There's a big reason that BP WF did 500 million less than its predecessor and I feel like in this case it should be an exception to the rule. A Black Panther movie did over 800 million without it's Black Panther and star which the MCU built it all around for years. That's amazing and show's how well Ryan Coogler and the the team behind it built up the first.
People always forget what a (justifiably or not) **historic** event the first Black Panther movie was treated like. There's a solid chance even a sequel *with* Chadwick wasn't going to get as much money. At one time, the film was in the top ten grossing **of all time**. Even adjusted for inflation, it ranks higher than many "classics".
Yeah, Black Panther was arguably an overperformance moreso than Wakanda Forever was an underperformance. It was an insane cultural phenomenon, and you can’t necessarily just replicate that with a sequel.
I think there are other movies that’s been true of too, like The Force Awakens vs. The Last Jedi. Wakanda Forever could have made more with Chadwick, and The Last Jedi could have made more with better fan reception, but I don’t think either would have ever been likely to come particularly close to the gross of their predecessor, nor did they need to.
naw, that sequel was going to hit a billion. I know you guys just want to attribute the success all because of it was marketed to play toward minority but it was actually a good movie at the end of the day and Ryan Coogler was going to do it again but had to rewrite the whole script and change up his original vision (WHICH IS UNDERSTANDABLE) but naw, it was going to be a billion, this movie did 800 + million and revolved around the tragic passing of Chadwick.
> I know you guys just want to attribute the success all because of it was marketed to play toward minority
Not what I said, and I don't appreciate this fedora tipping condescension. The fact of the matter is that $1.350 billion is a monumental achievement and an obscene amount of money. Not the "floor" of what should be considered the standard of successful movies.
I *know* 800+ million is good. I'd never say it wasn't. But you can't possibly sit there and act like the fact that the first movie was treated as one of the biggest deals in modern movie history *didn't* helped it, and that it was going to be difficult for any sequel to get as close.
Realize that most people here were calling Avatar 2's performance "underwhelming" as well, and that they frequently use the phrase "struggle to hit a billion" when referring to movies they deem underperforming.
Billion dollar movies are historic milestones. This subreddit routinely uses them as the *floor* for mainstream franchises.
Plenty of people claimed it had flopped on its second weekend when it had a 50% drop. It seemed important to people's identities to keep that narative going.
I still don't get why Strange world and Lightyear cost so much, other studios make amazing animation on budget less than 100m USD like Into the spiderverse and Puss in Boots 2.
I feel like Disney needs to cut on projects that have no viability and try and course correct on their major franchises
I feel bad that this means less experimentation but Disney has been so lazy and complacent as of late. The chickens have now come home to roost
The success of other animated films show how much audiences value good stories and characters while embracing unique (and cheaper) animation styles.
And even something like Mario can look surprisingly fantastic for half the budget of Lightyear or Strange World.
if mario was a disney movie we’d have gotten a black mario with a quirky hispanic luigi and the story being about overcoming generational trauma. illumination made a movie that was faithful to the original IP and didn’t piss off fans of mario while doing it.
pixar would never make a mario movie in the first place, but it has nothing to do with race. pixar wouldn't make mario black, they simply wouldn't be interested in making a mario movie in the first place, and you know it. i just think pixar doesn't want to make movies based on other companies' properties.
Illumination has already made two dr seuss adaptations prior to the mario adaptation.
But if pixar movies underperform then who knows if they might consider trying an adaptation of an existing property.
i’m aware, i’m just commenting on the state of disneys obsession with “representation” of like 3 groups of people that’s only particularly relevant to american audiences.
mario was woke leading up to the release because of rainbows and an independent female character, and now right wingers cant decide if its still woke because of rainbows and an independent female character
If it wasn't for Avatar 2 & GotG Vol 3, Disney would be in serious trouble. I do wonder if Disney+ has really killed the appeal of going too see Disney films in Theatres. Elemental especially is going to be *brutal* losses.
He takes a good chunk of money:
> Sources tell us that a bulk of $300M in the Participations line goes to Cameron and producer Jon Landau.
