Another week, another Disney bomb.
Despite the success of this past Spring’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” which grossed $800 million worldwide, Disney can’t seem to catch a break this summer.
Last year, “Lightyear” and “Strange World” cost the studio millions. Now, their summer blockbusters, such as “Elemental,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” are under-performing.
You can add “Haunted Mansion” to that list, and it might be their worst bomb yet. The film took in $23 million this weekend on a $158 million budget, and that doesn’t even include the marketing costs.
“Haunted Mansion” stars LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson and Danny DeVito. It might not even make $70 million by the end of its run. Was it another victim of the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon? Not necessarily. The reviews have been mediocre for the movie.
Disney, which was, not that long ago, hailed as the standard from moviemaking success, is in serious trouble with all of their cherished IPs. They fumbled “Star Wars,” have dried up the well with Marvel, the $212 million-costing Disney Plus series “Secret Invasion” stunk it up and their Pixar problem isn’t going away.
Lest we mention that their live-action remakes are currently in a rather strange predicament. Although, “Little Mermaid” earned $250 million domestically, it completely flopped overseas and managed to barely break even (I’m not even sure it did).
Even worse, on-set photos of their upcoming ‘Snow White’ live-action remake were openly mocked online for replacing the “seven dwarfs” with, shall we say, an “eclectic” bunch of overdressed characters.
Now Disney is hoping that this coming November’s “The Marvels,” a semi-sequel to 2019’s “Captain Marvel,” might save the day for them, but will it? There doesn’t seem to be that much excitement for the upcoming Brie Larson starring superhero movie.
They also have the $200 million animated film “Wish” being released in late November. The marketing has so far been unimpressive, but at least there is a chance that it could become a hit.
Suffice to say, Disney is really trying to steer the ship away from the incoming iceberg, but can they? I have my doubts. The industry is changing, so are moviegoers’ tastes in what films they choose to buy tickets for. All of this as Mattel and Nintendo seem to be taking over as the new trendy thing.
Paul Greengrass’ "The Uprising," starring Andrew Garfield, opened to $3.2M from 2,068 theaters this weekend. Yikes. The budget hasn’t been disclosed, but is said to be in the $20-$30M range.