The 2023 Disney Failure Thread
POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Thursday, January 25, 2024 20:58
VIEWED: 8549
PAGE 5 of 13
Hollywood’s greatest directors keep getting drafted to make bad franchise movies. The solution is obvious: Bring Back the Hack.
The problem here is two-pronged. The first is Hollywood’s penchant for sucking promising young directors into its maw, tempting them into selling their artistic souls to the franchise devil with medium-fat paychecks and the possibility of speaking to a larger audience. The second is that the movies frequently end up being lousy, extinguishing whatever hint of personality made the filmmaker attractive in the first place and revealing them to be hopelessly out of their depth when tasked with bending a massive studio movie to their will. You don’t get the unique stamp of an artist, but you also don’t get the frictionless craftsmanship that would be brought to the job by a seasoned old hand—in other words, a hack.
There are many ways to define a hack, but the least judgmental is that you don’t know who they are. I’d bet there are loads of fans who enjoyed The Meg and eagerly awaited the sequel but couldn’t name its director, Jon Turteltaub. Turteltaub has been making movies in Hollywood for more than three decades, and chances are you’ve even seen a few of them: While You Were Sleeping, perhaps, or one of the National Treasures. But no one has ever referred to a movie as “the new Turteltaub,” and you won’t find cinephiles sparring in Letterboxd’s comments section over whether Cool Runnings or 3 Ninjas ranks higher in his oeuvre.
Stroll down the hall from crappy Meg 2 and you might still be able to catch The Haunted Mansion, although the $150 million Disney release flopped so hard that it’s starting to vanish from theaters two weeks after it was released. Like Meg 2, it was directed by a onetime film-festival sensation: Justin Simien, who broke out at Sundance with the sharp-edged campus satire Dear White People. And like Meg 2, it’s an inert and joyless experience, the product of a filmmaker going up against the system and losing, badly. When I ducked into a showing last weekend, the audience of perhaps a dozen made their dislike audible, blowing raspberries at the attempts to inject emotional depth into a movie based on a Disneyland ride.
Many More Examples of movies where a hack would have been a perfect match for a formula film instead of a famous director at https://slate.com/culture/2023/08/meg-2-haunted-mansion-disney-marvel-
directors-hacks.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Hollywood’s greatest directors keep getting drafted to make bad franchise movies. The solution is obvious: Bring Back the Hack.
The problem here is two-pronged. The first is Hollywood’s penchant for sucking promising young directors into its maw, tempting them into selling their artistic souls to the franchise devil with medium-fat paychecks and the possibility of speaking to a larger audience. The second is that the movies frequently end up being lousy, extinguishing whatever hint of personality made the filmmaker attractive in the first place and revealing them to be hopelessly out of their depth when tasked with bending a massive studio movie to their will. You don’t get the unique stamp of an artist, but you also don’t get the frictionless craftsmanship that would be brought to the job by a seasoned old hand—in other words, a hack.
There are many ways to define a hack, but the least judgmental is that you don’t know who they are. I’d bet there are loads of fans who enjoyed The Meg and eagerly awaited the sequel but couldn’t name its director, Jon Turteltaub. Turteltaub has been making movies in Hollywood for more than three decades, and chances are you’ve even seen a few of them: While You Were Sleeping, perhaps, or one of the National Treasures. But no one has ever referred to a movie as “the new Turteltaub,” and you won’t find cinephiles sparring in Letterboxd’s comments section over whether Cool Runnings or 3 Ninjas ranks higher in his oeuvre.
Stroll down the hall from crappy Meg 2 and you might still be able to catch The Haunted Mansion, although the $150 million Disney release flopped so hard that it’s starting to vanish from theaters two weeks after it was released. Like Meg 2, it was directed by a onetime film-festival sensation: Justin Simien, who broke out at Sundance with the sharp-edged campus satire Dear White People. And like Meg 2, it’s an inert and joyless experience, the product of a filmmaker going up against the system and losing, badly. When I ducked into a showing last weekend, the audience of perhaps a dozen made their dislike audible, blowing raspberries at the attempts to inject emotional depth into a movie based on a Disneyland ride.
Many More Examples of movies where a hack would have been a perfect match for a formula film instead of a famous director at https://slate.com/culture/2023/08/meg-2-haunted-mansion-disney-marvel-
directors-hacks.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
It almost sounds like something I'd say. I guess the media is finally coming around to some of the problems here.
I don't think there are any directors out there that can do a good job on these mega-blockbuster titles anymore period though. These movies aren't art anymore. They're purely cash motivated products designed for only one thing, and that is mindless consumption. They're product by committee. Any director tied to any movie with over a $100 Million budget isn't going to have any artistic license at all because the stakes are far too high, and shareholders need to get value out of the investments.