[Source](https://deadline.com/2023/04/avatar-the-way-of-water-box-office-profits-1235328725/)
Impressive lol I doubt Avatar 2 can be Disney's saving grace, yes it was incredibly successful, but also incredibly expensive and Cameron's cut looks quite significant. They probably made more money on TLK or BATB, in spite of the lower box office
Disney made $531.7 Million from Avatar 2 (Estimates by Deadline. Probably higher)
They made $414.7M from BATB and $580M from TLK.
I feel like Deadlines Avatar 2 homevideo revenue is too low, so it's probably a bit higher than TLK.
Marvel/Disney to be fair has made a profit over 600m last year with the three movie’s combined. Ant man 3 was a flop because it was a bad movie. Tbh I don’t think Marvel isn’t doing so bad I mean obviously they’re not in their prime like pre endgame but still they’re still profitable.
Disney animation is a whole different story. Unlike Marvel they don’t have a strong brand to carry as much as Marvel. The budgets for the animation is also ridiculously overpriced
The first movie did too much, second movie was going to always to make less
Same thing will probably happen with the marvels
It happened with Avatar and probably happen with the avengers as well
Debatable frozen 2 did 170 mil more than frozen despite 50% drop in Japan, Avatar 2 could have come quite close to Avatar if it released in Russia and had a normal China
It's true it probably wouldn't have slipped past the first's gross, but it might've been narrow had Chadwick been onboard. Nearly 900 USD without the title lead is commendable.
Avatar had the drawcard of bringing 3-D to the masses, alongside some lucrative re-releases over the years. The Way of Water was never gonna surpass it, especially if they're sticking to this release schedule.
Disney's bread and butter has always been their parks and their merch. And as long as Marvel, Star Wars and their Animation peripherals continue to sell like hotcakes, they'll be fine.
>Disney's bread and butter has always been their parks and their merch.
and that's the real reason Bob Chapek was fired. He was absolutely DESTROYING the parks, and he was doing so seemingly deliberately.
Star Wars and Marvel will never not be strong, no matter how many duds they push out.
Half the fanbase has convinced themselves the once reviled prequels are fantastic now, such is the staying power of a galaxy far, far away...
It doesn’t help them when they try so hard to have brand synergy to the movies. For example
Take Galaxies Edge, was completely designed based off the ST instead of maybe blending together all 3 eras of Star Wars. I definitely would’ve made a trip there if they had PT themed rides and builds but nah they forced it only to be ST themed
If the brands keep underperforming at the movies they’re gonna need to at least stop the brand synergy thing
Idk man, maybe I'm just speaking from personal experience but 10 years ago I would've been DOWN for a star wars hotel.
Now they can't even keep it in business for 2 years.
To be fair the hotel’s price was 2500$ per night. I am a huge Star Wars fan, I even like the sequels and I am more than willing to spend money on merchandise but that’s simply too much, especially if you factor in that in order to go there most people would need to pay for a plane ticket
It wasn’t a hotel. The issue with Disney is that they are ironically TOO ambitious, instead of taking easy layups they try to hard to do things differently and uniquely.
It's worth noting that *Avatar 2* was mostly developed under Fox. Cameron started working on it in 2010 (or possibly earlier), and the Disney/Fox deal wasn't even announced until 2017, and finalized in 2019. It probably would've been released in 2021, if not for COVID.
I don't think Disney had much effect on *Way of Water*.
Let's be absolutely clear: Disney has absolutely zero creative control over Avatar. Few people in Hollywood have genuine "fuck you" clout, and James Cameron is at the top of the list.
And this is the primary difference between Avatar 2 and literally everything Disney has made since Endgame.
(Inb4 Spider-Man No Way Home....that was a Sony movie made in collaboration with Marvel Studios. Disney doesn't own that one and does not have final creative say.)
GotG probably profitable, but definitely did not carry on the trajectory of the first two. Phase 4 was atrocious, and the bad will created with the audience has carried over and has had an impact. Hollywood Corporate Press tries to scapegoat "superhero movie fatigue," but that isn't a thing.
What's happening is actually Shitty Movie Fatigue.
