Support NeoGAF

[Dural]

Separately, board member Catz privately told Chapek he was making a huge mistake releasing the animated movie “Strange World,” which featured an openly gay character. Catz, who was on former President Donald Trump’s transition team, told him the movie was too polarizing and not up to Disney’s quality standards. She warned a poor performance wouldn’t play well with the board.
Catz declined to comment.

But Chapek and other Disney studio executives knew they’d have to release the movie. The last thing Disney needed was to anger the LGBTQ community again.
Disney released the movie on Nov. 23, 2022. It was a giant flop, losing Disney about $200 million.

Disney's wildest ride: Iger, Chapek and the making of an epic succession mess

Here's the inside story of the executive chaos at Disney over the past few years — and how it could shape the fate of the iconic entertainment company.

www.cnbc.com

Unfuckingbelievable! This type of BS is exactly why the stock keeps dropping. They don't seem to understand who their audience is and where they get their money, hint, it's not the LGBT community. Until they get back on track providing the type of family movies without their not so secret agenda, their stock is just going to continue to tank. Are they all really that out of touch?

 

[SidViscous]

It was just a bad film, removing the LGBT stuff would still leave you with a bad film. Lightyear suffered a similar fate, they are releasing movies nobody wants to actually watch. Elemental is great but Disney purposefully devalued Pixar's by throwing their stuff straight to Disney+ during the pandemic so now folks associate Pixar with "straight to VHS" movies.

With Snow White and The Marvels on the horizon I don't think they've learnt any lessons, maybe the shareholders are shorting the stock on the side or something.

When will they play the Live action Frozen card?

 

[Rival]

Disney bends the knee to any and all pushback regarding lgbtq race or whatever. The are terrified of the very vocal minority on social media and they aren’t going to change any time soon. Most of their current offerings are terrible now.

 

[feynoob]

These companies are losing money like these, while I am surfing on social media like a broke dude.

 

[Crying Rivers]

They shouldn't compromise their filmmakers' artistic vision in order to coddle the sensibilities of a few online crybabies.

 

[ManaByte]

She warned a poor performance wouldn’t play well with the board.

Well, she warned him. Now he's fired.

 

[Saber]

It was just a bad film, removing the LGBT stuff would still leave you with a bad film. Lightyear suffered a similar fate, they are releasing movies nobody wants to actually watch. M

I wonder why when a film that panders to certain group of people flops is aways not the fault of pandering, its just because is a bad film.

 

[Crying Rivers]

I wonder why when a film that panders to certain group of people flops is aways not the fault of pandering, its just because is a bad film.

You know what other film panders to that same group? Barbie.

You know what the biggest film of the year is? Barbie.

 

[Saber]

You know what other film panders to that same group? Barbie.

You know what the biggest film of the year is? Barbie.

Barbie holds itself because...its Barbie LOL
Even my little cousins wanted to watch only to quit during mid movie. When little girls picture a Barbie movie they tend to believe it will be like those dozens of Barbie animated movies. And honestly I couldn't blame them, same happens with Sonic or Mario.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

 

[AJUMP23]

It didn’t look like a good movie and adding identity politics to it doesn’t help sell it to families.

 

[newtypepilot]

and their stock price will continue to plummet because the guy that is trying to right the ship is the one that started all this trainwreck in the first place.

 

[thefool]

Shame they didn't lose more.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

and their stock price will continue to plummet because the guy that is trying to right the ship is the one that started all this trainwreck in the first place.

Dropped another $1 to $81. Last time it was this low was around early 2014. So 9.5 years later, the stock is right back to where it was before.

 

[Skyfox]

Dereliction of fiduciary duty.

 

[HoodWinked]

seems like he was between a rock and hard place.

we only know the outcome of the current reality but if he killed the project it could have turned into a Bud Light situation but from the other side. imagine the tidal wave of hollywood press picking up the story. Its not far fetched look how much shit they got for removing stuff for Muslim/Chinese audiences.

 

[AJUMP23]

This was in my twitter

 

[delirium trigger]

You can let an activist run a billion dollar company into the ground with hardly any accountability anymore.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

The are terrified of the very vocal minority on social media and they aren’t going to change any time soon. Most of their current offerings are terrible now.

You pretty much described every entertainment company including video games and tabletop role-playing games, etc.

