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.”

 

[SBG]

Young children, which I'll define as say under 12 years old, will likely not have a firm understanding of all the typical tropes that you see in fairy tales, or put another way, they don't have any concrete expectations; however, teenagers and adults do. The problem with that though is that they're not the target audience hence why I believe that these people aren't writing for children.

This is the problem that always comes up with "subverting expectations", since it requires people be familiar with the tropes in order to have those expectations that could then be subverted.

It never makes a ton of sense since the writers don't bother to fully flesh out the story or characters, since they assume the audience will fill in the blanks assuming they'll be familiar with those tropes. So I don't think this is an issue of not realizing they're writing for kids, so much as the writers not remembering the audience doesn't necessarily have the same assumptions or prejudices as they do.

Feels similar to what happens with hyper politicized writers who don't realize their writing comes across as demented due to not everyone actually sharing their beliefs.

 

[X Prime]

Maybe, but personally I think it has more to do with these writers not realizing (or caring for that matter) they are supposed to be writing for children.

Look, it's really not that difficult. I will provide the answer now.

The majority of youngish modern writers, especially female ones, grew up on anime and possibly fanfiction. They are familiar with all the tropes involved in both of those media categories and are simply incorporating them into their, uh, material.

The person who was supposed to be the head of the disinformation section of the White House had a Harry Potter fan-band. I seem to recall Stacey Abrams being into Supernatural, which had an incredibly insane fujo fanbase.

It's the literal Tumblrization of media. Or, to put it in terms people here can more closely understand, modern writers are increasingly similar to the idea of a slightly less mentally ill Android Raptor.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

Is it autistic of me to believe that Disney (or rather, the people that infiltrated it) is doing this on purpose?

Committing suicide?

Josh has been saying this since forever. Its a plan to destroy the comapny from the inside for money by people who inherited it without caring about it, they just want to strip it for parts and move on.

 

[Flan Handler]

I just came back from Xmas shopping in a leaf Toys-R-Us and they had a whole section of Wish merch and it was already marked down 30%

 

[Xarpho's Return]

My sister grew up in that period of the 90's where the Mouse DOMINATED, I mean nothing else came close, Films, Costumes, Books my sister had them all - and they just seemed to flub and it ended up with them taking a wild direction and instead of being creative because they had money tried to spend there way out of the problem rather than analysing what's gone wrong and trying to correct.

They lost the market and just can't correct, they had social and cultural inertia that was dropped for long enough it's going to be a up hill battle to get parrity with current market leaders even if they leverage there absurd IP archive, they just can't gain back what they have lost without saying "Yea we dun goofed" and they wont because they are all about image.

See, that's the thing. By the 1990s, the "Disney Renaissance" was beginning to end. So if you were born in 1991, you probably saw movies like Hercules, Mulan, or whatever in theaters, but most of the stuff was on VHS, and already by 2001 there was Atlantis: The Lost Empire with a string of bombs and underperforming films afterward.

Zoomers have no concept of a "good" Disney. Instead of Hercules and Mulan, they got Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt.

 

[TowinKarz]

Zoomers have no concept of a "good" Disney. Instead of Hercules and Mulan, they got Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt.

Your prime "kid" years - let's say ages six to sixteen - would have to have occurred roughly between 1986 - 2000, to really have thought of Disney as the company that could do no wrong.

 

[Snekposter]

I seem to recall Stacey Abrams being into Supernatural, which had an incredibly insane fujo fanbase.

That fanbase was so bad the writers did multiple episodes calling them out as creepy stalkers.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Your prime "kid" years - let's say ages six to sixteen - would have to have occurred roughly between 1986 - 2000, to really have thought of Disney as the company that could do no wrong.

Right, and even by the time I was in junior high Disney was accelerating the churn out of direct-to-video sequels for just about every animated film they had. There were several titles that were left on the drawing board, namely sequels to Dumbo, Toy Story 2 (the original Toy Story 3 was very different), Hercules, The Nightmare Before Christmas (which would've been CGI instead of stop-motion, and was also personally stopped by Tim Burton), Treasure Planet (cancelled after the movie bombed), another sequel to Aladdin (which already had two films and a TV series), Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., a third Mulan, Meet the Robinsons, The Aristocats, Chicken Little, and a third Jungle Book.