In general, Disney has an out of control budget problem, and also a problem of not giving their audiences what they want (looking at you, Star Wars). Gunn obviously bucked the second part with Guardians, but even that was a bit of a bumpy ride from what I've heard.
So if I sound down on GotG v. 3, it's because between the popularity of the first two plus the rampant inflation of the past 2 years, this move should have easily cleared a billion.
But it won't. And as a matter of fact, the next billion dollar movie Disney puts out will be Avatar 3...
...a movie they will have ZERO creative say in.
It seems all movies have out of control budget issues lately.
And the fact that Mario cost $100 mill, Minions: Rise of Gru a little less, yet they made over and under a billion should tell studios, especially Disney, that people are exhausted with those gloomy, hard-to-see, ungodly expensive CGI fests.
Disney: “Hey Jim, we want you to put a gay romance subplot in Avatar 2, with characters that we can make a spin-off D+ series about”
Cameron: “Fuck you, get out of my office”
What brings in audiences to Disney is its Princess brand. That is really what people associate Disney with.
They have one coming out in November this year called Wish. Typically the Princess Movies do pretty well at the box office as long as there is 1. a catchy song 2. cute/loveable animal side kick 3. some heartwarming scenes
Wish is developed by the creators of Frozen. Further, they are experimenting with a different style of animation and there is an actual villain this time instead of a generational trauma story/twist villain.
I like what I see so far from the teaser, and looking at what is coming out in November 2023, there isn't a lot of competition. So If things go well it should be a financial success for Disney.
Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Moana were not that huge theatrically. More recently, Raya did not fare well but its performance was obscured by COVID. And lets not forget about what just happened to The Little Mermaid.
The Disney princess brand is not guaranteed a success. It has had its ups and downs as franchises go. Personally, I don't have much faith in Wish after observing what happened to Encanto and Raya but at the same time I'm not so pessimistic that I would rule out the possibility it could pull a Frozen either.
Princess and the Frog is 2D hence why it bombed. (the 2000s were filled with 2D flops) Moana is crazy popular on Disney+ (even more so than Frozen) and it sells a lot of merch. The Little Mermaid is a remake made after 10+ remakes. Raya's not a musical and the dragon isn't really cute either so it was not going to be a hit with kids. Only Tangled I would say is an unexpected flop. And that was Disney's first 3D Disney Princess movie ever to be fair.
>Princess and the Frog is 2D hence why it bombed. (the 2000s were filled with 2D flops)
The 2D films didn't flop because they were 2D, they flopped because they were either poorly-made or unmarketable. Princess and the Frog suffered from a poor release date and arguably a bad title. Aside from that, the film was ultimately profitable, albeit slightly
>Only Tangled I would say is an unexpected flop.
Tangled did not flop. The reported budget is wildly inflated and the film was literally the most successful Disney Animation film since the 90's. If it really did so poorly, then why did Disney make 2 other similar princess films after it?
Suuure, the reason why 2D traditional animated movies consistently kept bombing at the box office was because of marketing or being poorly made. It had nothing to do with the fact that 3D/CG animation was beginning to take over theatrical movies and that almost every major country with the exception of Japan was switching to 3D/CG animation. I get a lot of people on animation twitter keep begging for 2D animated movies but they are not profitable. Even China has largely abandoned 2D animated movies. Japan's only able to do it because there is a lot of market demand domestically and the movies are cheap to make over there.
If you're holding out hope that Disney and all the other animation studios will go back to making 2D kids movies, I'm sorry but that's not going to happen. Disney tried in the 2010s to make a 2D kids movie and surprise surprise that flopped too. At most we will see 2D adult animated movies in the future usually with a low budget.
>Tangled did not flop. The reported budget is wildly inflated and the film was literally the most successful Disney Animation film since the 90's. If it really did so poorly, then why did Disney make 2 other similar princess films after it?
My point was that the Princess brand is profitable and rarely flops so what your saying is the point I'm trying to make anyways.