They're all bending the need to the vocal minority nowadays.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Disney bends the knee to any and all pushback regarding lgbtq race or whatever. The are terrified of the very vocal minority on social media and they aren’t going to change any time soon. Most of their current offerings are terrible now.

You pretty much described every entertainment company including video games and tabletop role-playing games, etc.

They're all bending the need to the vocal minority nowadays.

That's media companies in general (gaming can be included too). The people working at these companies seem to have zero balls to just ignore them.

Do you really think Coke or Nabisco or McDonalds would give a shit if people whined like losers about their products hoping the companies massively change the products? All you'd get is canned feedback like "Thank you for your comments, we will look into it", or they'd just ignore the person altogether.

I've seen and heard my share of weird people CSR people would tell me. All those profanity calls and unrealistic demands. At worst, somebody gives in and sends them free product in the mail. That's the extent of it. R&D isnt going to overhaul the product line unless their is a genuine safety issue or government order (recall).

But for some reason, creative types are often one part weird, and when confronted with complaints just give in.

 

[theclaw135]

They shouldn't compromise their filmmakers' artistic vision in order to coddle the sensibilities of a few online crybabies.

To me, it's admirable a company refuses to censor a movie. Stick it to the people saying the films have an "agenda".

 

[DeaDPo0L84]

If corporations could get their head out of their ass and stop pandering to this nonsense and realize they are a business first all this would just sort itself out. But the second they started giving into the insane gender cult it was already too late. Now they're gonna be called Trump nut hugging insurrectionist if the next big movie doesn't have an openly trans non-binary squirrel. When in reality they should just simply look at what works and stick to it, there is nothing to be won by giving into these idiots. Most don't even have jobs so they can't support these "inclusive" movies anyways.

 

[Bloobs]

 

[DeaDPo0L84]

Disney bends the knee to any and all pushback regarding lgbtq race or whatever. The are terrified of the very vocal minority on social media and they aren’t going to change any time soon. Most of their current offerings are terrible now.

People running these business literally just need to:

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Some of you have to realize that the people working in these companies are social justice warrior types (haven't used this term in a while) themselves. So they're not always bending a knee so much as being enabled or even enabling it themselves. The people at these companies are part of the problem.

 

[Puscifer]

It was just a bad film, removing the LGBT stuff would still leave you with a bad film. Lightyear suffered a similar fate, they are releasing movies nobody wants to actually watch. Elemental is great but Disney purposefully devalued Pixar's by throwing their stuff straight to Disney+ during the pandemic so now folks associate Pixar with "straight to VHS" movies.

With Snow White and The Marvels on the horizon I don't think they've learnt any lessons, maybe the shareholders are shorting the stock on the side or something.

When will they play the Live action Frozen card?

I think this is the biggest issue of all. I work with several people who refuse to go back to the movies and demand they launch on demand with theaters for streaming or purchase, they set a BAD precedent and I'm understanding why Nolan refused to let Tenet go to streaming now and switched distribution for Oppenheimer

 

[Fake]

No complains from me. If they like to burn their own money, let them burn with Disney as well.

 

[Pidull]

A friend and I had a conversation a couple days ago discussing what it would take to get us back into Disney movies. We both agreed that if Disney started converting popular folktales from the world over into animated films, computer animated or hand animated, that we would be all in. Quite literally they could make an announcement that they've got three movies in the work, one based on an African folk tale, one based on a Asian folktale, and one based off of a Slavic folktale, and we'd be all in.

Is this so much to ask?

 

[Pejo]

Good, keep depleting those coffers. Disney is a pox on all entertainment as of the last 5 years.

 

[Fake]

Since returning, Iger has undone Chapek’s streaming reorganization, fired McCarthy as CFO, and put Bergman and Walden back in control of budget and distribution decisions for their content. But those moves haven’t been, and are unlikely to be, a quick fix for the company’s woes. Under Bergman’s watch, Disney has had a string of movie failures. This year, the live-action “The Little Mermaid,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny” and “Haunted Mansion” have disappointed at the box office. The Hollywood Reporter called the latter “one of the worst starts ever among Disney’s live-action reimaginings of theme park attractions or classic animated films.”

Meanwhile, Disney’s streaming division lost $512 million in the quarter ended July 1.

Dude, this hit hard.

It was just a bad film, removing the LGBT stuff would still leave you with a bad film.

