The big news today is that Disney’s “Wish” bombed at the box-office. There’s no other way to put it. Pundits were already saying that its projected $40 million opening would be a disappointment, but it ended up being much worse than that.
“Wish,” which cost Disney $200 million, had a 5-day opening of $31 million. I’ve lost count at the number of box-office disasters Disney has had this year, to the point where I’m starting to wonder if the whole conservative backlash the company received earlier this year has something to do with this.
Obviously, the pandemic has changed the industry, as has Disney fatigue, but maybe conservative parents just don’t want their kids to watch any movie, even animated, by Disney. Can this be a possibility? Disney CEO Bob Iger recently stated that his goal is to distance the company from any culture wars.
It’s another theory that I’ve decided to partially warm up to when it comes to the floundering mess that has been Disney’s 2023. Just think about — a holiday-released Disney animated blockbuster was beaten out this weekend by an R-rated historical epic made for streaming.
That’s right, Ridley Scott’s mixed reviewed “Napoleon” made more money than “Wish.” A $33 million opening for Scott’s epic means that Apple probably won’t be making its money back — the budget was $200 million, but there seems to have been a decent amount of interest for the film this weekend. The worldwide total this weekend for “Napoleon” was around $80 million.
However, “Napoleon” and “Wish” were beaten this weekend by “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” ($42 million). Its current domestic tally is said to be around $98 million. That’s not bad at all. Projections have it finishing its US run at the $150 million mark.
Finally, what more can be said about “The Marvels”? The 5-day weekend tally was $9 million, finishing in sixth place. Hell, “Thanksgiving” and “Trolls: Band Together” made more than “The Marvels” this weekend. The current domestic total for “The Marvels,” in three weeks of release, is a disastrous $78 million.
Edward Berger seems to have settled on what comes next. His Lance Armstrong biopic, starring Austin Butler, is now holding casting calls, with production eyed for January.