Tie that together with Blackrock and Vanguard ESG requirements, and these soulless directors can't even properly create a product that people want to consume anymore. Superhero movies have become trite and formulaic. The same movie over and over and over again with nothing but a "diverse" skin put on top of it and different hero outfits on whatever boring, one-dimensional characters they put on screen. And with their multiverse gimmick laid on top of that, there's never any stakes anymore. The "heroes" are never actually in any danger. Even if they die, death is not permanent and they can just show back up in the next movie via some magical mcguffin which isn't even magical because it's powered by nothing more th
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Disney is Dying
A reiteration of everything I've ever said in this thread.
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Numbers from 08/07:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
This will encompass all Disney/Pixar/Fox Studios failures for the year. This OP will be updated from time to time as more data comes in, particularly when a movie officially ends its theatrical run and we have solid numbers.
[ALL FIGURES UPDATED 08/07/2023]
Sub-threads for notable movies can be found here:
The Little Mermaid Failure Thread: http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=65598
The Elemental Failure Thread: http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=65628
The Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Failure Thread: http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=65629
NOTE 1: I have decided to add the 2.5x Rule of Thumb and mark the existing numbers as the 2.0x Rule of Thumb that has been suggested by Variety magazine when discussing how much money Disney is losing on movies. The truth lies somewhere in the middle of both figures.
However, I will still keep any movie that grossed more than 2 times the Production Budget in the Winners category for now.
For more information on this, look earlier in the thread.
NOTE 2: For clarity and to lessen bloat, I'm going to remove any comments I've made about weird international numbers fluctuating. You're going to see weird things happen here, like movies making a lot of money one week despite almost making nothing in the domestic box office, and other weeks where they lose money with no explanation. This just seems par for the course with international numbers, and I don't feel like cataloging it anymore.
I've made a note to verify all final numbers here a few months after Disney's last 2023 movies exit the theaters in 2024 to make sure they're still accurate since movies that have been out of theaters for weeks still seem to lose and gain some money after the fact.
Live Action Remakes that were so bad they skipped a theatrical release and went straight to Disney+:
Peter Pan and Wendy (April 23rd, 2023)
Production Budget: $170 Million
source: https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/local-arts/disney-peter-pan-wen
dy-canadian-film-industry
Box Office: $0 [FINAL]
Net Gain/Loss: -$170,000,000 - Marketing Costs (Unknown) [FINAL]
Theatrical Releases (WINNERS):
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania * [Walt Disney Pictures/Marvel Studios] (February 17th, 2023)
Production Budget: $200,000,000
source: https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Ant-Man-and-the-Wasp-Quantumania-(20
23)#tab=summary
Worldwide Opening Weekend: $250,000,000 (125% of Production Budget)
FINAL Worldwide Gross: $463,635,303 (232% of Production Budget)
Net Gain/Loss [2.0x RoT]: +$63,635,303 [FINAL]
Net Gain/Loss [2.5x RoT]: -$36,364,697 [FINAL]
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3. [Walt Disney Pictures/Marvel Studios] (May 5th, 2023)
Production Budget: $250,000,000
source: https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Guardians-of-the-Galaxy-Vol-3-(2023)
#tab=summary
Worldwide Opening Weekend: $290,000,000 (116% of Production Budget)
Current Worldwide Gross: $845,115,601 (338% of Production Budget)
Net Gain/Loss [2.0x RoT]: +$345,115,601
Net Gain/Loss [2.5x RoT]: +$220,115,601
The Little Mermaid [Walt Disney Pictures] (May 26th, 2023)
Production Budget: $250,000,000
source: https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Little-Mermaid-The-(2023)#tab=summar
y
Worldwide Opening Weekend: $164,000,000 (66% of Production Budget)
Current Worldwide Gross: $564,187,251 (226% of Production Budget)
Net Gain/Loss [2.0x RoT]: +$64,187,251
Net Gain/Loss [2.5x RoT]: -$60,812,749
The Boogeyman [20th Century Studios] (June 2nd, 2023)
Production Budget: $35,000,000
source: https://variety.com/2023/film/news/the-boogeyman-director-indie-movies
-disney-1235620503/
Worldwide Opening Weekend: $20,000,000 (57% of Production Budget)
FINAL Worldwide Gross: $82,345,683 (235% of Production Budget)
Net Gain/Loss [2.0x RoT]: +$12,345,683 [FINAL]
Net Gain/Loss [2.5x RoT]: -$5,154,317
Elemental [Walt Disney Pictures/Disney-Pixar] (June 16th, 2023)[/NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Total losses in the Box office for Disney so far in 2023:
TOTAL NET GAIN/LOSS FOR DISNEY 2023 [2.0x RoT]: -$124,992,781
TOTAL NET GAIN/LOSS FOR DISNEY 2023 [2.5x RoT]: -$825,492,781
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https://ca.news.yahoo.com/snow-white-actress-rachel-zegler-050410195.h
tml
Sounds like Snow White will not only replace dwarves with Woke BIPOC, but also is doing away with such non-Woke conventions as hetero romance - they are cutting out all of the scenes with Prince Charming.
How much money can this one lose?
Can they spend another year in RESHOOTS?
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Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/snow-white-actress-rachel-zegler-050410195.h
tml
Sounds like Snow White will not only replace dwarves with Woke BIPOC, but also is doing away with such non-Woke conventions as hetero romance - they are cutting out all of the scenes with Prince Charming.
How much money can this one lose?
Can they spend another year in RESHOOTS?
They CAN'T do reshoots now. Not with the writer's strike.
I really think this one is going the way of Peter Pan & Wendy and straight to Disney+, but I'm really hoping that Disney doesn't do that to us. I want the entertainment of it being shown in the theater.
At least Hally Berrie loved The Little Mermaid when she was a kid. This man-hater absolutely hated the source material.
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How ‘One Hundred and One Dalmatians’ Saved Disney
It was Sleeping Beauty that set the stage for the new Xerox technique. Considered a classic now, the film didn’t perform nearly as well as expected in the box office. The incredibly detailed work of art took $6 million to make, and it only made a little over $5 million, resulting in a loss of nearly one million dollars.
In its aftermath, Disney discussed shrinking the budgets for future projects and even closing down the animation studio. But, in a money-saving effort, Ken Anderson, art director for Dalmatians, the next film in the works, suggested using Xerox.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-one-hundred-and-one-dalm
atians-saved-disney-180977869/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Disney is DYING and EVERYBODY Sees It Now.
Looks like I'm right again. Imagine that, huh?
Even Lefty shit sites can't deny that Disney killed Marvel and Star Wars Indiana Jones, and their woke trash remakes of classics are bombed out, and they don't have a single creative person left in the company.
Where's your arguments now, Second?
You don't have any. That's where. Because there's nobody at your regular websites writing puff pieces about Disney for you to plagiarize as your own take on the issue anymore.
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More bad news for Disney.
Even worse that it's coming from a pro-Disney source.
https://www.disneydining.com/disney-to-lose-billions-box-office-sw1/#:
~:text=This%20unfortunate%20trend%20for%20Walt,over%20the%20past%2015%20months.
Here's more ammo for the Rule of Thumb going up to 2.5x.
After 1.5 years of flops...
Quote:
The list includes Lightyear (2022), Thor Love and Thunder (2022), Strange World (2022), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3 (2023), The Little Mermaid (2023), Elemental (2023), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), and the Haunted Mansion (2023).
The cost of all ten films, including production, marketing, and distribution, is estimated to a little over $4 billion. However, the total amount the films have brought in is approximately $2.31 billion, equaling an overall loss of around $1.865 billion.
Now... I wasn't tracking 2022, so I don't have Lightyear, Love and Thunder, Strange World and Wakanda Forever on any of my lists. I do have the rest of those on it though, in addition to the so bad it went straight to Disney+ Peter Pan and Wendy, and low-budget releases like The Bogeyman and Theater Camp.
With the 2.0x Rule of Thumb, I show all Disney movies from 2023 losing $125 Million so far. With the 2.5x Rule of Thumb, those same movies have lost Disney $825 Million. I know that Lightyear and Strange world lost a LOT of money for Disney combined, but I'm pretty sure Wakanda Forever was still considered a moderate win, and Thor wasn't THAT devastating of a loss. I don't see how those 4 movies could have amounted to another BILLION in losses by themselves unless Disney Dining is either just making up numbers or they have some insider information that us plebs don't have access to.
In any event, At this point, I think we may finally have to retire the 2.0x Rule of Thumb and move up to the 2.5x Rule of Thumb.
In recent times, my numbers for Disney woes have been chronically lower than everyone else's have. When it was nobody but active Disney haters and admittedly right-wing outfits reporting those numbers it gave me great pause to move on from 2.0x, but now we've got a pro-Disney site reporting this while Variety is claiming losses for movies I had called minor winners and even other left-wing sites that used to shill for Disney are openly discussing Disney's failures.
I'm still going to finish all of my Disney and non-Disney lists for 2023 with both the 2.0x and 2.5x models, because I want to err on the side of caution and be a legitimate source for the actual truth rather than jump on any bandwagons.
It's also very possible that there is a scenario that Disney is on 2.5x and everyone else is only on the 2.0x model with rare exceptions like Barbie where WB admitted that they spent $5 Million more on marketing than they did on the production. Because up until just recently, Disney couldn't lose and they had the additional money to burn on that marketing.
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