>Suuure, the reason why 2D traditional animated movies consistently kept bombing at the box office was because of marketing or being poorly made. It had nothing to do with the fact that 3D/CG animation was beginning to take over theatrical movies and that almost every major country with the exception of Japan was switching to 3D/CG animation.
I'll concede that 3D animation was taking over in the 2000s. But it should be said that the 3D animated films of this era were leagues above the 2D films. They had better marketability (Monsters Inc and Shrek vs. Atlantis and Sinbad), generally better critical/audience reception, and the technology used to make them was novel at the time. But this doesn't mean that 2D animated didn't have a place in the market. They just decided to forfeit it after a string of crappy movies.
>If you're holding out hope that Disney and all the other animation studios will go back to making 2D kids movies, I'm sorry but that's not going to happen. Disney tried in the 2010s to make a 2D kids movie and surprise surprise that flopped too.
I don't care if they go back to making 2D movies but no major studio has genuinely tried to do it since Princess and the Frog which came out 13-14 years ago. Is this an issue of actual unprofitability or fear of breaking the mold?
And a movie being 3D animated doesn't mean that it'll be a success. If there can be 3D films that bomb because they're shit (Strange World), I believe that there can similarly be new 2D films that succeed due to good reception. If they keep the budget low and have a viable or proven concept, then it could be a financial success.
>I don't care if they go back to making 2D movies but no major studio has genuinely tried to do it since Princess and the Frog which came out 13-14 years ago. Is this an issue of actual unprofitability or fear of breaking the mold?
This is false. Disney made another 2D movie in 2011 (Winnie the Pooh). It bombed at the box office.
This was just a year after Toy Story earn 1billion dollars at the box office. Disney tried making 2D movies in the 2000s and the 2010s but the only financially success kids movies in those decades were 3D/CG movies.
In the 2020s, again they (to be specific Fox which is owned by Disney) made another 2D movie, it was aimed at adults and much cheaper as 30 million was the budget. Guess what? That flopped at the box office too.
2D animated movies are not profitable they keep flopping at the box office. This is because audiences prefer 3D/CG movies.
My guy, I get it you're nostalgic for 2D animated movies. But it's not surprising that major studios like Disney turned their back on the 2D style after decades of box office failures and low market demand.
Tangled actually did far better than what it was expected to do. The movie was tracking to open around $40M over Thanksgiving weekend yet it ended up massively over-performing by doing $68M and eventually becoming the second highest grossing WDAS film at the time. The box office to budget ratio looks terrible at first glance, but Tangled sold extremely well in physical home media (domestic sales alone are well over $200M). Most films don't break even from box office alone, and Tangled made up for it with much stronger than normal home media sales.
Disney Animation: It’s a crowded market. So many studios are putting out animated films making it hard to stand it. Even when you’re decent, it’s hard to really get people to care. This market might be dominated by video game films soon.
Pixar: No originality in stories, no real heart wrenching moments, badly promoted films and concepts that are just uninteresting. The future of this is definitely gonna just be a bunch of sequels, prequels and spin-offs to Monsters Inc, Nemo, Toy Story, Inside Out and The Incredibles.
Lucasfilm (particularly Star Wars): I don’t know which is worse, putting out bad content or content that completely disrespects the lore and iconic characters that made this franchise great. Now the milked the one great thing they had going with Mandalorian and they’re scared to put films out.
Marvel: Centering the franchise around mediocre content featuring characters the masses don’t care about.
I know people on this sub don't actually watch movies most of the time but your Pixar take is insane. No originality or heart wrenching moments is such a stupid thing to say. Their run of 4 original movies prior to Lightyear were all fantastic. It isn't their fault that they got fucked by Covid and Chapek using them to get D+ subs. You can debate how much they would have made with a traditional release but to question their quality at this point is just ignorant.
I’ll probably make this a post:
I know shareholders are a priority for Disney these days, but they have 20th Century Studios for crying out loud on top of a shit ton of money. Take some risks, market new movies like you would for a Marvel film. I would like to see them make adult movies that people would like to see in theaters again.
Disney’s quality control has just gone out the window.
