Disney’s record-breaking year might not be of much concern for normal movie-going audiences, but from my point of view, its slow but sure monopolization with each passing year is frightening. Yes, the year-end numbers are in, and the mouse house has secured eight of the top 10 highest-grossing movies of 2019 domestically. Unheard of, but very much something that, if you’ve been following the numbers, was foreseen by many. Add in the fact that Disney also now has a very successful streaming service, et voila — a monopoly is not too far ahead! This, in fact, is what Martin Scorsese has been complaining about these last few months: it’s not necessarily a “Marvel problem,” but more of a Disney problem (no wonder Disney CEO Bob Iger is saying he wants to meet with Scorsese to discuss the future of cinema).
The just-released “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” snuck its way into the top 10 this past weekend and will likely climb even higher by next weekend. The film grossed $175.5 million domestically in its opening weekend. Other Disney movies in the current top 10 highest-grossing for the year include “Captain Marvel,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” “Toy Story 4,” “Frozen 2,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.” Basically, Disney has built a monopoly on the industry by adhering to nostalgic remakes, sequels, reboots superhero movies and animated fare — with the rest of the industry trying to replicate the formula (here’s looking at you, Warner Bros.) but failing to achieve the same numbers the Mouse House has posited these last 12 months.
Disney’s decade-long game plan was actually a quite simple one — take a big name brand and purposely design its creation to start new franchises until movie-going audiences get tired of it and then, quite simply, just reboot it with a new cast. It’s a pathetically simple premise but it’s been eaten up by a mass audience hungry for familiarity and nostalgia (how long will that kind of demand last?).
Here’s a quote via an interesting Verge article published today:
Disney began the decade with two key purchases: Marvel Entertainment in 2009 and Lucasfilm in 2012. The combined more than $8 billion investment has exceedingly paid off for Disney; Marvel Studios has made more than $28 billion at the box office alone, while Star Wars is the centerpiece of Disney’s future, Disney+. The goal was to build out franchises Disney could consistently use and build worlds around.