August 10th, 2023

WHAT WENT HORRIBLY WRONG?

     Let’s Take A Peek into the House of Mouse!
          By John Wilson and Mo Murphy
 
Almost as bad as DeSantis’ “I want to be king” campaign,  is this year’s story of his nemesis.  2023 is the year Dizz-Knee turns 100 and there just won’t be that much to celebrate - if you take in a disastrous take-in or lack thereof at the box office.
 
So, who moved the cheese?  
 
2023 is the Disney company's centennial anniversary, and corporate honchos had hoped to spend this entire year celebrating a century of success. But things haven't exactly worked out that way. For the first time in its 100 year history, the once phenomenally profitable Walt Disney Pictures has suffered failure after failure at the box office..
 
The biggest problem is their focus on financial rather than create concerns, exemplified by their long-term practice of doing endless, uninspired live action remakes of titles from their animated classics vault, (which we like to think of as "Avarice in Wonderland"). This creatively lazy habit used to all-but-guarantee  profits on each product, but between budget over-runs, critical drubbings and public disinterest, the days of "if we make it, they will come" may have come to an end. 

This year's big budget re-imagining (read" rip-off") Peter Pan and Wendy, like last year's Razzie winning Pinocchio reboot, went straight to streaming on Disney Plus. This Pan was widely panned, suffering an embarrassing 4.4 out of 10 User Rating at IMDb, and viewership was also lower than expected, never reaching any higher than 7th on any Streaming Title ratings services. At least its production budget was a mere $45 million.

The highly touted (and excessively promoted) remake of Little Mermaid did get released to theatres and does rank among the year's highest grossers. But with an estimated production budget of $250 million (and a commensurate promotional cost as well) it never quite captured the public's imagination as the animated original did, and the eventual profit from this Mermaid will be little indeed. 

Additional box office disappointments include the animated Elemental, which cost about $200 million, and has barely generated $150 million in box office (meaning massive losses). Disney was also behind what may be the biggest box office bomb of 2023, the fifth film in the Raiders franchise, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. With a budget of $300 million, and a total gross barely exceeding that, Dial simply excited almost no one, and looks doomed to be a major contributing factor in Disney being awash in red ink. 

Add in the recent DOA debut of their second live action version of Haunted Mansion (which opened to a scary $24 million against a cost of $150 million -- then plummeted 73% for Friday of its second weekend). 
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Current industry estimates (and an extensive article in the current issue of Forbes magazine) have Disney looking at a potential shortfall by year's end of...more than a billion dollars(!). 
 
And the near future doesn't look likely to be much brighter. Disney is the unfair target of a homophobic boycott fomented by Florida governor (and charisma-free GOP candidate) Ron de Santis, and, like the rest of the industry, Disney has seen production ground to a virtual standstill by the double whammy of simultaneous strikes by both SAG and the WGA. 
 
And with the company's main mascot, Mickey Mouse, about to lose its status as a trademarked image, their reputation as an industry leader in both merchandising and synergy may be in jeopardy as well.
 
If Disney continues on their downward trajectory they've been on so far this year, they could set a Razzie precedent: Winning the first ever Barry L Bumstead award (for box office underachievement) that won't gone to an individual movie title...but to an entire movie studio!
 

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