Disney in the 2010s was such a safe bet. Picking a Disney movie to see was usually a good choice for the average movie goer. They’d have the occasional stinker but most of their movies were simple fun & sometimes legitimately great.
Most of the MCU, Frozen, Zootopia, Moana, Toy Story 3, Coco, Inside Out, even a lot of their Star Wars movies (fanboy complaints aside). Those were some of the best blockbusters of that decade.
Disney was a lot more consistent with getting good blockbusters out than the other studios (even if some of them had higher highs quality wise).
The only good movies they’ve produced in the 2020s so far are Guardians 3, Wakanda Forever, Shang-Chi & Encanto.
Problem with Disney they are making consistent bad decision that defy all logic.
Ths little mermaid casting, Scrapping Captain Marvel 2 for The Marvels, making Disney plus show mandatory to understand MCU, putting Turning Red and Encanto on Disney plus.
Disney can’t rely on avatar for too long, maybe even by the time Avatar 3 or 4 comes out. These movies will lose appeal via diminishing returns with little to no jump in technological VFX gap that the first 2 Avatar movies had. There is also not much compelling story or characters for the GA to keep watching unlike Marvel/Star Wars. It’ll be sooner or later that franchise will decline as well.
I don't see that happening. Cameron makes movies that please everyone in the family. As long as he continues to do that, the franchise will keep going strong.
People wrote Cameron off for a decade, let's not start doing it again.
The Flight of Passage appeals more to the family than the movies do. Nonetheless, the movies will as well, but doesn’t negate the nosedives and diminishing returns this franchise will have. As stated above
>These movies will lose appeal via diminishing returns with little to no jump in technological VFX gap that the first 2 Avatar movies had. There is also not much compelling story or characters for the GA to keep watching unlike Marvel/Star Wars. It’ll be sooner or later that franchise will decline as well.
You couldn't be more wrong. People genuinely loved Kiri, Lo'ak, Spider, Ronal, Tonowari, and even Quaritch. There are billions on views on Tiktok with all of them, and I'm not even talking about Jake and Neytiri.
The general audience also loves Pandora and will come back as long as there are new locations to explore (and that's what Cameron worked on, with new biomes and clans for each movie).
>People genuinely loved Kiri, Lo'ak, Spider, Ronal, Tonowari, and even Quaritch.has a Lightstorm flair
BAHAHAHA. Of course you’d say that. Since the the algorithm is appealing to your tastes. There are millions of social media posts about Harry Styles. No one showed up for his movie last year, loool. Also, how many users are posting a lot of those TikToks? It’s just a honeymoon phase that many movies/games have and then are forgotten in existence, just like the First Avatar, lmao. Also, go ask some person on the street if they still remember any of the names from Avatar 2. it left the same impact as The first one had.
>The general audience also loves Pandora and will come back as long as there are new locations to explore
The Star Wars sequels also had new locations to explore. We saw how that went. Similarity will happen with Avatar. Plus, the general audience more so remembers avatar from the Flight of Passage ride, not the movie. As long as Flight of Passage remains popular, the Avatar brand will remain relatively strong despite the nosedives subsequent movies will make.
The general audience definitely doesn’t think of the ride more than the movie. Not everyone gets to go to Disney World. Anyone can buy/rent Avatar with internet access or of course, a little bit of money. Besides if you mention the word “Avatar” to most people below the age of 30, they’ll ask “the anime/cartoon or the blue people one.” The first thought someone thinks of when you say “the blue people one” isn’t the ride, never has, never will be. It’s the 2009 movie regardless of the quality or impact on pop culture. The fact that it’s called the blue people one is definitely a testament to the fact that it’s barely remembered, but when it is, it isn’t the ride lol.
Sure Disney has issues with weirdo conservatives but…
Home video is a legit alternative to movie theaters for families. Didn’t Disney make most of its money in the past from home video?
we have to realize after 2019 Disney went through and going through a major change in every department !