You can't blame people to point out a patern.
Is failure after failure. No one can spin this off.

 

[Raonak]

It'd be nice when we evolve into a society where having a gay lead isn't considered controversial or pandering.

One day we'll get there.

 

[FullMetalx117]

I think blaming everything on LGBTQ is a lazy take. They were just bad, generic, not special at all type movies. IMO the real cause of the demise is the over inflated budgets and heavy dilution of all their properties. Live action was cool like 10 years ago with movies like Jungle book because it had a new/fresh vibe. Disney of course with their found success went the Activision route and decided to have a yearly release of a live action film/pixar film/etc. They're no longer special because they're abundant, uniqueness/scarcity makes things special. Every animated movie disney makes today with the slightest success will have a live action supplement within 10 years - and that's predictable, boring, manufactured, etc. All the reasons to make people not excited.

 

[Toons]

They shouldn't have attempted to censor it in the first place.

 

[Nobody_Important]

their not so secret agenda

What is their agenda? Can you explain?

 

[Lord Panda]

What is their agenda? Can you explain?

Larger LGBTQ+ representation in Disney products, and wider politics, in general if these leaked internal Disney video meeting is anything to go by:



Not sure if there's a full video of this meeting somewhere.

 

[Nobody_Important]

Larger LGBTQ+ representation in Disney products, and wider politics, in general if these leaked internal Disney video meeting is anything to go by:



Not sure if there's a full video of this meeting somewhere.

Yeah I know that better representation for minorities and at risk groups are a priority media these days. .

I guess the question I should have asked is why is that a problem?

 

[AJUMP23]

They shouldn't compromise their filmmakers' artistic vision in order to coddle the sensibilities of a few online crybabies.

Except when they want to release a movie in China or Saudi Arabia.

Disney edited the black guy out of the Star Wars posters for the Chinese market.

 

[TaylorSwiftFan]

Yeah I know that better representation for minorities and at risk groups are a priority media these days. .

I guess the question I should have asked is why is that a problem?

No problem other than them releasing shit movies.

And so much for companies always making decisions to maximise profit.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Disney's wildest ride: Iger, Chapek and the making of an epic succession mess

Here's the inside story of the executive chaos at Disney over the past few years — and how it could shape the fate of the iconic entertainment company.

www.cnbc.com

Unfuckingbelievable! This type of BS is exactly why the stock keeps dropping. They don't seem to understand who their audience is and where they get their money, hint, it's not the LGBT community. Until they get back on track providing the type of family movies without their not so secret agenda, their stock is just going to continue to tank. Are they all really that out of touch?

Dude, I remember the good old days when different walks of life had their media that they resonated with and gravitated toward as a side effect of the media's own message. Somewhere along the line predatory behavior became the norm, and now we're seeing the creation of media specifically to appeal to specific demographics while SIMULTANEOUSLY being as condescending of alternate demographics as possible to generate buzz from the outrage crowd. (See: FUCKING PRONOUNSSS!!!)

I know media has always targeted specific audiences, I'm not 100% dense, but it seems like a fairly contemporary strategy to just intentionally light fires in fandoms with the sole purpose to generate culture wars.

I use to blame solely the Reeee crowd, but I'm starting to broaden out and see that there are multiple culpable parties, from TwitterTwat69 to wealthy, powerful people who probably shouldn't be legally permitted to manipulate people in social experiments for the sake of printing money. Maybe I leveled up in my Skeptical Center-right class.

 

[Lord Panda]

Yeah I know that better representation for minorities and at risk groups are a priority media these days. .

I guess the question I should have asked is why is that a problem?

The representation of LGBTQ+, minorities, and at-risk groups in the media, at it's core, isn't an issue per se. I'm all for organic non-tokenistic representation. It becomes problematic when such representation is manipulated to promote a specific agenda, rather than depicting these groups in a realistic and respectful light. Unfortunately, there are instances where this representation seems to undermine another group or alter the original vision of an artist, blurring the lines between genuine representation and propaganda.

On a personal note, I have friends from the LGBTQ+ community who express fatigue over the constant spotlight on their identities. We were friends before the acronyms and pronouns started becoming a thing. In their cases, they just want to be treated just like everyone else, without their sexual orientation being a focal point of discussions and without special treatment.

