We know that Disney is in some kind of serious trouble. Their stock is in shambles. Box office flops (“Wish,” “Haunted Mansion,” “The Marvels“) keep happening, and their streaming service is losing subscribers by the millions.
However, you wouldn’t believe who Disney is blaming for their recent woes. The fans, of course. Puck’s Matt Belloni spoke with an unnamed Disney executive about the company’s woes.
Everyone says “It’s the movies, stupid,” which is an easy thing for people to say. More appealing movies are a great way to jump the political issues. But more and more, our audience (or the segment of the audience that has been politicized) equate the perceived messaging in a film as a quality issue. They won’t say they find female empowerment distasteful in The Marvels or Star Wars the latest trilogy starring Daisy Ridley], but they will say they don’t like those movies because they are “bad.” So “make better movies” becomes code for “make movies that conform to regressive gender stereotypes or put men front and center in the narrative.”
In other words, it’s the sexist fans who are drowning us! Blaming audiences for their recent failures isn’t going to end well. This anonymous exec doesn’t even tackle the fact that almost every Disney flop from last year was met with mediocre reviews.
They’re just playing the blame game. Remember when Disney CEO Bob Iger blamed “The Marvels” failure on director Nia DaCosta? A separate report described Iger as “overwhelmed and exhausted” about the company’s recent box-office bombs.
Meanwhile, Disney’s streamer, Disney+, has reportedly been losing hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter, with subscribers fleeing the subscription service. This has led to Disney’s stock price falling from $191 per share back in March 2021 to as low as $78.32 a share last month.
Back in June, an analysis of the company’s film sector revealed that Disney might have lost as much as $900 million on its 2022-2023 box-office flops, and that was before “The Haunted Mansion” was released (which lost as much as $100 million dollars).
At least Iger has somewhat acknowledged an intention to stray far away from the “culture wars” the company has been embroiled in these last few years. Iger has blamed the creators at Disney for losing sight of what their jobs should be — in his own words, Iger says “entertain first, not messages”. He adds that stories infused with “positive messages for the world” can be great, but that it shouldn’t be forced upon an audience.
It’s not all doom and gloom for Disney, they do have “Deadpool and Wolverine” coming out this summer, not to mention a slate of future sequels that include “Moana 2,” “Inside Out 2,” and “Toy Story 5.”
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.