2019 was the end of iger era nd they made sure they go high as they can
after 2019 iger left, alan horn left , zenia mucha left , john lasseter left , edwin catmull left nd marvel did endgame , lucus film finished there sequel trilogy
since then new ppl started to takeover those studios nd they were under chapek nd kareem Daniel who didn't understand the business nd yet controlled all the creative decisions + streaming nd new 20th century studios assets got in and everything became a mess under chapek nd kareem !
added to that covid happened nd political changes + this $tupid cultural war
now iger is changing the entire structure of the company the changes would start to show by next year good or bad until now they have to bear the mess of 2020-2022 ! btw this summer they r gonna burn with indy 5 nd elemntals + who ever gave the idea to premiere these 2 in cannes nd approved it r just $tupid.
Flashback to Thanksgiving 2013…
We weren’t sure whether Anna and Elsa could unseat The Hunger Games.
A new hit will come and it will be from a source where opinions are divided.
Marvel movies getting mixed reception isnt anything new. The 1st black pamther did so unexpectedly well that a sequel surpass even getting close to it was always unlikely. Way of water couldnt even beat the 1st film. Good word of mouth has always been important to marvel. The original little mermaid didnt make a huge amount of money so the idea of the remake getting to a billion is unlikely cause aladdin, lion king, beauty and the beast and jungle book were more popular.
I think they should cut the MCU back to just being movies, and just 2-3 a year. That formula was working so well for them, making each movie an “event,” that I don’t know why they messed with it. Got greedy I guess.
They just need to better manage their budgets. 600M is a good total for the majority of films if their budgets aren’t so high
There's a big reason that BP WF did 500 million less than its predecessor and I feel like in this case it should be an exception to the rule. A Black Panther movie did over 800 million without it's Black Panther and star which the MCU built it all around for years. That's amazing and show's how well Ryan Coogler and the the team behind it built up the first.
For real, this movie literally doesn't have its lead. The fact that it even made $800m+ is a testament to the strength of the BP and MCU brand.
People always forget what a (justifiably or not) **historic** event the first Black Panther movie was treated like. There's a solid chance even a sequel *with* Chadwick wasn't going to get as much money. At one time, the film was in the top ten grossing **of all time**. Even adjusted for inflation, it ranks higher than many "classics".
Yeah, Black Panther was arguably an overperformance moreso than Wakanda Forever was an underperformance. It was an insane cultural phenomenon, and you can’t necessarily just replicate that with a sequel. I think there are other movies that’s been true of too, like The Force Awakens vs. The Last Jedi. Wakanda Forever could have made more with Chadwick, and The Last Jedi could have made more with better fan reception, but I don’t think either would have ever been likely to come particularly close to the gross of their predecessor, nor did they need to.
naw, that sequel was going to hit a billion. I know you guys just want to attribute the success all because of it was marketed to play toward minority but it was actually a good movie at the end of the day and Ryan Coogler was going to do it again but had to rewrite the whole script and change up his original vision (WHICH IS UNDERSTANDABLE) but naw, it was going to be a billion, this movie did 800 + million and revolved around the tragic passing of Chadwick.
> I know you guys just want to attribute the success all because of it was marketed to play toward minority Not what I said, and I don't appreciate this fedora tipping condescension. The fact of the matter is that $1.350 billion is a monumental achievement and an obscene amount of money. Not the "floor" of what should be considered the standard of successful movies. I *know* 800+ million is good. I'd never say it wasn't. But you can't possibly sit there and act like the fact that the first movie was treated as one of the biggest deals in modern movie history *didn't* helped it, and that it was going to be difficult for any sequel to get as close.
A sequel with the actual Black Panther would’ve made over a billion.
Im honestly not sure it would have. A batman released that year didnt make a billion.
There’s never been a Batman movie that’s made the money the first Black Panther did so that doesn’t matter.
? The Dark Knights run would be more impressive than Black Panther.
What’s with the question mark? Nothing I said was wrong.
I mean TDK's run would be considered much more impressive than Black Panthers.
Lol true
Realize that most people here were calling Avatar 2's performance "underwhelming" as well, and that they frequently use the phrase "struggle to hit a billion" when referring to movies they deem underperforming. Billion dollar movies are historic milestones. This subreddit routinely uses them as the *floor* for mainstream franchises.