 

[newtypepilot]

I think blaming everything on LGBTQ is a lazy take. They were just bad, generic, not special at all type movies. IMO the real cause of the demise is the over inflated budgets and heavy dilution of all their properties. Live action was cool like 10 years ago with movies like Jungle book because it had a new/fresh vibe. Disney of course with their found success went the Activision route and decided to have a yearly release of a live action film/pixar film/etc. They're no longer special because they're abundant, uniqueness/scarcity makes things special. Every animated movie disney makes today with the slightest success will have a live action supplement within 10 years - and that's predictable, boring, manufactured, etc. All the reasons to make people not excited.

Their forced woke ideology is definitely a contributing factor. They have alienated their biggest demographic, which is families, to appeal to a small minority group that traditionally do not spend money on their products. It's an idiotic business decision.

That being said, Disney's biggest problem right now is that they have to buy the remaining stake of Hulu from Comcast at the end of the year, at market value (minimum 9 billion). And Disney is currently a little cash strapped, to put it mildly. It's why there are rumors that Iger is prepping the company to be bought out by Apple. Personally, I don't know why Apple would want Disney.

EDIT: looks like that deadline to buy rest of Hulu got moved up to end of this month lol

 

[WoJ]

The Movie was flat out bad. The gay character was seemingly shoe horned in and served no purpose in the movie. If the character was straight it would have also served no purpose in the movie. Bottom line, Movie was trash.

 

[Raonak]

Yeah I know that better representation for minorities and at risk groups are a priority media these days. .

I guess the question I should have asked is why is that a problem?

It's nothing new, minorities have usually been scapegoated as the root of all problems since the dawn of civilisation.

The people calling for less minority representation are the ones with an agenda.

They want to make you think the problem wasn't the quality of the movie. No. It was the gay plotline.
Without it, the movie would be a good product, would be well received and financially successful.

 

[theclaw135]

It's nothing new, minorities have usually been scapegoated as the root of all problems since the dawn of civilisation.

The people calling for less minority representation are the ones with an agenda.

They want to make you think the problem was the gay plotline.
Without it, the movie would be a good product, would be well received and financially successful.

Word. I sure wish I had a magic button that'd place on my ignore list, users who toss around buzzwords like "woke" to bash these movies.

 

[Dural]

What is their agenda? Can you explain?

It was said by one of their employees last year, it was all over the place.

disney not so secret agenda - Bing

Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you.

www.bing.com

 

[Dural]

They want to make you think the problem wasn't the quality of the movie. No. It was the gay plotline.
Without it, the movie would be a good product, would be well received and financially successful.

I quoted the article, they knew the movie was going to bomb but released it anyway to appease a group of people. They lost $200 million so a group of people wouldn't be mad at them, what does this have to do with what you're posting? Hell, it even says Chapek was warned the quality of the movie wasn't there.

 

[diffusionx]

a few hundred million here, a couple hundred million there, at some point you're talking about real money

 

[FullMetalx117]

Their forced woke ideology is definitely a contributing factor. They have alienated their biggest demographic, which is families, to appeal to a small minority group that traditionally do not spend money on their products. It's an idiotic business decision.

That being said, Disney's biggest problem right now is that they have to buy the remaining stake of Hulu from Comcast at the end of the year, at market value (minimum 9 billion). And Disney is currently a little cash strapped, to put it mildly. It's why there are rumors that Iger is prepping the company to be bought out by Apple. Personally, I don't know why Apple would want Disney.

EDIT: looks like that deadline to buy rest of Hulu got moved up to end of this month lol

All these box office bombs, wokeness are literally chump change for DIS compared to this Hulu problem, Charter problem, entire foundation changing (linear tv which generates most of their earnings) problem. That’s solely why the stock is tanking, not because of wokeness or Strange Worlds.

If alienation was truly a problem, their parks wouldn’t continue to be full like they are and DIS wouldn’t continue to price hike like they are. Yet the alienation had no impact on parks…

 

[Fake]

I guess people here should read the article before posting (they never do). They knew it this movie would flop and release anw to not clash with social media warriors. This is a huge red flag.

 

[Saber]

I think blaming everything on LGBTQ is a lazy take. They were just bad, generic, not special at all type movies.

Dude, the guy just warn them that the film was too polarizing to be released. The only reason they launched the film anyway was out of fear from the own LGBTwhatever community.