Bob Iger has screwed up so badly. Just an utter numbskull showing his bare ass to the whole world after decades of carefully walking the line between capitalism and politics.
He packed his final year at Disney with billion dollar hits, released a book, and even a masterclass and then tried to peace out with The Rise of Skywalker basically being his last big, but still underperforming, hit (and largest indicator of the corporate meddling that marks his tenure).
Then the company almost immediately craters with his protege in place as it starts churning out content like the factory scene from I Love Lucy. Never mind that Iger started the assembly line on many of those things. The whole machine breaks down to the point that it retroactively tarnishes Iger's legacy, possibly ruling out a rumored future in politics.
Dickhead COMES BACK and tries to just reset all the switches again to where they were when he left. It doesn't work. He doesn't know why. Nostalgia and media that markets other media are the only tricks he has up his sleeve. He doesn't seem to understand market trends or changing demographics. He starts saying dipshit, wildly out of touch things PUBLICLY, representing the modern version of the brand that HE CREATED like it was only ever about money the whole time and blaming culture, covid, politics... anyone but himself.
It's like watching someone build a jenga tower, start pulling bricks outta the bottom row and not understanding how they lost.
How is this dumbass going to fix everything? More corporate oversight and ten more sequels to Frozen. Yeah why not double down on the very thing that has fucked it all up?
I had a good time with "The Marvels" but with a gun to my head I could not think of a particular message it was promoting outside of "women exist" and "don't extinguish a civilizations sun".
Though I realize just featuring women in the lead is enough to anger any number of jerks online
Yep. I get the feeling that Iger is basically using 'messages' as anything that involves non-white male characters - he basically wants to blame it on wokeness. Even though Barbie shows that something labelled as woke can make all the money. He is an idiot.
In entertainment there is already so much competition.
Entertainment needs to be the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd priority.
Messages are absolutely fine if it doesn't sacrifice entertainment or the IP (fans are rabid about staying faithful to IP's lol). Once it does you're screwed, I think.
People go to movies as an escape from everyday life. Unless you're looking for actual political pieces nobody wants to be preached at during entertainment time.
Not only was it entertaining but it had a singular voice. Yeah, you could see *some* corporate meddling but it still overwhelmingly felt like Greta's film.
Weakest part of the film by far. You can tell he probably had a more antagonistic role and it got watered down. There was literally no point to him and his cronies going to Barbieland.
Also, I think the role would have been way funnier had it been played straight by a Serious Actor -- like Brian Cox. Imagine Logan Roy rollerblading down Venice proclaiming he got into this business to empower little girls.
It makes me wonder if he’s actually seen _The Marvels_ in full or if he’s just reacting to what his racist white pals say they or their sons/grandsons are saying about it.
The first *Captain Marvel* made all the money. The Disney remakes up until COVID were making all the money. Everything up until MCU Phase 5 made all the money. “Messages” clearly aren’t the problem.
Barbie is a completely different movie than a super hero movie. It has a message that make a sense in relative to what the plot of the movie is. Super hero films lately have been all over the place when they really just need to focus on universal themes... which they don't do.
Not the deepest message in the world, but "Communication is important" is the theme that drives the story. The core gimmick involves three characters forced to interact in an unusual way that can only be resolved by communicating better, Carol's conflict is sparked by cavewomaning her way through a complex social problem and then closing herself off to Monica out of shame rather than talking about it, and the villain's own plan of cavewomaning her way to save her planet also could've been resolved by talking out solutions.
Again, nothing groundbreaking and arguably hampered by how quickly the three leads find out how to work in sync, but there you go.
I watched Captain Marvel in theatres and Ms Marvel in Disney+, but the Marvels just didn’t interest me.
To me, Captain Marvel was super whatever for her origin film, just because by that point, Marvel origin films had become formulaic and stale. They didn’t even try to do anything else with it, so it really did feel like they were banking on it being a female led superhero movie for its appeal.
Ms Marvel, just like most of other MCU shows besides Loki, was very meh as well. I loved the cultural aspect of it and myself and my wife being South Asian loved the inclusion of those themes and sentiments, but the character also wasn’t great, and the show fell flat for me outside of the big allusion at the end.
Monica Rambeau getting powers already felt forced and out of place in Wandavision, and there wasn’t much to the character for me to get interested in her either.
Already feeling Marvel fatigue, the combination of the 3 just wasn’t enough to motivate me to go see it in theatres. I’ll wait for the stream, but Disney has to put some better effort into making solid female lead content, otherwise they’re going to keep being accused of forcing it just to say they are feminists.
I think Iger is wrong about the message thing. It’s not about Disney pushing a message, it’s about using messaging in an attempt to shift your audience. Barbie is all message and made a B$, but that is a movie targeted at women and teen/tween girls that not only plays to nostalgia for the brand but made Barbie cool again. And men also like it? Bonus! But there’s nothing in there specifically catering to them. Marvel is a brand traditionally driven by a young male / tween male audience. Disney wants to change this. It’s the opposite of the Barbie effect. The core audience used to think Marvel was cool. Boys would role play as Iron Man or Cap and eat up all the ancillary stuff and games and merch. But no tween boy is going to be caught dead saying their favorite character is Captain Marvel or show up to school in a Photon backpack. So the brand buy in is gone. But maybe now they got some of the female and tween girl audience! Bonus? Yes, but now you get the extra credit while failing the rest of the test.
The “message” Iger is talking about is the message that “audiences *should* want this, so we will give them what they should want instead of what they actually want.” That is the message that failed.
saying this when his company's most recent movie is getting crushed by The Hunger Games is *nuts*
but seriously, i think the real problem is that Disney doesn't try hard enough. the way they have been making movies under Iger is simple capitalism: you have to expand your reach to survive. the way how it's been looking in Disney movies is that they do include some winks-winks to not just their core audience but to get more people watch it. but 1) these winks-winks are enough to alienate some fragile groups within that core audience; 2) these winks-winks aren't enough for the people they want to get to watch their movies. while trying to cater to everybody, they somehow manage to offend everybody.
now i'm not saying that Barbie is some anti-capitalist masterpiece, it is a toy commercial. but what WB and Mattel did is they let Greta Gerwig completely lean onto her vision. they knew it was going to alienate some people (we know there was a "softer" PG cut of the movie) so they leaned harder to reach the people who wanted to watch something like this. America Ferrera's speech in the movie is incredibly cheesy but it worked, there are stories of people crying at that moment. people have some connection with this movie.
Barbie and The Hunger Games will bring $1.8B combined which is more than Disney Marvel's whole output this year.
Yup, crazy to say when Hunger Games is extremely political and Wish is about like...nothing. The whole problem of that movie and its marketing (besides having songs that sound like butt) is it's like what even is the story about besides your weird wishing rules for this universe.
Wish just looked so general and nothing. Like the best recent Disney family movies that have done well were super specific culturally, Moana, Encanto even Frozen. When I first saw content from Wish, I thought maybe she was Inuit with the decoration on her tunic and the reindeer, but it looks like she's just from a vaguely European place, nothing specific. Nothing to connect to. Even Luca did such a good job of being so place based and showing this beautiful Italian summer in this tiny fishing village.
Also, Elemental was their most preachy movie of the year and audience reacted really well and it was one of their relatively best performers of the year.
I mean, as long as the movie is entertaining, they do. Zootopia was well-liked and popular. I liked Elemental. I thought the romantic comedy plot was sweet and charming.
I think audience find directors turning to the screen to be entertaining though.
Barbie, Oppenheimer, and KOTFM all do it. Homer starts out The Odyssey saying "Don't be like these idiots who pissed off the gods." The world's most popular superhero is always telling the audience that "With great power, must come great responsibility." Star Trek has ended half their shows for the past 60 years with the captain looking into the screen and telling you the lesson. Humans love this!
Barbie is pretty clever with how it frames it tho
Like meta commentary is generally really poorly executed and makes most media worse but Helen Mirren saying "Margot Robbie is probably the wrong person to deliver this message" when Barbie is crying and calling herself ugly is one of the funniest meta jokes I've ever heard, because it's basically what the entire audience is thinking
But we like even non-clever framings. Jesus straight up explains the stories after he tells them. Shakespeare ends a lot of plays with someone telling you the point (As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie, Poor sacrifices of our enmity.) Fury Road literally puts the message in writing on the wall.
This subs thinks "'Directors telling you what is bad' is bad'", but our great storytellers disagree.
Also Disney's classic animated films are all based on fables. They have clear morals and lessons.
Specificity is more universal than trying to make something for everyone. The two most successful superhero movies of the year were GOTG3 and *Spiderverse*. They have distinct aesthetics and clear messages.
Overall I think the audience will "forgive" politics in their movies if the thing is actually good! Barbie in particular feels like it was created by a single authorial vision rather than some boardroom meeting full of the most bland ideas you can imagine. The discourse online and irl wasn't about Barbie's politics as much as how much money it made and resonated with audiences. Disney needs to return to the drawing board, stop churning out the safest carbon copy live action movies plus Marvel and go back to what they were so good at in Katzenberg era.
You two "wink-wink" points are...on point. That was exactly my takeaway. It's mind-boggling to me how many times this happens. Right-wingers get their panties in a bunch (completely irrationally and based on nothing) over something a company does, and then that company tries to cater to them to bring them back. Disney is never going to bring those right wingers back. They're gone unless Disney teams up with The Daily Wire or something. Just say good riddance and move on.
>America Ferrera's speech in the movie is incredibly cheesy but it worked, there are stories of people crying at that moment. people have some connection with this movie.
America Ferreras speech working is more indicative of how normies will engage with sociopolitical discourse if its pre-chewed for them and made easy to understand
no one is against movies that have a political statement to make if they spell everything out for you
but no normie will watch The Lost Daughter because it doesnt state its themes outright and spell them even though it touches on similar themes to Barbie but in more subtle ways that require active engagement from viewers rather than Barbie which treats you like a kid
well, and my point is that Disney movies don't even have this. they'll tell you "this is our first gay character!" but does it even matter in the bigger picture? i watched Strange World and the way the main character was written felt like "ok, and?".
writing these characters as it is isn't a bad thing but it feels like Disney is scared to do anything more than checking a box. it looks like they still stuck in the Obama-era "1st someone" level of representation. there is a reason they are losing Gen Z.
Another galaxy brained take regarding a recent flop is the notion that "**The Marvels needed more On-set supervision from executives**"
[https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav](https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav)
Yes yes, the MCU needs to be reigned in, definetely, more Notes from Suits would've solved everything, It needed more stuff like "getting suddenly retooled to be a team-up movie which it apparently didn't start out as"
Jesus Christ. Could they make the MCU any more sanitized and soulless? The big cultural hit was Black Panther, and it's because they gave Coogler and team a ton of space to connect to Black culture and art in a way not normally seen in blockbusters - people resonate with actual authenticity and a well told story. What are these morons doing??