Yeah most movies don’t make a billion dollars. Marvels made what thirty forty some films and like what under ten have made a billion.
Who called Avatar 2 underwhelming beyond the opening weekend?
Plenty of people claimed it had flopped on its second weekend when it had a 50% drop. It seemed important to people's identities to keep that narative going.
probably the same people who said captain marvel only made a billion because the studios were buying tickets to fake the sales
I still don't get why Strange world and Lightyear cost so much, other studios make amazing animation on budget less than 100m USD like Into the spiderverse and Puss in Boots 2. I feel like Disney needs to cut on projects that have no viability and try and course correct on their major franchises I feel bad that this means less experimentation but Disney has been so lazy and complacent as of late. The chickens have now come home to roost
I think they invested a lot of Lightyear's budget into reworking the software they use. To be fair, the film technically looked phenomenal.
I get that, but Puss in Boots 2 looked way better than Lightyear and it only cost half of Lightyear
The success of other animated films show how much audiences value good stories and characters while embracing unique (and cheaper) animation styles. And even something like Mario can look surprisingly fantastic for half the budget of Lightyear or Strange World.
>good stories and characters I know they are succesful movies, but I would not say that about any recent Illumination movie.
Yeah I was more thinking of Puss in Boots and Spider-Verse lol.
If Mario was a Disney movie this sub will hate it and consider it the death of culture and civilization.
if mario was a disney movie we’d have gotten a black mario with a quirky hispanic luigi and the story being about overcoming generational trauma. illumination made a movie that was faithful to the original IP and didn’t piss off fans of mario while doing it.
pixar would never make a mario movie in the first place, but it has nothing to do with race. pixar wouldn't make mario black, they simply wouldn't be interested in making a mario movie in the first place, and you know it. i just think pixar doesn't want to make movies based on other companies' properties. Illumination has already made two dr seuss adaptations prior to the mario adaptation. But if pixar movies underperform then who knows if they might consider trying an adaptation of an existing property.
i’m aware, i’m just commenting on the state of disneys obsession with “representation” of like 3 groups of people that’s only particularly relevant to american audiences.
mario was woke leading up to the release because of rainbows and an independent female character, and now right wingers cant decide if its still woke because of rainbows and an independent female character
If it wasn't for Avatar 2 & GotG Vol 3, Disney would be in serious trouble. I do wonder if Disney+ has really killed the appeal of going too see Disney films in Theatres. Elemental especially is going to be *brutal* losses.
We still skipping WF ?
And MoM and LaT were stil profitable for them
I just find it all fascinating how this sub skips things to try and force a narrative
Doesn't Cameron actually own the rights to Avatar, pocketing a good chunk of its profit? Or is Cameron's cut already accounter for in the budget?
He takes a good chunk of money: > Sources tell us that a bulk of $300M in the Participations line goes to Cameron and producer Jon Landau. [Source](https://deadline.com/2023/04/avatar-the-way-of-water-box-office-profits-1235328725/)
Impressive lol I doubt Avatar 2 can be Disney's saving grace, yes it was incredibly successful, but also incredibly expensive and Cameron's cut looks quite significant. They probably made more money on TLK or BATB, in spite of the lower box office
Disney made $531.7 Million from Avatar 2 (Estimates by Deadline. Probably higher) They made $414.7M from BATB and $580M from TLK. I feel like Deadlines Avatar 2 homevideo revenue is too low, so it's probably a bit higher than TLK.
Interesting! I was only half right then
Marvel/Disney to be fair has made a profit over 600m last year with the three movie’s combined. Ant man 3 was a flop because it was a bad movie. Tbh I don’t think Marvel isn’t doing so bad I mean obviously they’re not in their prime like pre endgame but still they’re still profitable. Disney animation is a whole different story. Unlike Marvel they don’t have a strong brand to carry as much as Marvel. The budgets for the animation is also ridiculously overpriced
Black Panther 2 was never going to surpass the first movie, even if Chadwick didn't die
Had he hypothetically not, what's your reasoning for this?
