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[diffusionx]

In the variety article, they were saying the reasons for the movie bombing in the US are:

- People conditioned to wait for Disney movies to come to Disney+
- People wary to watch movies due to covid pandemic
- The movie plot is meh.

On the plus side nothing stopped macho man Top Gun Maverick from doing great. Jet fighters, good looking Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly, and the entire cast are military (people in authority to kick ass). People loved it.

Considering Variety has an article on its front page glowing about the woke virtue-signaling in this movie, of course they cannot say this movie failed in part due to woke virtue-signaling. They’ll come up with any and all reasons including ones they know are bullshit like the COVID pandemic. I guess the more important question is who is Disney listening to, the people who say it failed because of COVID (LOL) or the peole who say it failed because it looks hideous and the woke virtue-signaling turns off families?

‘Strange World’ Crew on the Film’s Jules Verne Nod, the Environment and Queer Representation

The crew of Disney's "Strange World" talk about queer representation and Jules Verne.

variety.com

If you can find me one article, anywhere, on any of these sites, that says a movie “going woke” failed in part because of that I will be very surprised. They’ll never admit it.

 

[jason10mm]

http://[URL]https://www.neogaf.com/threads/pixars-lightyear-flops.1638101/post-266298807

[/URL]

I read that and agree to a point. Probably not worth debating Lightyear as I think the last act completely sabotaged buzz' character.

 

[jason10mm]

Why to pay 3 tickets to watch it at cinema when we can watch it (and stop it if we don't like it) for free with the Disney+ subscription? I'm sure a lot of people think in the same way.

Well, disney+ isn't free though. So the question becomes; is $9/mo x12=$120 yr or whatever worth more to Disney than what you would have spent on theater tickets (remember they only get ~50% of the BO), DVDs, and a Disney channel cable package?

I'd say for the average family of 4 it's probably pretty close for 2-3 Disney films a year though when you throw all those marvel films in there I think they lose on D+.

 

[Umbasaborne]

Im gonna see it this week, im very excited for it

 

[hemo memo]

-Force to put ideas of inclusion - Bombs at box office

Good

 

[ManaByte]

Iger kind of addressed this in the most diplomatic way possible today in a town hall. He didn't anger the Skittles hairs by denouncing inclusion in their movies, and was super diplomatic, but he pointed to Black Panther and Coco as movies that "changed the world" but strikes the "balance" he said was necessary to not alienate people.

Which means you're probably not going to see the overt virtue signaling like this movie again.

 

[Alcibiades]

I like the idea of a gay main character and disabled dog. Gonna give this a chance but something about the look of the gay character bothers me. Would've preferred a more "prince charming" type look, no matter the race. Didn't they also make the gay character in Beauty and the Beast live-action fat and ugly (or assign that sexualtity to that character)?

 

[Biff]

Iger kind of addressed this in the most diplomatic way possible today in a town hall. He didn't anger the Skittles hairs by denouncing inclusion in their movies, and was super diplomatic, but he pointed to Black Panther and Coco as movies that "changed the world" but strikes the "balance" he said was necessary to not alienate people.

Which means you're probably not going to see the overt virtue signaling like this movie again.

I've seen these "town halls" referenced before - are these internal employee meetings? Open to everyone in Disney - even people in the parks? If so it's interesting how open the company is to giving info to all levels of the organization.

 

[Alcibiades]

The big viking-looking guy and dog have good designs. The mom and dad are ok but could be better. The other two are nasty.

The nose on the dad is looks a little weird.

 

[Bragr]

Like a lot of modern Disney, its the low standard of writing that is turning this into boring pointless drivel.

We been saying it concerning Marvel for years, but now its getting so bad even Marvel fans get it.

Disney hiring practices around writers is a disaster. Its affecting everything they do, they cant tell a good story to save their lives let alone a good film.

 

[Goalus]

-The characters are disgusting, they even make you want to Hit this character.

Disgusting?
I see a lot of body type A and body type B characters.
That's brave and beautiful.

 

[I Master l]

I've watched some of Disney and Pixar CG movies and IMO they are all boring

 

[TaylorSwiftFan]

You want to know why it bombed? Shit be ugly AF.

No kidding - lot at these ugly character designs.

 

[TaylorSwiftFan]

I've watched some of Disney and Pixar CG movies and IMO they are all boring

I would agree with you there. Even the highly rated ones are so-so to me. Maybe people are waking up to that.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Iger kind of addressed this in the most diplomatic way possible today in a town hall. He didn't anger the Skittles hairs by denouncing inclusion in their movies, and was super diplomatic, but he pointed to Black Panther and Coco as movies that "changed the world" but strikes the "balance" he said was necessary to not alienate people.

Which means you're probably not going to see the overt virtue signaling like this movie again.

He should have angered the Skittle hairs and fired all of them

 

[Xenon]

The best part about this movie is it might actually unseat Treasure Planet as Disney's worst animated failure. That film definitely does not deserve anything close to that title.

 

[TransTrender]

The nose on the dad is looks a little weird.

LOL
Which one's the dad?!

 

[badblue]

The best part about this movie is it might actually unseat Treasure Planet as Disney's worst animated failure. That film definitely does not deserve anything close to that title.

I thought The Black Cauldron was Disney's worst animated failure.
That movie nearly killed Disney animation.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

-Force to put ideas of inclusion - Bombs at box office

Good

You'd think companies launching products costing $100M+ to make and market would put some more efforts into focus groups to guide them what to make. It doesn't cost a lot. Our company can spend $50,000-100,000 where Nielsen does questionnaires and focus groups and then they recap the results and present back to the marketing department the good, bad and ugly regarding the prototype.

When it comes to media, it's like all these big and small studios scrounge up shit loads of money and just wing it, hoping whatever story or movie they make is a winner. When in reality most are shit and make hardly any money.

More data research and focus group testing probably goes into making frozen pizzas than games and movies.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

It's a good thing Bob Iger came back to right this ship.

 

[TaylorSwiftFan]

And the US gross for the week-end is twice that of the rest of the world too. If it bombed in the US, imagine how much worse it did in the other countries.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

You'd think companies launching products costing $100M+ to make and market would put some more efforts into focus groups to guide them what to make. It doesn't cost a lot. Our company can spend $50,000-100,000 where Nielsen does questionnaires and focus groups and then they recap the results and present back to the marketing department the good, bad and ugly regarding the prototype.

When it comes to media, it's like all these big and small studios scrounge up shit loads of money and just wing it, hoping whatever story or movie they make is a winner. When in reality most are shit and make hardly any money.

More data research and focus group testing probably goes into making frozen pizzas than games and movies.

Focus group would be most representative for the population as a whole. But then that majority will not go to Twitter to decry lack of inclusion in the move. Companies don’t want a bad press, regardless if it’s justified or not. Same as they want good press, no matter the reason.

So it’s a balancing act. In the late 1990s Disney was losing ground to Pixar because their movies were seen as too vanilla, and Pixar’s one’s bringing that edge and satirical humour.

I would still say the main reason it bombed was something you cannot test, or at least influence except changing the creatives behind the project - it’s ugly. It has that play-do art style that I absolutely detest.

 

[hemo memo]

Imagine this insane idea and think about it for a second. Just imagine if companies gave complete freedom to its creators without the pressure modern day inclusivity-everything is offensive mentality and just let them go wild wit their ideas.

Just imagine.

 

[ahtlas7]

Soooo, I can’t believe I’m asking this, when does Mr. Iger start work?

 

[Mr Reasonable]

When it comes to media, it's like all these big and small studios scrounge up shit loads of money and just wing it, hoping whatever story or movie they make is a winner. When in reality most are shit and make hardly any money.

More data research and focus group testing probably goes into making frozen pizzas than games and movies.

To be fair, Hollywood movies are becoming homogenous enough - designed to be franchises, ensemble cast, etc.

I'm pretty sure that if movie studios went and polled audiences before deciding on greenlighting their productions, then we'd be seeing even more superhero movies and even more connection between those movies, and with less individuality.

In games, even more sequels, even more playing it safe genre choices.

So, personally, I hope they don't start heavily following audience preferences, because to me giving people exactly what they want has been quite boring.

I won't be looking out for strange world, but I hope that going forward movie studios make the occasional stinker rather than just sticking to the format and churning out the next sequel.

 

[TaylorSwiftFan]

So, personally, I hope they don't start heavily following audience preferences, because to me giving people exactly what they want has been quite boring.

You can give audiences what they want and make good movies at the same time. In this case, it’s not what people and it’s bad.

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

I wonder how long Disney will try to pander 150MM+ movies just to see them bomb badly at the BO while losing 100MM+? If there's a rally at some point in the near future I'm selling all my shares.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Completely Bailing out from cg movies after half of shrek 3 and never looking back continue to be one of my best moves ever...

Shrek 3 is awful. The Italian localization made it even worse, but it’s just as soulless in English. It’s one of the worst CG movies, but there’s been plenty of good stuff after that.

 

[GymWolf]

Shrek 3 is awful. The Italian localization made it even worse, but it’s just as soulless in English. It’s one of the worst CG movies, but there’s been plenty of good stuff after that.

That shit scarred me for life, i just don't care anymore about cg movies.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

One thing I think disney has forgotten is doing "morality tales" using non-human characters. They can side-step a lot of their criticism about inclusion if they went back to anthropomorphic animals. Heck, so many of their classic movies used that to dodge direct comparisons between the characters and real life. Plus it usually makes for a more interesting visual presentation that can entertain kids while the dialogue goes for the adults.

This is an excellent take, in addition to animals-base merchandise is probably an easy sell (I cannot imagine a lot of boys got heavily into Frozen merch).

he pointed to Black Panther and Coco as movies that "changed the world" but strikes the "balance" he said was necessary to not alienate people.

Coco was super fun, but I think the themes were rather complex. Same with Raya - there is just too much going on for small kids to keep track of.

I've seen these "town halls" referenced before - are these internal employee meetings? Open to everyone in Disney - even people in the parks? If so it's interesting how open the company is to giving info to all levels of the organization.

Most likely open only to Disney corporate office - people involved directly in running the business. You cannot have all the park employees leaving their posts and sitting in the town hall for 30 minutes.

 

[JimmyRustler]

Went to watch it with my daughter, wokeness is not the problem in this movie, it's just really boring and had about zero jokes.

Wokeness is a problem not because of the message but because when you constantly have to watch out for inclusion and not stepping on anyones toes you almost certainly end up with some generic trash.
I can only imageine how horrible it is for an artist to work for Disney at the moment.

 

[kuncol02]

The big viking-looking guy and dog have good designs. The mom and dad are ok but could be better. The other two are nasty.

The nose on the dad is looks a little weird.

Dog looks like every other dog in animation (it would fit in probably every other Disney CGI animation). big guy would look good if faces of EVERY character wouldn't be so ugly and featureless. I saw animations made on purpose badly by one guy with more style than this shit.

 

[SF Kosmo]

I literally never heard of this movie until these articles about it bombing started coming out, I suspect I'm not the only one.

It's this. The movie was marketed terribly, and that's the reason it bombed, not anything else. Plenty of mediocre cg kids films do gangbusters, parents will happily take kids to whatever just to keep the kids occupied, but this one wasn't on the radar.

I didn't see it by my wife took my stepdaughter to see it and they both liked it. I suspect ineffective marketing is to blame for its failures.

 

[jason10mm]

Imagine this insane idea and think about it for a second. Just imagine if companies gave complete freedom to its creators without the pressure modern day inclusivity-everything is offensive mentality and just let them go wild wit their ideas.

Just imagine.

But that's probably what they are doing. The creatives are likely the most lefty types that want to put this stuff into their project.

I've little doubt the executives would ljust LOVE to go back to pre 2015 ways of doing business and just keep on making money without having to deal with this stuff.

 

[DeafTourette]

I genuinely never even knew this existed till now, was it even advertised?

This! Chapek had an edict about lowering marketing budgets ... Maybe theirs was killed altogether?

How would anyone know it had "woke virtue signaling" if it was barely advertised?

 

[thefool]

I said this a couple of times, it's so easy to reject disney messaging. Just don't watch it, don't engage with it, don't fall for their fabricated controversies. Eventually, it leads to failure.

 

[RJMacready73]

Could care less if the main char is gay/trans/disabled/whatever if the story suck balls and it looks like some cheap Chinese animation studio knockoff, your film is gonna tank hard.. I honestly didn’t think this was a Disney flick, I saw some parts of the trailer and assumed it was from one of those other studios that make shite cartoons for parents to sit their kids down to so they can get a break

 

[Trunx81]

What if it’s not about being a woke picture, but just a bad one? I’m sure if you’ve had a good script and compelling characters, you could still shoehorn as much wokeness into it as you like and still make it a success. People often try to blame hate, etc on a box office flop. Eg Ghostbuster*x: Just a bad movie with bad comedy. The women-gang was just the cherry on top

 

[diffusionx]

What if it’s not about being a woke picture, but just a bad one? I’m sure if you’ve had a good script and compelling characters, you could still shoehorn as much wokeness into it as you like and still make it a success. People often try to blame hate, etc on a box office flop. Eg Ghostbuster*x: Just a bad movie with bad comedy. The women-gang was just the cherry on top

It’s not a linear relationship, first of all these wokefests are made by people who want to make them. See the article I posted in this thread. Nobody is being forced to insert and talk about all this stuff, they want to do it. We saw this at Disney, the row that led to them losing their district in Florida was driven by employees, the same employees driving movies like this.

Second of all, it tends to be that the sort who want to make this just aren’t as good at the stuff we normally associate with quality. There is some logic to this, if you are the sort who focuses on this stuff then you probably also think it makes for a good script and compelling characters. This has happened so many times the past 5-10 years in Hollywood, vidya, etc. It can’t be accidental.

For example, I might think the “bigot sandwich” dialogue in LOU2 is horrible and cringe but I guarantee the person who wrote it thought it was awesome.

 

[Whitecrow]

To me, looks like spreading politically correct ideas gives creators more pride than provinding entertainment, and they care less about raw profit.

 

[TTOOLL]

Well at least disabled dogs are being represented this time!!!!!

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Nice

 

[jason10mm]

To me, looks like spreading politically correct ideas gives creators more pride than provinding entertainment, and they care less about raw profit.

Thats probably how it should work. The 'creatives' should be focused on making what they are passionate about. It's the job of the PRODUCERS to A. hire creatives whose vision aligns with what they want for the project and B. hammer out the creatives efforts that don't align with the projects goals. So any failure of this film really falls on the producers and directors for A. an unappealing art style (for some), B. an unengaging story (for some), C. plotlines unwanted by large swaths of the audience, and D. marketing that TOTALLY missed the boat, no matter how you look at it. I saw trailers for this film months ago and it looked like a dull stinker full of manic pixies and yet another reluctant male lead...PASS.

I almost wonder if Disney is trying to bank a bunch of niche targeted films so they can then go on a long run of "traditional" films to earn back the $$$ they lost on the focused stuff but they can still point to their catalogue whenever anyone objects (and you know they will if EVERY SINGLE ASPECT is ignored in ANY film). Clearly the LGBT+ crowd wasn't satisfied with "Elsa is gay" subtext, much less the guy in Beauty and the Beast or the rainbow flower sister in Encanto. It's gotta be right up on front street for it "to count". So now Disney can back off and point to SW for like 10 years until it's time to pay the piper yet again.

I'd rather they continue to broaden their myth stea....errr inspiration gathering from other cultures beyond europe/england as a way to diversify their catalogue appeal versus going back to the same well over and over but then multiculturalising the depiction. But clearly the STORY (maybe the songs are even more important) is the most critical part, regardless of how it is dressed.

And for the guy who thought The Black Cauldron was their worst film.... WRONG!!! It is damned EPIC!

 

[AmuroChan]

Disney didn't do any marketing for this film because internally they knew this would bomb. They'll just use this as a big tax write-off.

 

[TaylorSwiftFan]

It's this. The movie was marketed terribly, and that's the reason it bombed, not anything else. Plenty of mediocre cg kids films do gangbusters, parents will happily take kids to whatever just to keep the kids occupied, but this one wasn't on the radar.

I didn't see it by my wife took my stepdaughter to see it and they both liked it. I suspect ineffective marketing is to blame for its failures.

It also has a 39% on RT when it comes to user ratings.

The movie probably has a $100M marketing budget too.

 

[jason10mm]

It's also competing with Black Panther for stuff like McDonalds toys. At least a few days ago McD had wakanda stuff in the happy meals at any rate. Disney is now competing with itself with these heavy hitter releases.

 

[kruis]

Well at least disabled dogs are being represented this time!!!!!

Pfff, one token disabled dog in one single movie doesn't make up for decades of ableism. Why is that when people think of movie dogs they immediately think of Rough Collies, German Shepherds and St. Bernards instead of Chihuaha's or Xolos? Hollywood racism in its purest form. We need dozens more movies with dog performers from margninalized breeds before Hollywood gets a pass from me. Too long were their yelps silenced!

 

[SF Kosmo]

It also has a 39% on RT when it comes to user ratings.

Which has zero to do with opening weekend box office performance. If the issue was bad word of mouth from people who saw it and disliked it, that could shorten its tail, but opening weekends are predicted more by hype and marketing than anything to do with their content.

The movie probably has a $100M marketing budget too.

I dunno about that... It seems a lot less visible than even Encanto, which also had a poor initial box office (despite blowing up on streaming).

It's also competing with Black Panther for stuff like McDonalds toys. At least a few days ago McD had wakanda stuff in the happy meals at any rate. Disney is now competing with itself with these heavy hitter releases.

There's truth to this, Wakanda Forever is a juggernaut and a movie that attracts a lot of the young girl audience that would normally be jazzed for Disney stuff. Plus movie attendance is still anemic post-Covid. There are huge blockbusters that do really well, but overall movie attendance is still down, so there's less "room" for movies other than the "it" movie of a given moment to succeed.

 

[Kraz]

Hadn't noticed it before and it wasn't on my viewing list. shall wait for D+. Animation looks amazing. Retro scifi, adults pulling their hair out, are qualities that have contributed to many cult classics for young generations. Kids will form their own opinions around controversies.

Only Disney/Pixar to really catch my eye and look forward to in recent years is Elemental.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I am totally shocked to learn that Twitter lunatics and resetera posters cannot make a $180 million movie a success.

Plus let’s be honest, all of this is performative, they post about how stunning and brave it is and don’t actually spend money on it.

Maybe, just maybe they're the vocal minority given the microphone in the great culture war.

Hint: they are.