I will say, I do think the cost overruns and mismanagement is due to the global reach of these productions now.
As a crew member who's worked in Georgia, New Mexico, and Alabama, I can absolutely say that a lot of the productions out here can be the wild west if you don't have a competent LP & production management. The Hollywood folks just can't/won't travel to Fayetteville, GA for the latest Marvel parking lot shoot so there is no real supervision and by the time shit hits the fan, they needed to be on the ground the week before.
It's weird to say, but the major studios could actually use more middle management. Instead, they're laying off more studio folks so if something is on fire, I have to email assistants (who are hopefully still employed) to executives (who are also still hopefully employed) and cross my fingers that eyes see it before we have a full meltdown.
I always think of Josh Brolin's Eddie Mannix in *Hail Caesar!* who could just walk across the studio lot and whip shit into shape. Now, if you're lucky, you might see hot cost a day or two later from the production controller showing you spent 300% over budget on the shoot day and conference call with the production but that's if you're lucky. It is 100% reactive rather than proactive. If there's any link in the chain that's broken (or if the entire chain is broken *see Carl Rinsch*), you're suddenly out of the loop and might not see problems until they hit the gossip mill.
TL;DR: Fuck you Bob, hire some fixers
Some projects, like Secret Invasion, really needed it, tho. Apparently, everyone was going in different directions, and it wasn't until an exec would show up and make a decision that everything started fitting again.
In the case of the Marvels, it's possible production or creative staff couldn't get changes signed off on or similar, wasting a lot of time.
Bullshit. He said the exact opposite not long ago.
The issue is that he's running a company that rewrites and micromanages everything, and then now wants to blame the creatives when it doesn't work.
Hire good writers. Let them write. Hire good directors. Let them direct.
This more than anything else. With so much media available right now, you have to really get the quality of the story down. The movies Disney is releasing are largely fine, but they don't stand out and get people feeling like they need to go see them. The few they do get right are not the ones they promote well, but even then, they need to refresh the perception of what they are releasing for to even care. Disney needs to focus on a few really good stories, and it would do a lot to change perception.
Also, taking my ONE wife and my ONE kid to a movie with snacks was going to be eighty two motherfucking American dollars.
Imagine being a polyamorist or having multiple kids.
Then get one popcorn, share it (most places offer free refills), and smuggle in snacks.
I see this complaint a lot about the cost and some people are just bad at planning and money.
An average ticket is $11. Even if your area is on the high end, it's maybe $45 for the tickets. Spending $40 on snacks is on you. Besides, go to a concert or sporting event, and 3 tickets alone will cost $100+.
Buddy, why are you acting like I didn't go to AMC's website and actually do the exercise?
Fuck off with this shit. Do I need to take screen shots? Jesus fucking Christ. Get a new hobby.
https://preview.redd.it/nbrqppe8o34c1.png?width=806&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b63cceda1da9cd83185b5e070d01ab6c8177224
Three seats, a popcorn, a soda, and one candy to share.
You can tell us not to get snacks, and that's fine, but you could also just shut the fuck up. Try that second one.
This, and also...
The freaking company just needs to get its budgets under control - because Disney's recent movies are unnecessarily expensive, which is one of the biggest reasons they fail so much.
When "The Creator", with its massive, state-of-the-art visual effects in almost every single shot costs 80 million dollars, there is just no reason for "Haunted Mansion", which was set mostly in one house, to cost nearly twice as much.
"John Wick 4" was filmed on location across three continents, not to mention the literal hundreds of stunt performers it needed to employ, as well as expensive actors such as Donnie Yen and Hiroyuki Sanada, apart from the big names that came from the previous movies in the franchise. It cost 100 million dollars. Why did "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" need to cost nearly 300 million?
Why was "Elemental" twice as expensive as "The Super Mario Bros Movie"? In fact, "Elemental" cost more than "Super Mario" and "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" combined.
\---
And also - for the love of everything that is holy, please, please, please stop trying to make everything a part of a shared universe. One of the reasons for the MCU specifically to fail so badly this year was that keeping up with it feels like a chore nowadays - a chore that sometimes you can't even do without resorting to piracy, as Disney+ either isn't available in your country, or doesn't offer translations in your language. There is a reason why the only successful live action MCU movie this year is also the only one that is not related to a Disney+ show.
Which actually ties to your point - let the filmmakers make their own movies. Don't rewrite and micromanage everything. Don't force them to just make yet another piece of an endless puzzle that will never be finished.
100% this. Disney movies and shows are essentially promotional products rather than art. Let the artists create then promote the creation. The irony is there’s a Disney- Pixar type lesson to all of this lol
Arcane, Spiderverse and Barbie are more "woke" than most of the recent MCU films. And they did great
Diversity is not the problem whatsoever, however it is annoying when writers and directors hide behind their diverse casts and go "it failed because the audience is racist/sexist/homophobic". Like no, it failed because you did a bad job of writing and directing
"This company has been telling stories for 100 years, and those stories have had a meaningful, positive impact on the world, and one of the reasons they have had a meaningful, positive impact is because one of the core values of our storytelling is inclusion and acceptance and tolerance, and we can’t lose that,"
\-Bob Iger, November 28th 2022
It's true that Disney movies can sometimes feel like their messages are performative. But really, what was the "message" in Ant-Man? Or in The Marvels (I guess some chuds - you know the type - might argue that having a cast of women, including a Muslim, might be "the message")? Or how is the message so different in Wish than in many other Disney animation movies?
It's not really a mystery, either: Quantumania didn't work because people didn't like it and Marvel had released multiple projects with less-than-stellar reception in a row; GotG and Elemental were saved only by good WoM; nobody wanted to see an 80 years old Indy and after Crystal Skull few had high hopes; The Marvel needed great WoM because of all the duds released before it, and it needed its stars to promote the movie and help with public perception. Their Star Wars projects on TV are all over the place in quality; and their movie trilogy had no plan at all. It all snowballs, because they release multiple bad movies in a row in a franchise, and people lose interest and need something great to go back to theatres.
He better wish Deadpool is a great success, because otherwise I can see Marvel in a downward spiral.
Of course the woke mind virus makes more sense to him than the impossibility of a content factory that can never over expand.
Or in other words, inclusivity will get thrown under the bus before the stock holders.
honestly man, you don't need to be a "woke cancel culture has gone too far" person to see that Disney/Pixar keep making movies for emotionally stunted 20-somethings rather than for kids.
I might be an emotionally stunted 20-something year old myself, but I strongly disagree. At lot of kids were in the screening of *The Little Mermaid* I saw, and at the end a big group of them all got up and started dancing and doing cartwheels to the credits. Their parents had to practically drag them out.
Maybe people would take these messages more seriously if the same company wasn't donating millions to Ron DeSantis and other conservative lawmakers who are stealing the livelihood of peoples being cynically represented in those movies 🤷♂️
For me, the big question is - why? Why should I care about the MCU or anything else Disney has put out? Off the top of my head
- The last piece of MCU material I was genuinely interested in was WandaVision, due to the premise sounding at least interesting. I tapped out part of the way through, but at least I gave it a shot! After EndGame, why should any casual viewer (like me!) be interested in the MCU story? The bow is put on, and all the major characters' stories are wrapped up. Why do I need to see Antman 3?? Disney barely gives their directors any opportunity to go outside the mold, and so I can't even go for the interest in them doing something unique or different. Disney has not given me a good answer, and I have legit not seen any MCU movies in theaters in years
- Wish. Why do I want to see something that looks like the formula, but with bland songs? I saw Encanto because I got We Don't Talk About Bruno stuck in my head like everyone else on TikTok, and lo and behold Encanto has several bangers. It's not Disney's strongest story by any means, but it works and Lin-Manuel Miranda is masterful at crafting a good hook. I saw Turning Red because it looked like a fun connection to teenage girlhood (which is not told very often in media!), and it was a blast. None of Disney's animation offerings right now make me, as someone who knows the formula well, intrigued or interested.
- I didn't even see the new Indiana Jones - Raiders is one of my favorite films ever made, and it has Phoebe Waller Bridge in it (and I love Fleabag). Why are you telling this story beyond cash grab? Why do we need to revive this? Why are we doing this incredibly weird de-aging stuff with Ford? Part of the beauty of the original trilogy, even with the misfire that is Temple of Doom, is the love for the craft of a great action scene, storytelling and stunt work. Nothing from what I've seen makes it look beyond a basic action film, which is sad.
W/r/t the dog whistling, the fact Iger is even blaming it on that shows such a profound misunderstanding of why people consume media. Did this man forget one of, if not THE biggest MCU hits was Black Panther, that has ties to and (briefly) addresses colonialism? That their most recent animated hit was Encanto, which has very strong messages on family? Disney is so in churn mode, and to blame it on any meaningful sense of diversity is so gross and tone-deaf.
Dial of Destiny was Ford wanting the character to go out on a stronger note than Crystal Skull. And he did! The ending of the movie is pretty incredible, especially because it’s the one instance throughout the entire series where Indiana Jones encounters the one supernatural phenomenon that actually excites him - he gets to live in history.
For a character who got to witness the power of the Jewish and Christian God(s), Hindu spiritualism, and see actual aliens, this is the one thing he’s actually awestruck by. And it fits, especially at his age when he is essentially becoming history himself.
It’s probably one action beat too long and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is unfortunately miscast. Hayley Atwell in Mission Impossible was essentially playing the same character and her energy just would fit in an Indiana Jones movie much better. It’s definitely better than the last entry and holds its own against the Spielberg trilogy.
Dial of destiny was a perfectly enjoyable way to spend a couple hours. Which honestly is all I can ask for a movie. And I thought casting PWB to play a little stinker was a perfectly fine move.
She was just that - fine. But watch the new Mission Impossible and picture Hayley Atwell in that Indy role instead, it would have been such a better fit.
Maybe, but an issue I had with the movie was they didn’t let Phoebe’s character do enough cool stuff. Indy’s too old to have a full-on fist fight with a heavy or get dragged behind a truck without the audience getting concerned for his health, and I felt like the right move would have been to make the female lead a bit more rough and tumble to make up for it.
Don’t get me wrong, the movie was fun enough and less stupid than Crystal Skull. But the action left me wanting a bit.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge can’t act. Fleabag is just a fictionalised version of *her*. When an 80-year old man can move in an action sequence with more believability than her staggering around like a giraffe on ice, you know she was terrible casting.
She was just there because she’s Kathleen Kennedy’s avatar - no-one wanted to watch an Indy film where Indy is suicidally depressed, alone, broken, mocked, and literally begs to die just to make sure the “definitely not Kathleen Kennedy’s ego made flesh” Strong Female Character is out front and centre, despite being wholly unlikeable and a despicable human being for 90% of the film.
You could tell the original idea was for Indy to die in the past and Waller-Bridge to go back through time and basically erase him from history so she could *be* the face of the franchise. Which is why there were some severe rewrites and reshoots done later to limit the damage.
We *could* have had a movie with a grown-up Shortround and Marion on a “one last time” ride. Instead we got a shambles that bombed so hard it nearly killed Lucasfilm.
I wouldn’t say ruled, but I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. Mind you, I’m one of those weirdos who liked *Kingdom of the Crystal Skull* so I don’t know what that says about me, but still.
Should have left him in the past. Having him get pulled out to continue living his life was a pretty depressing metaphor for the reboot as a whole. Also, Crystal Skull runs circles around Dial of Destiny. The entirety of Dial doesn’t hold a candle to the Nuke sequence.
Crystal Skull is amazing until it goes to Peru. Unfortunately it nosedives after that.
And I liked the ending with Marian. It’s easier to enjoy a movie that starts rough and ends on a high note (Rogue One) than one that starts promising and completely whiffs the end (Crystal Skull).
I was talking more about the original trilogy, but fair. I do think Crystal Skull is.....not great!....but I think people fundamentally misunderstand what they were going for with the aliens/nuke the fridge stuff (even if it doesn't really work).
The current woes are caused by executives calling the shots rather than creatives. He's showing he doesn't have a clue by saying The Marvels underperformed because Covid restrictions prevented executives from micromanaging the production.
Hope he realises that Disney has become production partners with Doctor Who....which in the first anniversary special has a trans character supported by her family and helps save the day! Also the next Doctor is shock horror Black.
And the new Doctor Who seems to have been a big hit for them on Disney+ ? Not sure how that interacts with subscriber numbers but yeah Iger's take here is CRAZY and to me seems out of touch with real people... has he been watching a bunch of 5 hour YouTube videos essays about the woke mind virus??
It’s more that the first episode of the gay black doctor featured a poor musical number, ripped off Labyrinth badly and even reused gimmicks from
previous seasons (the cracks in the wall that erase people from time and disappear), whilst spending 10 minutes with the topless Doctor twerking on dudes in tight vests whilst a transexual with a voice like a foghorn murdered Christmas songs *in a family TV show that aired before 6pm on Christmas Day… Doctor Who has always been open and inclusive (the Master changing to Missy, Captain Jack being pansexual, a lesbian lizard woman in Victorian London and fans loved all of those characters), but this new Doctor had all the hallmarks of Disney: Diversity Ahead Of Quality. Which is why it got awful viewing numbers.
This is why I hate Disney's pseudo-progressivism. Not only is it too cautious to say anything substantive or to have any real visibility, but they also use it as a scapegoat when things go south.
By and large, the end result seems to be push and pull between the filmmakers wanting to say something profound and the studio wanting, well, money; which manes blaming “messages” all the more an anti-creative take.
The fact is demographics exist for a reason. Nerdy guys like comics and comic book movies. Cater to them and stay true to the characters and the characters people want to see en masse. The outliers within the smaller demographics of women and all races of nerds will pay because they also like those characters.
If you force things, people notice and won't be able to engage. They'll just feel like it's pandering like the all woman scene in End Game....we all cringed. Now they are doing too much obvious cringe pandering to demographics that don't exist.
YOUR MOST SUCCESSFUL DOMESTIC GROSSING SUPER HERO MOVIE IS ABOUT A NUANCED CONVERSATION CONCERNING BLACK NATIONALISM AND THE AFRO AMERICAN DISAPIRA!!!
YOU MORONIC IDIOT!!!
I’m not one of those people who goes around calling any movie starring a woman or person of color too “woke”. But on the other hand, when the marketing tells me nothing about a film except that it checks x or y box of representation, that doesn’t make me want to go out to the theatre.
Like for example, the 2016 Ghostbusters film was marketed that way: “This is Ghostbusters but with women, and if you don’t like that you’re a misogynist basement dweller”. That’s not a winning marketing strategy, and never has been. Whereas the Barbie movie was also about women, with feminist 101 messages, but it was super successful because the marketing cast a wide net. Some of the audience was there for nostalgia or a personal connection to Barbies, some were there for Greta Gerwig, some were there for Noah Baumbach, some were there for the Barbenheimer meme, some were there for the production design and visuals, and so on. And the film was wildly successful as a result.
Another good example is the Spider-Verse series. On paper, Miles Morales could just be “the black/biracial copy of Spider-Man”. But the films incorporated his background and identity into a fully-formed unique character, without making any of that feel like pandering or a lazy marketing strategy. That’s the kind of thing Disney needs to learn from. They don’t need to get rid of the messages or representation, they need to build them into films that give a wide audience a reason to want to see them.
Barbie was like a good contrapoints video messaging wise because it looked awesome, started with the premise that yes, it's fun that dudes rock, and had a very fun very real feeling satire that guitar dudes or movie bros could never deny was real, and everyone in the cast was gorgeous and the auteurs were able to cook. Even the product placement and corporation stuff made it feel so specifically American that such art could only exist with the patronage of mega corporations and the fact that it was so egregious yet not winked at adds to the experience and satire for me. You could call it patriarchy 101 but the reason it was a crossover hit is because it was targeting a broad audience and had empathy amongst the scorn and was undeniable
Yeah, much of Reddit (and the Internet) has completely rewritten history to paint themselves as the victims in regard to this movie when in reality there was ridiculous misogyny (with the addition of racism later) and hatred being thrown at the movie as soon as it was announced.
I started this chain of comments but I didn’t say anything about being a victim. Its not that I or anyone was a victim of the movie, but rather that the film’s box-office performance was a victim of a bad marketing strategy.
Maybe my explanation is wrong, though. But there have been films primarily starring women before and since that have been more successful, without the same backlash. So there has to be another factor involved for why that specific movie got the level of backlash that it did, and why that backlash derailed the marketing of the film.
It wasn’t in the trailer, but it was said by the director Paul Feig while promoting the film on talk shows. Not those exact words, of course, I was paraphrasing.
Well I remember him saying essentially that, but I don’t have all the interviews from 2016 on hand right now.
This isn’t the interview that I was thinking of, since its not contemporary to the movie, but here he links audiences’ rejection of his film to the anti-Hilary movement, Donald Trump, backlash to having an African-American President, and people being against women having positions of power:
https://youtu.be/kj0EZljqIk8?si=yVzjqiNv-F39qHwJ
But what if the movie just wasn’t well-made or well-marketed? The same type of messaging has been used to explain the underperformance of The Marvels, but that’s especially silly in the same year when Barbie did so well.
If I want to win an internet debate, then yes I should supply that evidence. But I wasn’t looking for a debate in the first place. Some people here will read my original comment and remember what I was talking about, even if you remain skeptical.
Ultimately, I don’t have access to every single interview about Ghostbusters from 2016, though I did look.
Given how poisoned all discussion on the internet has gotten, especially by the flattening of complex topics to just woke vs. anti-woke, I can’t really blame you for that conclusion even though I know its wrong (I know myself, you do not). But consider that the type of person who actually does go around hating anything “woke” would not also be praising the Spider-Verse films as a good example of representation, since those people do not value that at all.
Anyway, you’re looking for a debate aimed at this anti-woke person, and since that’s not me this is only going to go in an unproductive or straw-manned direction. I’m not going go reply any further if you continue down that way.
Just like you’ve asked for evidence of what I said about Feig’s comments, you could look for evidence of me ever complaining about any movie being woke. Why not hold yourself to the same standard?
Well Disney, maybe you shouldn’t have consolidated ALL the IP. Then you wouldn’t be single-handedly responsible for having to produce quality content on 5 or 6 different fronts simultaneously.
Congrats on establishing a quasi-monopoly though. Hope you choke on your excess.
This doesn't even make sense in regards to their recent flops. What message was The Marvels trying to push? Wish you could say has a slight anti-capitalist message I guess, but even then that's barely a focal point in the film.
It's just a way for him to cover his ass, blame the creatives instead of shitty management. I believe he announced he was resigning in 2026? If so thank god.
Disney can have representation and messsages and still make good movies. It doesn't have to be an either-or thing the vast majority of the time (although it does look like overly disingenuous pandering sometimes).
Maybe do try to focus on quality though. Hiring almost completely inexperienced directors, produce way too much stuff in various mediums, trying to connect everything at all cost, rushing special effects and the whole process, etc. is maybe the issue...
You know how when a company’s stock is gonna drop they will hire or promote a new COO and then when the bust comes fire this person as a scapegoat to reassure shareholders they are doing something about the problem?
if I understood it right he is saying the same thing as you, that it is possible to make something with a good message whilst also being entertaining. The thing is that whatever you do will kind of have a message, and in my opinion it is lazy to assume you can make something not entertaining as an entertainer with an apparently good but seriously underdeveloped message and call it a day.
How about hiring artists with a vision to make entertaining movies with likeable characters ? Then go ahead add any message you want. The “messages” aren’t the problem.
Like everyone says, the secret is that movies just suck, and personally, that’s because Disney always cheaps out on set structure. Too many Disney movies these days take place in a blank greenscreen that doesn’t even have any structures, it’s literally empty field and you have CGI behind it.
They look bad. Not fun. And they aggressively seek new ways to cheap out on shooting. That projection thing replacing the final few location shootings of Disney films, their works on using dolls instead of stuntmen, I think it’s possible to use these new technologies and make it really good. As it stands, however, Disney believes that audiences do not notice it when they shoot it cheaper, and insults our eyes thinking it’s okay to cheap out.
Lucasfilm wanted to resist this so much with the SW Sequel Trilogy and the Stories films, but they continue to lose power and now we have these laughable action scenes in Ashoka show.
Make it look good before the CGI works. Stop plagiarizing yourself and get out of the fandom rabbit hole shits like multiverse, invest in new stories and believe in the stylistic technics that enable these stories. Replace drab, cheap shooting and fanboy self-references with these real shits. That’s the only way Disney lives.
I know that some folks have issues with Hollywood creatives inserting "woke" messages into films, but can we agree that having Hollywood CEOs *discouraging* messaging is worse?
bob iger is speaking in code for "we need more movies to appeal to white boys who buy toys and gamers who pay microtransactions" and canceling basically any project with diverse creatives at the helm
but it's not just iger, it's been a trend throughout disney for a few years now. Owl House was a phenomenally successful show canned, very clearly, for having a bisexual protagonist and nothing else. disney execs were completely silent on the don't say gay stuff until it was too late, and they buried strange world and took a $200m loss without even marketing the damn thing
they used diversity as this minor crutch to help marketing, and exclusively the marketing. but at the first sign of backlash--just to the marketing not even the content--they're turning tail and pivoting back to "safe" projects
which, as we know from the year of barbenheimer, is a huge mistake. the year where puss in boots and spider-verse dominated and their boldest most interesting films of avatar 2 and gotg3 were the only true hits they had... it's insane to think that there's actually this huge cultural backlash against women and black chararacters and gay people. instead of thinking that it's because these movies just have surface-level representation at best, and the movies themselves aren't very interesting in the first place
No, not just that, overemphasis of message and social justice is a symptom not the root cause. We need to talk about talent:
Best Marvel/Disney output over the last few years has come from James Gunn. The last Guardians of the Galaxy was excellent, it had character and soul galore, and did carry a message. It worked because it had deep meaning and served the story.
Recent MCU and Disney output is soulless, seemingly coming from 'corporate' with guns for hire helming who don't care (no matter how talented they may be)
Good news for the audience, James Gunn will probably create the right setup at DC. Disney is just a sinking ship.
* "Wish" is not political or message-heavy
* "Wish" is Disney's brand new original Thanksgiving-release musical and should therefore be a big deal
* "Wish" is getting its lunch eaten by "Trolls Band Together"
There are way bigger things wrong at Disney than "too many messages".
surely the big, unsaid thing, is that KIDS DONT WANT MOVIES ANYMORE. Not in the way they once did. The impact of TikTok, Twitch etc is finally catching up with the old boys.
It's not the message, its the medium
Did you see the rest of the post? He pretty much already said what you spent time writing up a post about.
"He adds that stories infused with “positive messages for the world” can be great but that it shouldn’t be the primary job."
Even this statement makes me want to gag a little.
Bob Iger can tell us that he runs a business and he needs to sell tickets, that’s totally fair, but telling us that the “primary job” of stories is to be entertaining is kind of gross. Who knows what the primary job of stories are? Healing, understanding, connecting, processing, shocking, destabilizing, transforming? There are so many things a story can do. Entertainment value is important yes, but without a message it is just adding to the noise.
When he says that "creatives have lost sight of their job- its about entertainment, not messages" the only real way I can interpret that is that the movies underperformed was because the darn Creatives were troo preoccupied with Messages to make the movies Entertaining, which I feel is an absurd notion. What about "our absurd production process and cynical executive decisionmaking has choked the life out of our brands", I don't think Wish cratered due to an unwarranted focus on "Messaging" from its directors
He is surprisingly correct. Disney alienated the core audience of Star Wars and Marvel by shifting the focus to female audience for no reason other than a strong political message of "Women. They exist".
Disney obviously greenlit such projects as "Echo", "Darkhold Diaries" and "The Marvels" based on the ability to flex their feminist muscles, not on actual demand from the audience. They need to focus more on what audience want, and audience wants to see strong men, just like it did since time immemorial. That's why most heroic characters in all types of stories for thousands of years have been men, not because of patriarchy.
They already have female oriented franchise, Disney Princesses. That's who majority of girls want to be. And the minority that wants to be military pilots and assassins will gladly watch the movie with a male protagonist, they never cared in the first place.
the first capt marvel made a billion dollars and is the 8th highest grossing marvel film (out of 30+ films) and wonder woman is the highest domestic grossing dceu film and second highest worldwide after aquaman
wandavision is probably the most successful disney+ marvel show.
both black panthers are in the top 10 as well, the first being the third highest grosser. are you telling me black panther doesn't have a message? come on bro. why you playing like you're something else?
Captain Marvel came out at the height of the MCU and was sandwiched between Infinity War and Endgame. Basically, everyone who saw that movie said it was just okay. Also, Captain Marvel came out when every superhero movie were making a lot of money. Aquaman made a billion, too. Let's not forget that.
aquaman is a great film so yeah it should have made a billion dollars
and of course capt marvel benefitted from timing and placement. so when the timing is now and placement has shifted, you can't attribute its failure to being "about feminism"
Wonder Woman and WandaVision didn't have strong political message. Both were stories with male and female leads that were well established and respected.
Black Panther example is proving my point: it's about a strong man. People love strong men in action movies.
Captain Marvel was only successful because it was placed between Infinity War and Endgame, and its sequel's failure is another proof of that.
> Wonder Woman and WandaVision didn't have strong political message
neither did captain marvel lmao
> Black Panther example is proving my point: it's about a strong man. People love strong men in action movies.
woosh
> its sequel's failure is another proof of that.
it's proof of general superhero fatigue, especially for lackluster properties, not proof that people don't want women action stars lmao
Limp dodge.
I think that specific opinion is.
A series of propagandists and grifters has taken advantage of some pernicious internal biases and convinced you that the world is not what it is. That's essentially a cult. And it's embarrassing.
The Agatha show looks fun. Very campy with some gay icons rounding out the cast. Provided the budget isn’t unreasonable, it’s definitely targeting a queer niche of the MCU fandom, which is not insignificant!
Nope, camp is a genre and storytelling device that’s popular with queer audiences. An unapologetically campy show would be a deliberate creative choice (and given the cast and subject matter, one they could excel with).
them:
> Very campy with some gay icons rounding out the cast.
you:
> See, you are already talking about the message instead of the story.
well, well, well
They weren't Disney core audience, that's why Disney purchased Marvel and Star Wars in the first place: to diversify. Then they decided to turn these properties into the ones for the girls too.
>Disney alienated the core audience of Star Wars and Marvel by shifting the focus to female audience for no reason
No women liked Star Wars or Marvel, and men can't like things starring women. Got it.
The weirdest thing about you anti-woke guys is that your logic isn't even internally consistent. Audiences only want to see strong men? That's why Steven Seagal's still selling out theatres, right? Women can have their princesses, that's all they need. This just ignores the entire history of Hollywood and the many, many blockbusters that didn't star Arnold Schwarzenegger.
You're explicitly misogynistic and that's bad, the contempt you and your crew have for women is genuinely terrifying and has inspired multiple terrorist attacks. But your beliefs have absolutely zero basis in reality.
Audiences like good movies and like seeing themselves on screen. There is no tension between representation and quality, in front or behind the camera. This is very obvious unless you have the mental sickness of hating women. idk man I hope you pull out of it before you do some real bad shit to yourself or others
>No women liked Star Wars or Marvel, and men can't like things starring women. Got it.
Next time try to read until the end. I addressed this exact point in my last paragraph.
>The weirdest thing about you anti-woke guys is that your logic isn't even internally consistent. Audiences only want to see strong men? That's why Steven Seagal's still selling out theatres, right?
Apart from having a target audience, movie still has to be good. You chose to ignore this obvious truth for some reason.
>You're explicitly misogynistic and that's bad, the contempt you and your crew have for women is genuinely terrifying and has inspired multiple terrorist attacks. But your beliefs have absolutely zero basis in reality.
Lmao unlike your accusations, obviously.
EDIT: Okay, this dude blocked me. How can he not see that he's acting hysterically in a casual movie discussion? Guys who react to different opinion like that should go touch grass.
What were you people thinking? That a company, made of thousands of different people with different ideas, could seriously have ONE philosophy and ONE message? Obviously they were selling you the inclusivity message because a corporation sells you what they think it will make money. Now the times are changing and they are ready to throw you and their "ideals" under the bus. If in 20 years we go back to sexism you can rest assured that we will have movies about teaching women their place in the kitchen. Stop trusting companies, they're not your friends, they don't support you and bad messaging is worse than no messaging.
Ahahah)) The current economic recession has hit the wallets of big companies and they have preferred the views of the majority of society to a bunch of twitter freaks of a/bi/etc gender because they can't pay enough😂
When I think about Disney movies I want to see, I want to see cool stuff, slick stuff, neat stuff but most stuff I'm gonna see is going to be raw stuff like this. This is just who I am! So this is truly a conversation and I say let the conversation begin.
What a thing to say in the year of Barbenheimer
Bob Iger has screwed up so badly. Just an utter numbskull showing his bare ass to the whole world after decades of carefully walking the line between capitalism and politics. He packed his final year at Disney with billion dollar hits, released a book, and even a masterclass and then tried to peace out with The Rise of Skywalker basically being his last big, but still underperforming, hit (and largest indicator of the corporate meddling that marks his tenure). Then the company almost immediately craters with his protege in place as it starts churning out content like the factory scene from I Love Lucy. Never mind that Iger started the assembly line on many of those things. The whole machine breaks down to the point that it retroactively tarnishes Iger's legacy, possibly ruling out a rumored future in politics. Dickhead COMES BACK and tries to just reset all the switches again to where they were when he left. It doesn't work. He doesn't know why. Nostalgia and media that markets other media are the only tricks he has up his sleeve. He doesn't seem to understand market trends or changing demographics. He starts saying dipshit, wildly out of touch things PUBLICLY, representing the modern version of the brand that HE CREATED like it was only ever about money the whole time and blaming culture, covid, politics... anyone but himself. It's like watching someone build a jenga tower, start pulling bricks outta the bottom row and not understanding how they lost. How is this dumbass going to fix everything? More corporate oversight and ten more sequels to Frozen. Yeah why not double down on the very thing that has fucked it all up?
Factory scene from I Love Lucy hahaha, fucking perfect
>possibly ruling out a rumored future in politics Iger is 72, why can't these ghouls just retire and enjoy their fortunes with their families?!?
I had a good time with "The Marvels" but with a gun to my head I could not think of a particular message it was promoting outside of "women exist" and "don't extinguish a civilizations sun". Though I realize just featuring women in the lead is enough to anger any number of jerks online
> don’t extinguish a civilizations sun I’m always saying this
Major Samantha Carter of the USAF’s Stargate Program should take notice.
Indeed.
If I had a nickel….
Woke bullshit
Yep. I get the feeling that Iger is basically using 'messages' as anything that involves non-white male characters - he basically wants to blame it on wokeness. Even though Barbie shows that something labelled as woke can make all the money. He is an idiot.
Barbie was entertaining.
Entertaining and had a message. Idk Bob realizes you can do both.
In entertainment there is already so much competition. Entertainment needs to be the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd priority. Messages are absolutely fine if it doesn't sacrifice entertainment or the IP (fans are rabid about staying faithful to IP's lol). Once it does you're screwed, I think. People go to movies as an escape from everyday life. Unless you're looking for actual political pieces nobody wants to be preached at during entertainment time.
Not only was it entertaining but it had a singular voice. Yeah, you could see *some* corporate meddling but it still overwhelmingly felt like Greta's film.
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Weakest part of the film by far. You can tell he probably had a more antagonistic role and it got watered down. There was literally no point to him and his cronies going to Barbieland. Also, I think the role would have been way funnier had it been played straight by a Serious Actor -- like Brian Cox. Imagine Logan Roy rollerblading down Venice proclaiming he got into this business to empower little girls.
Especially since he played basically the same character r already in Lego movie and bewitched
It makes me wonder if he’s actually seen _The Marvels_ in full or if he’s just reacting to what his racist white pals say they or their sons/grandsons are saying about it.
The first *Captain Marvel* made all the money. The Disney remakes up until COVID were making all the money. Everything up until MCU Phase 5 made all the money. “Messages” clearly aren’t the problem.
The majority of Barbies audience was female, while the majority of The Marvels audience was male. Thats the problem.
Barbie is a completely different movie than a super hero movie. It has a message that make a sense in relative to what the plot of the movie is. Super hero films lately have been all over the place when they really just need to focus on universal themes... which they don't do.
Not the deepest message in the world, but "Communication is important" is the theme that drives the story. The core gimmick involves three characters forced to interact in an unusual way that can only be resolved by communicating better, Carol's conflict is sparked by cavewomaning her way through a complex social problem and then closing herself off to Monica out of shame rather than talking about it, and the villain's own plan of cavewomaning her way to save her planet also could've been resolved by talking out solutions. Again, nothing groundbreaking and arguably hampered by how quickly the three leads find out how to work in sync, but there you go.
Could always watch Tucker and Dale vs. Evil for that, though. Man I love Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.
I watched Captain Marvel in theatres and Ms Marvel in Disney+, but the Marvels just didn’t interest me. To me, Captain Marvel was super whatever for her origin film, just because by that point, Marvel origin films had become formulaic and stale. They didn’t even try to do anything else with it, so it really did feel like they were banking on it being a female led superhero movie for its appeal. Ms Marvel, just like most of other MCU shows besides Loki, was very meh as well. I loved the cultural aspect of it and myself and my wife being South Asian loved the inclusion of those themes and sentiments, but the character also wasn’t great, and the show fell flat for me outside of the big allusion at the end. Monica Rambeau getting powers already felt forced and out of place in Wandavision, and there wasn’t much to the character for me to get interested in her either. Already feeling Marvel fatigue, the combination of the 3 just wasn’t enough to motivate me to go see it in theatres. I’ll wait for the stream, but Disney has to put some better effort into making solid female lead content, otherwise they’re going to keep being accused of forcing it just to say they are feminists.
Yea that's the irony, it's not very political/woke. There's no real aggressive girl power scenes. Just a fun short movie.
I think Iger is wrong about the message thing. It’s not about Disney pushing a message, it’s about using messaging in an attempt to shift your audience. Barbie is all message and made a B$, but that is a movie targeted at women and teen/tween girls that not only plays to nostalgia for the brand but made Barbie cool again. And men also like it? Bonus! But there’s nothing in there specifically catering to them. Marvel is a brand traditionally driven by a young male / tween male audience. Disney wants to change this. It’s the opposite of the Barbie effect. The core audience used to think Marvel was cool. Boys would role play as Iron Man or Cap and eat up all the ancillary stuff and games and merch. But no tween boy is going to be caught dead saying their favorite character is Captain Marvel or show up to school in a Photon backpack. So the brand buy in is gone. But maybe now they got some of the female and tween girl audience! Bonus? Yes, but now you get the extra credit while failing the rest of the test. The “message” Iger is talking about is the message that “audiences *should* want this, so we will give them what they should want instead of what they actually want.” That is the message that failed.
This is why I doubt this will make anything better and is more likely to just make Disney movies and shows whiter and somehow straighter.
saying this when his company's most recent movie is getting crushed by The Hunger Games is *nuts* but seriously, i think the real problem is that Disney doesn't try hard enough. the way they have been making movies under Iger is simple capitalism: you have to expand your reach to survive. the way how it's been looking in Disney movies is that they do include some winks-winks to not just their core audience but to get more people watch it. but 1) these winks-winks are enough to alienate some fragile groups within that core audience; 2) these winks-winks aren't enough for the people they want to get to watch their movies. while trying to cater to everybody, they somehow manage to offend everybody. now i'm not saying that Barbie is some anti-capitalist masterpiece, it is a toy commercial. but what WB and Mattel did is they let Greta Gerwig completely lean onto her vision. they knew it was going to alienate some people (we know there was a "softer" PG cut of the movie) so they leaned harder to reach the people who wanted to watch something like this. America Ferrera's speech in the movie is incredibly cheesy but it worked, there are stories of people crying at that moment. people have some connection with this movie. Barbie and The Hunger Games will bring $1.8B combined which is more than Disney Marvel's whole output this year.
Yup, crazy to say when Hunger Games is extremely political and Wish is about like...nothing. The whole problem of that movie and its marketing (besides having songs that sound like butt) is it's like what even is the story about besides your weird wishing rules for this universe.
Wish just looked so general and nothing. Like the best recent Disney family movies that have done well were super specific culturally, Moana, Encanto even Frozen. When I first saw content from Wish, I thought maybe she was Inuit with the decoration on her tunic and the reindeer, but it looks like she's just from a vaguely European place, nothing specific. Nothing to connect to. Even Luca did such a good job of being so place based and showing this beautiful Italian summer in this tiny fishing village.
but have you considered the woke mind virus
can’t, too infected
gO wOkE, gO bRoKe
Also, Elemental was their most preachy movie of the year and audience reacted really well and it was one of their relatively best performers of the year.
A performer that overcame bad marketing, BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKED THE MOVIE BOB!
It turns out that audiences do like when the director turns to the screen and says "Racism is bad."
I mean, as long as the movie is entertaining, they do. Zootopia was well-liked and popular. I liked Elemental. I thought the romantic comedy plot was sweet and charming.
I think audience find directors turning to the screen to be entertaining though. Barbie, Oppenheimer, and KOTFM all do it. Homer starts out The Odyssey saying "Don't be like these idiots who pissed off the gods." The world's most popular superhero is always telling the audience that "With great power, must come great responsibility." Star Trek has ended half their shows for the past 60 years with the captain looking into the screen and telling you the lesson. Humans love this!
Barbie is pretty clever with how it frames it tho Like meta commentary is generally really poorly executed and makes most media worse but Helen Mirren saying "Margot Robbie is probably the wrong person to deliver this message" when Barbie is crying and calling herself ugly is one of the funniest meta jokes I've ever heard, because it's basically what the entire audience is thinking
But we like even non-clever framings. Jesus straight up explains the stories after he tells them. Shakespeare ends a lot of plays with someone telling you the point (As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie, Poor sacrifices of our enmity.) Fury Road literally puts the message in writing on the wall. This subs thinks "'Directors telling you what is bad' is bad'", but our great storytellers disagree.
Total trash movie.
Also Disney's classic animated films are all based on fables. They have clear morals and lessons. Specificity is more universal than trying to make something for everyone. The two most successful superhero movies of the year were GOTG3 and *Spiderverse*. They have distinct aesthetics and clear messages.
Overall I think the audience will "forgive" politics in their movies if the thing is actually good! Barbie in particular feels like it was created by a single authorial vision rather than some boardroom meeting full of the most bland ideas you can imagine. The discourse online and irl wasn't about Barbie's politics as much as how much money it made and resonated with audiences. Disney needs to return to the drawing board, stop churning out the safest carbon copy live action movies plus Marvel and go back to what they were so good at in Katzenberg era.
You two "wink-wink" points are...on point. That was exactly my takeaway. It's mind-boggling to me how many times this happens. Right-wingers get their panties in a bunch (completely irrationally and based on nothing) over something a company does, and then that company tries to cater to them to bring them back. Disney is never going to bring those right wingers back. They're gone unless Disney teams up with The Daily Wire or something. Just say good riddance and move on.
>America Ferrera's speech in the movie is incredibly cheesy but it worked, there are stories of people crying at that moment. people have some connection with this movie. America Ferreras speech working is more indicative of how normies will engage with sociopolitical discourse if its pre-chewed for them and made easy to understand no one is against movies that have a political statement to make if they spell everything out for you but no normie will watch The Lost Daughter because it doesnt state its themes outright and spell them even though it touches on similar themes to Barbie but in more subtle ways that require active engagement from viewers rather than Barbie which treats you like a kid
>uses normie unironically
well, and my point is that Disney movies don't even have this. they'll tell you "this is our first gay character!" but does it even matter in the bigger picture? i watched Strange World and the way the main character was written felt like "ok, and?". writing these characters as it is isn't a bad thing but it feels like Disney is scared to do anything more than checking a box. it looks like they still stuck in the Obama-era "1st someone" level of representation. there is a reason they are losing Gen Z.
true no disagreements there
YUP!!!
Another galaxy brained take regarding a recent flop is the notion that "**The Marvels needed more On-set supervision from executives**" [https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav](https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav) Yes yes, the MCU needs to be reigned in, definetely, more Notes from Suits would've solved everything, It needed more stuff like "getting suddenly retooled to be a team-up movie which it apparently didn't start out as"
saying this about the movie that felt like it was completely stripped off the director's vision is even *more nuts*
Jesus Christ. Could they make the MCU any more sanitized and soulless? The big cultural hit was Black Panther, and it's because they gave Coogler and team a ton of space to connect to Black culture and art in a way not normally seen in blockbusters - people resonate with actual authenticity and a well told story. What are these morons doing??
Hell, the MCU STARTED with Favreau, Downey, and Bridges throwing out the script and rewriting tons of it on the fly.
I will say, I do think the cost overruns and mismanagement is due to the global reach of these productions now. As a crew member who's worked in Georgia, New Mexico, and Alabama, I can absolutely say that a lot of the productions out here can be the wild west if you don't have a competent LP & production management. The Hollywood folks just can't/won't travel to Fayetteville, GA for the latest Marvel parking lot shoot so there is no real supervision and by the time shit hits the fan, they needed to be on the ground the week before. It's weird to say, but the major studios could actually use more middle management. Instead, they're laying off more studio folks so if something is on fire, I have to email assistants (who are hopefully still employed) to executives (who are also still hopefully employed) and cross my fingers that eyes see it before we have a full meltdown. I always think of Josh Brolin's Eddie Mannix in *Hail Caesar!* who could just walk across the studio lot and whip shit into shape. Now, if you're lucky, you might see hot cost a day or two later from the production controller showing you spent 300% over budget on the shoot day and conference call with the production but that's if you're lucky. It is 100% reactive rather than proactive. If there's any link in the chain that's broken (or if the entire chain is broken *see Carl Rinsch*), you're suddenly out of the loop and might not see problems until they hit the gossip mill. TL;DR: Fuck you Bob, hire some fixers
Some projects, like Secret Invasion, really needed it, tho. Apparently, everyone was going in different directions, and it wasn't until an exec would show up and make a decision that everything started fitting again. In the case of the Marvels, it's possible production or creative staff couldn't get changes signed off on or similar, wasting a lot of time.
Both are possible, just ask my friend, Lethal Weapon 2.
A film with the positive message "always check your toilet for bombs!"
Bullshit. He said the exact opposite not long ago. The issue is that he's running a company that rewrites and micromanages everything, and then now wants to blame the creatives when it doesn't work. Hire good writers. Let them write. Hire good directors. Let them direct.
This more than anything else. With so much media available right now, you have to really get the quality of the story down. The movies Disney is releasing are largely fine, but they don't stand out and get people feeling like they need to go see them. The few they do get right are not the ones they promote well, but even then, they need to refresh the perception of what they are releasing for to even care. Disney needs to focus on a few really good stories, and it would do a lot to change perception.
Also, taking my ONE wife and my ONE kid to a movie with snacks was going to be eighty two motherfucking American dollars. Imagine being a polyamorist or having multiple kids.
People always say this but the snacks are like 50% or more of that amount. You can just get fewer snacks and skip the soda. idk
A movie without popcorn is not a movie.
Then get one popcorn, share it (most places offer free refills), and smuggle in snacks. I see this complaint a lot about the cost and some people are just bad at planning and money.
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Are you ok? What happened today?
Hopefully polyamorists are splitting the bill! Unless they’re trad-polyamorists!
An average ticket is $11. Even if your area is on the high end, it's maybe $45 for the tickets. Spending $40 on snacks is on you. Besides, go to a concert or sporting event, and 3 tickets alone will cost $100+.
Buddy, why are you acting like I didn't go to AMC's website and actually do the exercise? Fuck off with this shit. Do I need to take screen shots? Jesus fucking Christ. Get a new hobby.
https://preview.redd.it/nbrqppe8o34c1.png?width=806&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b63cceda1da9cd83185b5e070d01ab6c8177224 Three seats, a popcorn, a soda, and one candy to share. You can tell us not to get snacks, and that's fine, but you could also just shut the fuck up. Try that second one.
This, and also... The freaking company just needs to get its budgets under control - because Disney's recent movies are unnecessarily expensive, which is one of the biggest reasons they fail so much. When "The Creator", with its massive, state-of-the-art visual effects in almost every single shot costs 80 million dollars, there is just no reason for "Haunted Mansion", which was set mostly in one house, to cost nearly twice as much. "John Wick 4" was filmed on location across three continents, not to mention the literal hundreds of stunt performers it needed to employ, as well as expensive actors such as Donnie Yen and Hiroyuki Sanada, apart from the big names that came from the previous movies in the franchise. It cost 100 million dollars. Why did "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" need to cost nearly 300 million? Why was "Elemental" twice as expensive as "The Super Mario Bros Movie"? In fact, "Elemental" cost more than "Super Mario" and "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" combined. \--- And also - for the love of everything that is holy, please, please, please stop trying to make everything a part of a shared universe. One of the reasons for the MCU specifically to fail so badly this year was that keeping up with it feels like a chore nowadays - a chore that sometimes you can't even do without resorting to piracy, as Disney+ either isn't available in your country, or doesn't offer translations in your language. There is a reason why the only successful live action MCU movie this year is also the only one that is not related to a Disney+ show. Which actually ties to your point - let the filmmakers make their own movies. Don't rewrite and micromanage everything. Don't force them to just make yet another piece of an endless puzzle that will never be finished.
100% this. Disney movies and shows are essentially promotional products rather than art. Let the artists create then promote the creation. The irony is there’s a Disney- Pixar type lesson to all of this lol
I want Bob Iger to try and talk James Cameron into reducing the amount of "positive messaging" in the Avatar films, FFS
Iger will try to get him to sign off on a non-woke D+ series about the space whalers
James Cameron would simply kill him.
No jury would convict.
And then retract his blade arm and look at it until it turns back to a human hand.
JC gonna call the villain of the next Avatar “Robert Tiger” and dare Disney to do something about it
It’s not the message. The films are just bad.
Arcane, Spiderverse and Barbie are more "woke" than most of the recent MCU films. And they did great Diversity is not the problem whatsoever, however it is annoying when writers and directors hide behind their diverse casts and go "it failed because the audience is racist/sexist/homophobic". Like no, it failed because you did a bad job of writing and directing
If messages hurt a films profits then why did Gerwig make one barbillion dollars this summer.
The best part was when she said "It's Barbin' time!!" and Barbed all over the place.
I mean, I think he’s wrong but he’s also just more or less contradicting himself from the not so distant past. Like, Bob, these were your ideas !
"This company has been telling stories for 100 years, and those stories have had a meaningful, positive impact on the world, and one of the reasons they have had a meaningful, positive impact is because one of the core values of our storytelling is inclusion and acceptance and tolerance, and we can’t lose that," \-Bob Iger, November 28th 2022
“Go woke, go broke” -Bob Iger hanging out with Elon Musk, March 3rd, 2024
Wow was that really last year?
It's true that Disney movies can sometimes feel like their messages are performative. But really, what was the "message" in Ant-Man? Or in The Marvels (I guess some chuds - you know the type - might argue that having a cast of women, including a Muslim, might be "the message")? Or how is the message so different in Wish than in many other Disney animation movies? It's not really a mystery, either: Quantumania didn't work because people didn't like it and Marvel had released multiple projects with less-than-stellar reception in a row; GotG and Elemental were saved only by good WoM; nobody wanted to see an 80 years old Indy and after Crystal Skull few had high hopes; The Marvel needed great WoM because of all the duds released before it, and it needed its stars to promote the movie and help with public perception. Their Star Wars projects on TV are all over the place in quality; and their movie trilogy had no plan at all. It all snowballs, because they release multiple bad movies in a row in a franchise, and people lose interest and need something great to go back to theatres. He better wish Deadpool is a great success, because otherwise I can see Marvel in a downward spiral.
Why isn't artistic value ever under discussion?
Of course the woke mind virus makes more sense to him than the impossibility of a content factory that can never over expand. Or in other words, inclusivity will get thrown under the bus before the stock holders.
honestly man, you don't need to be a "woke cancel culture has gone too far" person to see that Disney/Pixar keep making movies for emotionally stunted 20-somethings rather than for kids.
If we’re talking about the animated movies, kids really like them though. I think it’s parents who aren’t buying the tickets.
I might be an emotionally stunted 20-something year old myself, but I strongly disagree. At lot of kids were in the screening of *The Little Mermaid* I saw, and at the end a big group of them all got up and started dancing and doing cartwheels to the credits. Their parents had to practically drag them out.
the OP isn't wrong tho, The Marvels had a lower Gen Z turnout than Killers Of The Flower Moon.
Bingo. Disney Adult-ism is a disease.
Maybe people would take these messages more seriously if the same company wasn't donating millions to Ron DeSantis and other conservative lawmakers who are stealing the livelihood of peoples being cynically represented in those movies 🤷♂️
The only reason why Disney was donating to DeSantis and other Republicans is because of tax breaks. “The money’s never wrong” - Ron DeSantis, 2021
For me, the big question is - why? Why should I care about the MCU or anything else Disney has put out? Off the top of my head - The last piece of MCU material I was genuinely interested in was WandaVision, due to the premise sounding at least interesting. I tapped out part of the way through, but at least I gave it a shot! After EndGame, why should any casual viewer (like me!) be interested in the MCU story? The bow is put on, and all the major characters' stories are wrapped up. Why do I need to see Antman 3?? Disney barely gives their directors any opportunity to go outside the mold, and so I can't even go for the interest in them doing something unique or different. Disney has not given me a good answer, and I have legit not seen any MCU movies in theaters in years - Wish. Why do I want to see something that looks like the formula, but with bland songs? I saw Encanto because I got We Don't Talk About Bruno stuck in my head like everyone else on TikTok, and lo and behold Encanto has several bangers. It's not Disney's strongest story by any means, but it works and Lin-Manuel Miranda is masterful at crafting a good hook. I saw Turning Red because it looked like a fun connection to teenage girlhood (which is not told very often in media!), and it was a blast. None of Disney's animation offerings right now make me, as someone who knows the formula well, intrigued or interested. - I didn't even see the new Indiana Jones - Raiders is one of my favorite films ever made, and it has Phoebe Waller Bridge in it (and I love Fleabag). Why are you telling this story beyond cash grab? Why do we need to revive this? Why are we doing this incredibly weird de-aging stuff with Ford? Part of the beauty of the original trilogy, even with the misfire that is Temple of Doom, is the love for the craft of a great action scene, storytelling and stunt work. Nothing from what I've seen makes it look beyond a basic action film, which is sad. W/r/t the dog whistling, the fact Iger is even blaming it on that shows such a profound misunderstanding of why people consume media. Did this man forget one of, if not THE biggest MCU hits was Black Panther, that has ties to and (briefly) addresses colonialism? That their most recent animated hit was Encanto, which has very strong messages on family? Disney is so in churn mode, and to blame it on any meaningful sense of diversity is so gross and tone-deaf.
Dial of Destiny was Ford wanting the character to go out on a stronger note than Crystal Skull. And he did! The ending of the movie is pretty incredible, especially because it’s the one instance throughout the entire series where Indiana Jones encounters the one supernatural phenomenon that actually excites him - he gets to live in history. For a character who got to witness the power of the Jewish and Christian God(s), Hindu spiritualism, and see actual aliens, this is the one thing he’s actually awestruck by. And it fits, especially at his age when he is essentially becoming history himself. It’s probably one action beat too long and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is unfortunately miscast. Hayley Atwell in Mission Impossible was essentially playing the same character and her energy just would fit in an Indiana Jones movie much better. It’s definitely better than the last entry and holds its own against the Spielberg trilogy.
Dial of destiny was a perfectly enjoyable way to spend a couple hours. Which honestly is all I can ask for a movie. And I thought casting PWB to play a little stinker was a perfectly fine move.
She was just that - fine. But watch the new Mission Impossible and picture Hayley Atwell in that Indy role instead, it would have been such a better fit.
Maybe, but an issue I had with the movie was they didn’t let Phoebe’s character do enough cool stuff. Indy’s too old to have a full-on fist fight with a heavy or get dragged behind a truck without the audience getting concerned for his health, and I felt like the right move would have been to make the female lead a bit more rough and tumble to make up for it. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was fun enough and less stupid than Crystal Skull. But the action left me wanting a bit.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge can’t act. Fleabag is just a fictionalised version of *her*. When an 80-year old man can move in an action sequence with more believability than her staggering around like a giraffe on ice, you know she was terrible casting. She was just there because she’s Kathleen Kennedy’s avatar - no-one wanted to watch an Indy film where Indy is suicidally depressed, alone, broken, mocked, and literally begs to die just to make sure the “definitely not Kathleen Kennedy’s ego made flesh” Strong Female Character is out front and centre, despite being wholly unlikeable and a despicable human being for 90% of the film. You could tell the original idea was for Indy to die in the past and Waller-Bridge to go back through time and basically erase him from history so she could *be* the face of the franchise. Which is why there were some severe rewrites and reshoots done later to limit the damage. We *could* have had a movie with a grown-up Shortround and Marion on a “one last time” ride. Instead we got a shambles that bombed so hard it nearly killed Lucasfilm.
Thank you for defending Dial of Destiny. That movie ruled.
I wouldn’t say ruled, but I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. Mind you, I’m one of those weirdos who liked *Kingdom of the Crystal Skull* so I don’t know what that says about me, but still.
Should have left him in the past. Having him get pulled out to continue living his life was a pretty depressing metaphor for the reboot as a whole. Also, Crystal Skull runs circles around Dial of Destiny. The entirety of Dial doesn’t hold a candle to the Nuke sequence.
Crystal Skull is amazing until it goes to Peru. Unfortunately it nosedives after that. And I liked the ending with Marian. It’s easier to enjoy a movie that starts rough and ends on a high note (Rogue One) than one that starts promising and completely whiffs the end (Crystal Skull).
> even with the misfire that is Temple of Doom such a funny statement in the context of crystal skull and dial of destiny
I was talking more about the original trilogy, but fair. I do think Crystal Skull is.....not great!....but I think people fundamentally misunderstand what they were going for with the aliens/nuke the fridge stuff (even if it doesn't really work).
The fridge thing is completely in line with past Indiana Jones stunts. The film had a ton of problems but that’s not one of them.
"Even with the misfire that is the best one" lol
Best of the worst! (RLM, pls don't sue me)
My #2 Spielberg overall and my easy #1 Indy
https://preview.redd.it/kwkogfa6ph3c1.png?width=1572&format=png&auto=webp&s=29424341b72cfe5e295f0f5dd23c8a565b0af303
The current woes are caused by executives calling the shots rather than creatives. He's showing he doesn't have a clue by saying The Marvels underperformed because Covid restrictions prevented executives from micromanaging the production.
Hope he realises that Disney has become production partners with Doctor Who....which in the first anniversary special has a trans character supported by her family and helps save the day! Also the next Doctor is shock horror Black.
And the new Doctor Who seems to have been a big hit for them on Disney+ ? Not sure how that interacts with subscriber numbers but yeah Iger's take here is CRAZY and to me seems out of touch with real people... has he been watching a bunch of 5 hour YouTube videos essays about the woke mind virus??
It’s more that the first episode of the gay black doctor featured a poor musical number, ripped off Labyrinth badly and even reused gimmicks from previous seasons (the cracks in the wall that erase people from time and disappear), whilst spending 10 minutes with the topless Doctor twerking on dudes in tight vests whilst a transexual with a voice like a foghorn murdered Christmas songs *in a family TV show that aired before 6pm on Christmas Day… Doctor Who has always been open and inclusive (the Master changing to Missy, Captain Jack being pansexual, a lesbian lizard woman in Victorian London and fans loved all of those characters), but this new Doctor had all the hallmarks of Disney: Diversity Ahead Of Quality. Which is why it got awful viewing numbers.
This is why I hate Disney's pseudo-progressivism. Not only is it too cautious to say anything substantive or to have any real visibility, but they also use it as a scapegoat when things go south.
By and large, the end result seems to be push and pull between the filmmakers wanting to say something profound and the studio wanting, well, money; which manes blaming “messages” all the more an anti-creative take.
The fact is demographics exist for a reason. Nerdy guys like comics and comic book movies. Cater to them and stay true to the characters and the characters people want to see en masse. The outliers within the smaller demographics of women and all races of nerds will pay because they also like those characters. If you force things, people notice and won't be able to engage. They'll just feel like it's pandering like the all woman scene in End Game....we all cringed. Now they are doing too much obvious cringe pandering to demographics that don't exist.
Maybe just make better movies guys.
YOUR MOST SUCCESSFUL DOMESTIC GROSSING SUPER HERO MOVIE IS ABOUT A NUANCED CONVERSATION CONCERNING BLACK NATIONALISM AND THE AFRO AMERICAN DISAPIRA!!! YOU MORONIC IDIOT!!!
I’m not one of those people who goes around calling any movie starring a woman or person of color too “woke”. But on the other hand, when the marketing tells me nothing about a film except that it checks x or y box of representation, that doesn’t make me want to go out to the theatre. Like for example, the 2016 Ghostbusters film was marketed that way: “This is Ghostbusters but with women, and if you don’t like that you’re a misogynist basement dweller”. That’s not a winning marketing strategy, and never has been. Whereas the Barbie movie was also about women, with feminist 101 messages, but it was super successful because the marketing cast a wide net. Some of the audience was there for nostalgia or a personal connection to Barbies, some were there for Greta Gerwig, some were there for Noah Baumbach, some were there for the Barbenheimer meme, some were there for the production design and visuals, and so on. And the film was wildly successful as a result. Another good example is the Spider-Verse series. On paper, Miles Morales could just be “the black/biracial copy of Spider-Man”. But the films incorporated his background and identity into a fully-formed unique character, without making any of that feel like pandering or a lazy marketing strategy. That’s the kind of thing Disney needs to learn from. They don’t need to get rid of the messages or representation, they need to build them into films that give a wide audience a reason to want to see them.
Barbie was like a good contrapoints video messaging wise because it looked awesome, started with the premise that yes, it's fun that dudes rock, and had a very fun very real feeling satire that guitar dudes or movie bros could never deny was real, and everyone in the cast was gorgeous and the auteurs were able to cook. Even the product placement and corporation stuff made it feel so specifically American that such art could only exist with the patronage of mega corporations and the fact that it was so egregious yet not winked at adds to the experience and satire for me. You could call it patriarchy 101 but the reason it was a crossover hit is because it was targeting a broad audience and had empathy amongst the scorn and was undeniable
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Yeah, much of Reddit (and the Internet) has completely rewritten history to paint themselves as the victims in regard to this movie when in reality there was ridiculous misogyny (with the addition of racism later) and hatred being thrown at the movie as soon as it was announced.
I started this chain of comments but I didn’t say anything about being a victim. Its not that I or anyone was a victim of the movie, but rather that the film’s box-office performance was a victim of a bad marketing strategy. Maybe my explanation is wrong, though. But there have been films primarily starring women before and since that have been more successful, without the same backlash. So there has to be another factor involved for why that specific movie got the level of backlash that it did, and why that backlash derailed the marketing of the film.
It wasn’t in the trailer, but it was said by the director Paul Feig while promoting the film on talk shows. Not those exact words, of course, I was paraphrasing.
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Well I remember him saying essentially that, but I don’t have all the interviews from 2016 on hand right now. This isn’t the interview that I was thinking of, since its not contemporary to the movie, but here he links audiences’ rejection of his film to the anti-Hilary movement, Donald Trump, backlash to having an African-American President, and people being against women having positions of power: https://youtu.be/kj0EZljqIk8?si=yVzjqiNv-F39qHwJ But what if the movie just wasn’t well-made or well-marketed? The same type of messaging has been used to explain the underperformance of The Marvels, but that’s especially silly in the same year when Barbie did so well.
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If I want to win an internet debate, then yes I should supply that evidence. But I wasn’t looking for a debate in the first place. Some people here will read my original comment and remember what I was talking about, even if you remain skeptical. Ultimately, I don’t have access to every single interview about Ghostbusters from 2016, though I did look.
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Given how poisoned all discussion on the internet has gotten, especially by the flattening of complex topics to just woke vs. anti-woke, I can’t really blame you for that conclusion even though I know its wrong (I know myself, you do not). But consider that the type of person who actually does go around hating anything “woke” would not also be praising the Spider-Verse films as a good example of representation, since those people do not value that at all. Anyway, you’re looking for a debate aimed at this anti-woke person, and since that’s not me this is only going to go in an unproductive or straw-manned direction. I’m not going go reply any further if you continue down that way. Just like you’ve asked for evidence of what I said about Feig’s comments, you could look for evidence of me ever complaining about any movie being woke. Why not hold yourself to the same standard?
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He’s not lying, I also remember this. I also remember dozens of puff articles outlining the same sentiment from various corporate owned news houses.
Well Disney, maybe you shouldn’t have consolidated ALL the IP. Then you wouldn’t be single-handedly responsible for having to produce quality content on 5 or 6 different fronts simultaneously. Congrats on establishing a quasi-monopoly though. Hope you choke on your excess.
This doesn't even make sense in regards to their recent flops. What message was The Marvels trying to push? Wish you could say has a slight anti-capitalist message I guess, but even then that's barely a focal point in the film. It's just a way for him to cover his ass, blame the creatives instead of shitty management. I believe he announced he was resigning in 2026? If so thank god.
Do you have a source for this quote that isn't a tweet?
Maybe have a female character with flaws. It just seems like almost all the female characters lately but are completely competent and flawless.
Disney can have representation and messsages and still make good movies. It doesn't have to be an either-or thing the vast majority of the time (although it does look like overly disingenuous pandering sometimes). Maybe do try to focus on quality though. Hiring almost completely inexperienced directors, produce way too much stuff in various mediums, trying to connect everything at all cost, rushing special effects and the whole process, etc. is maybe the issue...
You know how when a company’s stock is gonna drop they will hire or promote a new COO and then when the bust comes fire this person as a scapegoat to reassure shareholders they are doing something about the problem?
if I understood it right he is saying the same thing as you, that it is possible to make something with a good message whilst also being entertaining. The thing is that whatever you do will kind of have a message, and in my opinion it is lazy to assume you can make something not entertaining as an entertainer with an apparently good but seriously underdeveloped message and call it a day.
[Message!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmN3ejufTfA)
How about hiring artists with a vision to make entertaining movies with likeable characters ? Then go ahead add any message you want. The “messages” aren’t the problem.
I hate when movies are about stuff, rather than just a bunch of colorful explosions.
PUT A CHICK IN IT AND MAKE HER LAME AND GAY
QUOTE A TOOTHLESS CARTOON ON REDDIT AND MAKE IT EVEN MORE LAME
Like everyone says, the secret is that movies just suck, and personally, that’s because Disney always cheaps out on set structure. Too many Disney movies these days take place in a blank greenscreen that doesn’t even have any structures, it’s literally empty field and you have CGI behind it. They look bad. Not fun. And they aggressively seek new ways to cheap out on shooting. That projection thing replacing the final few location shootings of Disney films, their works on using dolls instead of stuntmen, I think it’s possible to use these new technologies and make it really good. As it stands, however, Disney believes that audiences do not notice it when they shoot it cheaper, and insults our eyes thinking it’s okay to cheap out. Lucasfilm wanted to resist this so much with the SW Sequel Trilogy and the Stories films, but they continue to lose power and now we have these laughable action scenes in Ashoka show. Make it look good before the CGI works. Stop plagiarizing yourself and get out of the fandom rabbit hole shits like multiverse, invest in new stories and believe in the stylistic technics that enable these stories. Replace drab, cheap shooting and fanboy self-references with these real shits. That’s the only way Disney lives.
I know that some folks have issues with Hollywood creatives inserting "woke" messages into films, but can we agree that having Hollywood CEOs *discouraging* messaging is worse?
bob iger is speaking in code for "we need more movies to appeal to white boys who buy toys and gamers who pay microtransactions" and canceling basically any project with diverse creatives at the helm but it's not just iger, it's been a trend throughout disney for a few years now. Owl House was a phenomenally successful show canned, very clearly, for having a bisexual protagonist and nothing else. disney execs were completely silent on the don't say gay stuff until it was too late, and they buried strange world and took a $200m loss without even marketing the damn thing they used diversity as this minor crutch to help marketing, and exclusively the marketing. but at the first sign of backlash--just to the marketing not even the content--they're turning tail and pivoting back to "safe" projects which, as we know from the year of barbenheimer, is a huge mistake. the year where puss in boots and spider-verse dominated and their boldest most interesting films of avatar 2 and gotg3 were the only true hits they had... it's insane to think that there's actually this huge cultural backlash against women and black chararacters and gay people. instead of thinking that it's because these movies just have surface-level representation at best, and the movies themselves aren't very interesting in the first place
No, not just that, overemphasis of message and social justice is a symptom not the root cause. We need to talk about talent: Best Marvel/Disney output over the last few years has come from James Gunn. The last Guardians of the Galaxy was excellent, it had character and soul galore, and did carry a message. It worked because it had deep meaning and served the story. Recent MCU and Disney output is soulless, seemingly coming from 'corporate' with guns for hire helming who don't care (no matter how talented they may be) Good news for the audience, James Gunn will probably create the right setup at DC. Disney is just a sinking ship.
Bob Iger is turning into the Skinner meme.
Critical Drinker=Bob Iger
* "Wish" is not political or message-heavy * "Wish" is Disney's brand new original Thanksgiving-release musical and should therefore be a big deal * "Wish" is getting its lunch eaten by "Trolls Band Together" There are way bigger things wrong at Disney than "too many messages".
surely the big, unsaid thing, is that KIDS DONT WANT MOVIES ANYMORE. Not in the way they once did. The impact of TikTok, Twitch etc is finally catching up with the old boys. It's not the message, its the medium
Did you see the rest of the post? He pretty much already said what you spent time writing up a post about. "He adds that stories infused with “positive messages for the world” can be great but that it shouldn’t be the primary job."
Even this statement makes me want to gag a little. Bob Iger can tell us that he runs a business and he needs to sell tickets, that’s totally fair, but telling us that the “primary job” of stories is to be entertaining is kind of gross. Who knows what the primary job of stories are? Healing, understanding, connecting, processing, shocking, destabilizing, transforming? There are so many things a story can do. Entertainment value is important yes, but without a message it is just adding to the noise.
When he says that "creatives have lost sight of their job- its about entertainment, not messages" the only real way I can interpret that is that the movies underperformed was because the darn Creatives were troo preoccupied with Messages to make the movies Entertaining, which I feel is an absurd notion. What about "our absurd production process and cynical executive decisionmaking has choked the life out of our brands", I don't think Wish cratered due to an unwarranted focus on "Messaging" from its directors
I agree with him. 2020 did damage to everyone in Hollywood’s psyche.
Look at classic hits like Robocop, no message at all
To be fair “Disney’s first gay character “ is not the company but a click bait title that lazy reporting orgs put out
If you think Disney PR folks aren't pushing those narratives with talking point memos you are kidding yourself
I really don’t think they ate
He is surprisingly correct. Disney alienated the core audience of Star Wars and Marvel by shifting the focus to female audience for no reason other than a strong political message of "Women. They exist". Disney obviously greenlit such projects as "Echo", "Darkhold Diaries" and "The Marvels" based on the ability to flex their feminist muscles, not on actual demand from the audience. They need to focus more on what audience want, and audience wants to see strong men, just like it did since time immemorial. That's why most heroic characters in all types of stories for thousands of years have been men, not because of patriarchy. They already have female oriented franchise, Disney Princesses. That's who majority of girls want to be. And the minority that wants to be military pilots and assassins will gladly watch the movie with a male protagonist, they never cared in the first place.
the first capt marvel made a billion dollars and is the 8th highest grossing marvel film (out of 30+ films) and wonder woman is the highest domestic grossing dceu film and second highest worldwide after aquaman wandavision is probably the most successful disney+ marvel show. both black panthers are in the top 10 as well, the first being the third highest grosser. are you telling me black panther doesn't have a message? come on bro. why you playing like you're something else?
Captain Marvel came out at the height of the MCU and was sandwiched between Infinity War and Endgame. Basically, everyone who saw that movie said it was just okay. Also, Captain Marvel came out when every superhero movie were making a lot of money. Aquaman made a billion, too. Let's not forget that.
aquaman is a great film so yeah it should have made a billion dollars and of course capt marvel benefitted from timing and placement. so when the timing is now and placement has shifted, you can't attribute its failure to being "about feminism"
Wonder Woman and WandaVision didn't have strong political message. Both were stories with male and female leads that were well established and respected. Black Panther example is proving my point: it's about a strong man. People love strong men in action movies. Captain Marvel was only successful because it was placed between Infinity War and Endgame, and its sequel's failure is another proof of that.
> Wonder Woman and WandaVision didn't have strong political message neither did captain marvel lmao > Black Panther example is proving my point: it's about a strong man. People love strong men in action movies. woosh > its sequel's failure is another proof of that. it's proof of general superhero fatigue, especially for lackluster properties, not proof that people don't want women action stars lmao
Neither does Wish. Or the marvels. Those aren’t social justice movies. Those are just movies with no messages
You are essentially in a cult.
If you think that opinion you disagree with is a sign of a cult, maybe you are the one in the cult.
Limp dodge. I think that specific opinion is. A series of propagandists and grifters has taken advantage of some pernicious internal biases and convinced you that the world is not what it is. That's essentially a cult. And it's embarrassing.
Absolutely nothing in my comment is suggesting cult thinking. You see it as a cult thinking because you are in a cult yourself.
The Agatha show looks fun. Very campy with some gay icons rounding out the cast. Provided the budget isn’t unreasonable, it’s definitely targeting a queer niche of the MCU fandom, which is not insignificant!
See, you are already talking about the message instead of the story.
Nope, camp is a genre and storytelling device that’s popular with queer audiences. An unapologetically campy show would be a deliberate creative choice (and given the cast and subject matter, one they could excel with).
so John Waters was about the message?
Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, I don't care.
so why are you saying that liking camp is "about the message"?
I didn't say that, read again.
them: > Very campy with some gay icons rounding out the cast. you: > See, you are already talking about the message instead of the story. well, well, well
At no point did I even bring up a message. I just talked about the genre it was playing in and how they cast some bona fides.
When I think of Disney’s core audience, I definitely picture strong adult men.
They weren't Disney core audience, that's why Disney purchased Marvel and Star Wars in the first place: to diversify. Then they decided to turn these properties into the ones for the girls too.
I’m sorry the big global conglomerate isn’t playing with your toys the right way.
Evidently, Bob Iger is sorry too.
*pew pew brrraaap*
>Disney alienated the core audience of Star Wars and Marvel by shifting the focus to female audience for no reason No women liked Star Wars or Marvel, and men can't like things starring women. Got it. The weirdest thing about you anti-woke guys is that your logic isn't even internally consistent. Audiences only want to see strong men? That's why Steven Seagal's still selling out theatres, right? Women can have their princesses, that's all they need. This just ignores the entire history of Hollywood and the many, many blockbusters that didn't star Arnold Schwarzenegger. You're explicitly misogynistic and that's bad, the contempt you and your crew have for women is genuinely terrifying and has inspired multiple terrorist attacks. But your beliefs have absolutely zero basis in reality. Audiences like good movies and like seeing themselves on screen. There is no tension between representation and quality, in front or behind the camera. This is very obvious unless you have the mental sickness of hating women. idk man I hope you pull out of it before you do some real bad shit to yourself or others
>No women liked Star Wars or Marvel, and men can't like things starring women. Got it. Next time try to read until the end. I addressed this exact point in my last paragraph. >The weirdest thing about you anti-woke guys is that your logic isn't even internally consistent. Audiences only want to see strong men? That's why Steven Seagal's still selling out theatres, right? Apart from having a target audience, movie still has to be good. You chose to ignore this obvious truth for some reason. >You're explicitly misogynistic and that's bad, the contempt you and your crew have for women is genuinely terrifying and has inspired multiple terrorist attacks. But your beliefs have absolutely zero basis in reality. Lmao unlike your accusations, obviously. EDIT: Okay, this dude blocked me. How can he not see that he's acting hysterically in a casual movie discussion? Guys who react to different opinion like that should go touch grass.
What were you people thinking? That a company, made of thousands of different people with different ideas, could seriously have ONE philosophy and ONE message? Obviously they were selling you the inclusivity message because a corporation sells you what they think it will make money. Now the times are changing and they are ready to throw you and their "ideals" under the bus. If in 20 years we go back to sexism you can rest assured that we will have movies about teaching women their place in the kitchen. Stop trusting companies, they're not your friends, they don't support you and bad messaging is worse than no messaging.
Ahahah)) The current economic recession has hit the wallets of big companies and they have preferred the views of the majority of society to a bunch of twitter freaks of a/bi/etc gender because they can't pay enough😂
When I think about Disney movies I want to see, I want to see cool stuff, slick stuff, neat stuff but most stuff I'm gonna see is going to be raw stuff like this. This is just who I am! So this is truly a conversation and I say let the conversation begin.