to ruin that little dude too.

Also what the hell is even the point of Pixar if Disney without Pixar is just cranking out Pixar-esque 3D animated movies?

When the hell are the investors going to start calling for blood?

Supposedly there's a takeover attempt in progress by a conservative activist investor named Nelson Peltz. Ike Perlmutter supposedly sold him his shares.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

What's insane to me is that this is what they ended up with for Disney's 100th anniversary. Why the fuck would you not do a celebration of your literal flagship character Mickey Mouse? A character that to this day is still beloved by people everywhere? But I guess we should count our blessings, because they'd probably find a way to ruin that little dude too.

Also what the hell is even the point of Pixar if Disney without Pixar is just cranking out Pixar-esque 3D animated movies?

Disney sucked out the character of Mickey Mouse a long time ago. He is literally nothing more than a logo now.

 

[Caligura]

I didn't see it because representation is important and I just can't relate to a main character who doesn't look like me.

It's supposed to be set in Medieval Spain but for some reason they made everyone brown like its supposed to be some Central American shithole. It's so over Medbros.

 

[anustart76]

Disney sucked out the character of Mickey Mouse a long time ago. He is literally nothing more than a logo now.

Them ending House of Mouse was an absolute tragedy, and it's been downhill ever since.

 

[Kulee Baba]

Supposedly they are trying to emulate the watercolor style of Disney's classic animated movies, but it just looks incredibly flat and boring, like they haven't done the lighting effect pass yet.

What’s sad is on a tech level I dig the cel shading technique. The goat in pajamas does look like it could have appeared in Beauty and the Beast.

This movie failed because Disney inexplicably failed to have a hook for the movie. From the trailer I saw it looks like a Latina in a dress, the goat, and a ripoff of Lumas from Super Mario Galaxy.

If I didn’t know any better I would think Disney wanted it to bomb. It’s a Disney cartoon where you can’t immediately understand the fantasy element. I just learned from Wikipedia that it’s actually about Sorcery of all things. How was I meant to infer that from the word “Wish.” Should have saved it for the inevitable Jiminy Cricket origin story prequel.

 

[Fareal]

Olaf's character importance gets a significant retcon in Olaf's Frozen Adventure (the Christmas short) which all the kids saw between Frozen 1 and 2. Wait why am I revealing my autism in this way

 

[Iron Jaguar]

Walt must be spinning in his grave cryotube.

 

[TowinKarz]

Disney sucked out the character of Mickey Mouse a long time ago. He is literally nothing more than a logo now.

They also, unironically, want to marginalize him as a way to punish his creator for being a white man.....

Remember, Disney is all-in on woke, so all the major points of woke philosophy must be adhered to, which means the very man whose name is on the front door HAS to go under the bus to prove everyone in charge is thinking "right" and doing their due diligence in punishing white guys for their inherent racism/sexism/transphobia/etc.

If Mickey becomes popular? So does Walt by association, and that's bad.

 

[behavioral swamp thang]

I can't stop laughing every time I see this movie advertised. Disney literally used a cigarette font for their woke film

 

[SBG]

Part of what I find deranged is they apparently originally had an ok idea for a movie. But then semi-obviously did away with it since there'd be an element of romance involved and not have the female main character becoming the main magical figure.

They couldn't even keep the queen character as a villain in the end, instead choosing to have her be the one that throws the mirror the king gets trapped in into the basement.

They took something that could have been nice visually and reminiscent of classic DIsney movies and just decided fuck all that. Deranged.

 

[PipTheAlchemist]

I can't stop laughing every time I see this movie advertised. Disney literally used a cigarette font for their woke film

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View attachment 5531921

Makes sense, since you'll probably want to smoke a cigarette after watching the movie.

 

[Escaped Abortion]

Part of what I find deranged is they apparently originally had an ok idea for a movie. But then semi-obviously did away with it since there'd be an element of romance involved and not have the female main character becoming the main magical figure.

They couldn't even keep the queen character as a villain in the end, instead choosing to have her be the one that throws the mirror the king gets trapped in into the basement.

They took something that could have been nice visually and reminiscent of classic DIsney movies and just decided fuck all that. Deranged.



View attachment 5532026

View attachment 5532027

I think this idea could have even tied in with the weird villain star and explained why the King is apparently ageless; he was the last star boy who became corrupted over time. His genes could be from outer space and that's why he could recognize starboy as an impending threat. It would justify that more than the Temu Luma.

Asha also had a better beta design. They filtered out all the good ideas to leave just the dregs when it came to this movie. It is a shame, because the bar was so high for a 100th year anniversary piece and it's just mediocre.

 

[Kela de Thaym]

I actually love it. It is a hugely underrated film. Tiana has a JOB and GOALS and is likeable! Her prince is kind of a lazy fuck but he's funny and charming! Their romance is actually really well written! Some of the wypipo are actually good folks!

The frog designs are *chefs kiss*. The animation is lovely. It deserves more love.

Yes!

As a side note, It’s unfortunate of the timing of the Splash Mountain retheming and it being called “woke pandering” or whatever bullshit, because IMHO, it’s one of the rare times where Disney’s retheming of an attraction to have an IP actually fits and works. If it gets more eyes on Princess and the Frog, the better.

 

[Seafarer]

I thought The Princess and The Frog was pretty good. Dr. Facilier was a strong villain, and the animation was very nice. I thought it might herald a return to "traditional" animation, but didn't for some reason.

The princess being a nignog didn't even feel forced/shoehorned in, surprisingly.

Yeah that's because beyond "hey we can diversify the Disney Princess marketing!" there was no grand agenda or hamfisted messaging behind that movie.

The funny thing about The Princess and the Frog is that despite being the sort of “proto-woke” that Disney has been doing since the 90’s, a lot of modern SJWs find it problematic because the movie doesn’t have anything to do with racism, despite its setting.

 

[SBG]

Princess and the Frog was a forgettable movie which honestly seems worse than if it was just bad.

There’s a blandness to it that became the norm with Disney.

 

[George Lucas]

I can't stop laughing every time I see this movie advertised. Disney literally used a cigarette font for their woke film

View attachment 5531920

View attachment 5531921

I thought it was a reference to this: