The 2023 Disney Failure Thread

I think Haunted Mansion is in trouble.

I hadn't heard anything about the leadup to this movie which I thought might be a good thing for a change for Disney.

However, with a $157,750,000 Budget, and only $33,200,000 projected 1st weekend box office worldwide, it will have only made back 21% of the production budget on its first weekend if those numbers hold true, which would put it at #30 on the list of Budget vs. first weekend world wide box office, right in between 65 and Magic Mike's Last Dance which were both huge failures and ended with only 124% of their production budget by the end of their run. And both of those movies only had a $45 Million budget to try to double to recoup their money while Haunted Mansion is going to need to rake in $315,500,000 to break even, or roughly 9 times as much as it just did on opening weekend.

Anybody know why this one is flopping? It's only been on my radar at all because it was one of the last few big budget movies Disney was putting out in 2023, but I've honestly heard not one thing about it and haven't bothered looking into it at all.

--------------------------------------------------

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Anybody know why this one is flopping? It's only been on my radar at all because it was one of the last few big budget movies Disney was putting out in 2023, but I've honestly heard not one thing about it and haven't bothered looking into it at all.

---

Haunted Mansion…Dead On Arrival

https://www.disneydining.com/haunted-mansion-dead-on-arrival-sw1/

Quote:

---

The new Haunted Mansion (2023) movie may become another flop from The Walt Disney Company. Although it hasn’t spawned the level of controversy associated with other films in the past 12 months, such as Lightyear (2022), Strange World (2022), or The Little Mermaid (2023), it will likely follow in the footsteps of a long life of recent box office failures.

A Year of Flops

In addition to the titles above, additional box office bombs include Elemental (2023), Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (2023), and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023). As long as audiences choose to avoid seeing Disney movies in the theaters, the studio will continue hemorrhaging money

It was reported earlier this year that in the past 12 months, the Walt Disney Company was estimated to have lost almost $1 billion in box office flops. And that figure was before the release of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), which in the end could lose another couple hundred million.

Walt Disney Pictures hoped the Haunted Mansion (2023) would be a chance to turn things around. After all, it’s not a controversial live action remake, and it’s a movie based on a popular theme park ride at Disneyland (and the Magic Kingdom at Disney World). But its expected box office numbers for this weekend are $25-$30 million domestically. For comparison, Avengers: Endgame (2019) made $357 million on its opening weekend. Granted, that’s an established franchise, but those numbers are from four years ago. But when compared to The Haunted Mansion (2003) with Eddie Murphy, the opening box office is about the same ($24.3 million).

Even though $30 million (at best) is still a nice chunk of change, it’s not a win when the movie allegedly cost the studio $150 million to produce. That figure also includes no marketing or promotional costs, which could easily be another $50-$100 million. Again, Disney seems to find itself where the costs of producing its movies ends up setting a bar too high for the box office. This was the problem with The Little Mermaid (2023), Lightyear (2022), and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023).

---

‘Haunted Mansion’ Slammed, Disney Faces Yet Another Flop

https://insidethemagic.net/2023/07/haunted-mansion-slammed-disney-face
s-yet-another-flop-cj1/



--------------------------------------------------

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Regarding this part of the disneydining.com article...

Quote:

---

Haunted Mansion…Dead On Arrival

https://www.disneydining.com/haunted-mansion-dead-on-arrival-sw1/

Walt Disney Pictures hoped the Haunted Mansion (2023) would be a chance to turn things around. After all, it’s not a controversial live action remake, and it’s a movie based on a popular theme park ride at Disneyland (and the Magic Kingdom at Disney World). But its expected box office numbers for this weekend are $25-$30 million domestically. For comparison, Avengers: Endgame (2019) made $357 million on its opening weekend. Granted, that’s an established franchise, but those numbers are from four years ago. But when compared to The Haunted Mansion (2003) with Eddie Murphy, the opening box office is about the same ($24.3 million).

---

https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Haunted-Mansion-The-(2003)#tab=box-o
ffice

They were only including the 3-day weekend with that $24.3 Million figure. (And they were incorrect even then, since it made $23,970,263 in those 3 days). It appears that the 2003 Haunted Mansion opened with a 5-day weekend and generated $34,046,111 in 5 days. According to projections for this weekend which are $24,200,000, if you only count Friday through Sunday for the 2003 version, this new one only grossed around $230k more than the version released 20 years ago and only had a $90 Million budget.

I'm curious why Disney even made this movie. Assuming the Rule of Thumb was 2x back in 2003, that movie was also a failure with only a $156 Million worldwide gross on a $90 Million budget (or 173% of the Production Budget).

I don't see this version making 173% before it's out of theaters.

--------------------------------------------------

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Elemental looks like it will be just about a wash when it's done, at least according to the 2x Rule of Thumb, anyhow. I'm not sure how this movie pulled it off in the end with its terrible first weekend box office, but apparently it had some staying power, especially overseas. It only made about $7-$8 Million in the US this week, but it gained just around $50 Million worldwide since I put the last list up (probably not that much in one week, because international numbers are updated quite sporadically).

In the end this won't help with Indy 5 really dragging Disney down and Haunted Mansion putting up such crap numbers opening weekend.

Disney has two real movies coming out for the rest of the year. The Marvels and Wish. I don't imagine The Marvels is going to do any better than The Little Mermaid, Antman or Elemental did, so whether or not Disney ends 2023 with a profit using the 2x Rule of Thumb is probably going to depend solely on how well Wish does in the theaters.

And with the writers and actors all on strike, they'd better hope that it doesn't need any anti-woke reshoots.

--------------------------------------------------

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Bruce Wokenash seems to be flommoxed by the Walt Gayness products being shunned by the normal, non-pedophile/groomer American public.
Maybe he really does believe that the vast majority of Americans are pedophiles and groomers, and should therefore support Walt Gayness products.

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Status from 07/24

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 07/24/2023]

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



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: +$63,635,303 [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: $837,895,825 (335% of Production Budget)

Weird... After losing about $700,000,000 in the previous 8 days (07/11-07/18), despite making about a million in the US Box Office in that time, Guardian's 3 worldwide total went down again this weekend from $839,050,733 to $837,895,825. I have no explanation for this, although I did notice it happened to a few other films this week such as Fast X when making the 2023 top lists in the Sound of Freedom thread. Without any explanation, I'm going to assume that something in the international counts were off and corrected.

Net Gain/Loss: +$337,895,825

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: $548,481,661 (219% of Production Budget)

Net Gain/Loss: +$48,481,661

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)
Current Worldwide Gross: $82,344,950 (234% of Production Budget)

Net Gain/Loss: +$7,344,950

I don't know what happened with this one. It made less than $1.5 Million in the US on the weekend ending 7/09, but all of the sudden it jumped from a $10 Million + loser to a $6 Million + winner in the span of that week. I'll chalk that up to very late international reporting on the numbers for now.

UPDATE 07/24: This one went down several thousand this week with no explanation from $82,351,069 to $82,344,950. Since this seems to be a trend now that I'm really paying attention to numbers on a broad range of films I'm going to begin assuming that the international figures are just estimates, similar to the estimates that we get for domestic numbers, but it just takes a lot longer for them to be finalized.


Theatrical Releases (LOSERS):

Elemental [Walt Disney Pictures/Disney-Pixar] (June 16th, 2023)
source: https://screenrant.com/elemental-movie-budget-box-office-prediction/
Production Budget: $200,000,000
Wo

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME