I’ve lost count of the number of box-office disasters Disney has had this year — I had to go through their list of releases, and they’ve had six titles that lost a significant amount of money:
"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” "The Little Mermaid,” "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” "Haunted Mansion" “The Marvels,” and “Wish.”
The only movie that made money for them was "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” which has begged many to ask: what happened? Disney used to be a formidable force in Hollywood, but it’s now cratering. A recent WSJ report claimed that the last four Disney releases might have lost them over $1 billion. This is obviously unacceptable.
On 11.26.23, after Disney’s latest release, “Wish,” bombed at the box-office, I wrote this:
“I’m starting to wonder if the whole conservative backlash the company received earlier this year has something to do with this. Have the chickens finally come to roost?
“Obviously, the pandemic has changed the industry, as has a creeping Disney fatigue, but maybe conservative parents just don’t want their kids to watch anything, even animated, from Disney. Can this be a possibility? Disney CEO Bob Iger recently stated that his goal is to distance the company from any culture wars.”
This was just a theory that I partially started to warm up to, especially with Iger’s comments. Just think about it, a holiday-released Disney animated movie (“Wish”) had been beaten at the box-office by an R-rated historical epic made for streaming (“Napoleon”).
Then last week Iger fanned the flames further. At the New York Times’ DealBook Summit, he blamed his creators at Disney for losing sight of what their jobs were supposed to be. In his own words, Iger said “entertain first, not messages”. He added that stories infused with “positive messages for the world” can be great, but that it shouldn’t be forced upon an audience.
His words stunned an industry that’s at an inflection point. Was he correct? Puck’s Matt Belloni has now surveyed a handful of industry players about Iger’s comments relating to too much “messaging” in movies. The responses are eye opening, with most of them believing that Iger is correct in his assessment…
“Everything you said is being discussed internally, as I’m sure you know. Bob, Alan [Bergman], and the leadership have made it clear that our mandate has changed.” -A Disney employee
“Whether or not the company earned this treatment from conservatives is up for debate. You can also debate how to solve it or if it’s even worth trying to solve. But Bob is right to take it as seriously as he is.” -Another Disney employee
“I believe you are underestimating the Disney ‘woke’ animosity across the country. It’s not just the Fox News crowd. The number of moderates and liberals who have expressed frustration to me that Disney and Pixar seem more focused on sending a message than telling good stories is substantial. Perhaps it’s a case of correlation instead of causation, but the decrease in great Pixar movies over the past 4 years tracks closely with the need to inject obvious messages into the movies, and people are saying it a lot outside of the NY/LA bubble.” -An executive
“I didn’t think about it until reading your piece, Matt, but I’m beginning to think what happened to Bud [Light] is happening to Disney.” -A producer.
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.