Almost all of these were scrapped when Iger took over, and that was seen as a breath of fresh air, but things are so bad now that I'd take Eisner back in a heartbeat.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Old-style animation takes effort and talent, and most autists have neither of these things.

This is from 1984 (and was buried for years due to them using an unlicensed ELO song). Back in the 80’s a huge Japanese Nerd Convention was Daicon. It used to have an anime opening film made by fans. The ‘83 and ‘84 ones were made by a handful of college students, between classes, completely hand drawn. Their only assets were the elderly machines in the schools animation lab. They did this in a few weeks. The first minute is the ‘83 film used as a lead in to ‘84.

This was made by a handful of guys in their spare time, fueled by nothing but ramen noodles and caffeine. Now granted that handful of animation students turned out to be anime’s equivalent to the film school class that gave us Lucas, Spielberg, Copola and Scorcesse. The lead nerd was Hideaki Anno. The rest became some of the worlds best animators.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

The marketing was non-existent, I didn't know the movie was happening until I saw 5 Nights and the teaser for it told me nothing and didn't sell it.

I didn't even know the movie exited until seeing this thread which is surprising because Disney seems to do more to promote its releases no matter how awful they might be.

It’s not actually about “wokeness”, it’s about pandering to kidult

While Disney has embraced current year politics in its releases, I also believe that they also pander to the kidult consumers after I witnessed the latter group using social media to fellate Disney when Star Wars Revels came out and it quickly turned into Clone Wars: The Sequel.

Second, basically everyone in a leadership role behind the scenes is a B lister at best.

Not only that, Disney is willing to axe cast members who don't align with them politically (Gina what's her name from The Mandalorian comes to mind) and replace them with B-list through Z minus-list celebrities. Just look at the fact they gave Lizzo a cameo in some recent Star Wars content.

In a way it's sad. I used to love Disney.

As did I. At the risk of sounding like an oldfag, I remember when Disney used to have its Sunday prime time slot where they aired a good mix of old classics and newer releases on TV so that all generations of a family could enjoy watching it together.

Now, Disney is more interested in releases that make political statements than family-friendly releases that appeal to all ages.

Disney needs to go back to basics.

As much as I agree with you, @White Trash Motorsport , I rated that optimistic because I don't see Disney returning to its roots. It's invested so many resources in embracing current year politics that it's become a sunken cost fallacy for them. Going back to the basics would be tantamount to admitting their woke content was garbage and a big mistake on their part; I can't see them doing that or wanting to incur the ensuing social media backlash or PR nightmare from the vocal minority.

I also believe Disney feels it's too big to fail even with its recent flops at the box office and changes to its amusement/theme park offerings in response to poor turnout and reception. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. Regardless, the current leadership still seems smug enough to think that maintaining the status quo is a good thing that will ultimately pay off - akin to the gambler who has lost nearly everything while being convinced the next roll of the dice will win everything back.

 

[RodgerDodger]

View attachment 5552969
She's clearly a bimbo, got nothing going on behind those eyes.

If you’ve ever seen the M Night Shamalamadingdong The Last Airbender she plays Katara, the water bender. She also plays a complete bimbo in 2 of the transformers movies. She’s .markie Marks slutty daughter.

 

[Individualism Incarnate]

It's a bold move because there's no guarantee that the company will recover from a death spiral.

Oh but there is a guarantee. Just say you're too vital to the economy and suddenly you're got direct access to the money printer.

 

[anustart76]

If you’ve ever seen the M Night Shamalamadingdong The Last Airbender she plays Katara, the water bender. She also plays a complete bimbo in 2 of the transformers movies. She’s .markie Marks slutty daughter.

Unpopular opinion: we need to bring back bimbos in movies

 

[Flaming Insignias]

That fanbase was so bad the writers did multiple episodes calling them out as creepy stalkers.

And then they still caved at the end. Tumblr ruined television with its obsession with nonexistant gay romances.

 

[Snekposter]

And then they still caved at the end. Tumblr ruined television with its obsession with nonexistant gay romances.

Considering how long that series ran? Not surprised. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.