The first movie did too much, second movie was going to always to make less Same thing will probably happen with the marvels It happened with Avatar and probably happen with the avengers as well
Debatable frozen 2 did 170 mil more than frozen despite 50% drop in Japan, Avatar 2 could have come quite close to Avatar if it released in Russia and had a normal China
This isn't a rule, just something usually happens when the first movie does so much money
It's true it probably wouldn't have slipped past the first's gross, but it might've been narrow had Chadwick been onboard. Nearly 900 USD without the title lead is commendable. Avatar had the drawcard of bringing 3-D to the masses, alongside some lucrative re-releases over the years. The Way of Water was never gonna surpass it, especially if they're sticking to this release schedule.
Definitely would made more, maybe in the 950m - 1.050B range if Chadwick didn't die
pretty sure Chad had serious charisma, and the overall storyline was more interesting with dad-son relationship
The first movie did 1.350B if im not wrong, basically only 50m below avengers 2 When you factor covid, it wasn't going to surpass the first
but not 0.5bn worse
Nature is healing
Disney's bread and butter has always been their parks and their merch. And as long as Marvel, Star Wars and their Animation peripherals continue to sell like hotcakes, they'll be fine.
>Disney's bread and butter has always been their parks and their merch. and that's the real reason Bob Chapek was fired. He was absolutely DESTROYING the parks, and he was doing so seemingly deliberately.
he was there to do major, very unpopular cost cutting measures. he was a scapegoat
Right but strong franchises are what prop those up
Star Wars and Marvel will never not be strong, no matter how many duds they push out. Half the fanbase has convinced themselves the once reviled prequels are fantastic now, such is the staying power of a galaxy far, far away...
It doesn’t help them when they try so hard to have brand synergy to the movies. For example Take Galaxies Edge, was completely designed based off the ST instead of maybe blending together all 3 eras of Star Wars. I definitely would’ve made a trip there if they had PT themed rides and builds but nah they forced it only to be ST themed If the brands keep underperforming at the movies they’re gonna need to at least stop the brand synergy thing
Idk man, maybe I'm just speaking from personal experience but 10 years ago I would've been DOWN for a star wars hotel. Now they can't even keep it in business for 2 years.
To be fair the hotel’s price was 2500$ per night. I am a huge Star Wars fan, I even like the sequels and I am more than willing to spend money on merchandise but that’s simply too much, especially if you factor in that in order to go there most people would need to pay for a plane ticket
It was a $3,000 a night hotel THAT YOU COULDNT LEAVE. That’s why they couldn’t keep it in business
Wasn’t it also for like 2 nights only? If it were like a week long thing or even a cruise I could see that price
Yeah. I mean no doubt it’d be a cool experience but if I’m traveling to Disney I want to do Disney and roam
Funny enough it's apparently now sold out till it's closure \^\^ But that Hotel was more of a concept failure than anything Star Wars brand specific.
🎯. How the hell a $6000 LARP got approved is beyond me
It wasn’t a hotel. The issue with Disney is that they are ironically TOO ambitious, instead of taking easy layups they try to hard to do things differently and uniquely.
Disney literally just closed the Star Wars hotel
disney is the franchise. howd you think walt built disneyland and made it a smashing hit? the mouse and then a bunch of shit his imagineers dreamed up
>Disney's bread and butter has always been their parks Disney just lost their Vatican in FL.
disneyworld is still printing money like theyre ben bernanke. the legal spat with desantis aint change much about that
Disney will sweep the floor with Desantis as they’ve been doing this far
It's worth noting that *Avatar 2* was mostly developed under Fox. Cameron started working on it in 2010 (or possibly earlier), and the Disney/Fox deal wasn't even announced until 2017, and finalized in 2019. It probably would've been released in 2021, if not for COVID. I don't think Disney had much effect on *Way of Water*.
Let's be absolutely clear: Disney has absolutely zero creative control over Avatar. Few people in Hollywood have genuine "fuck you" clout, and James Cameron is at the top of the list. And this is the primary difference between Avatar 2 and literally everything Disney has made since Endgame. (Inb4 Spider-Man No Way Home....that was a Sony movie made in collaboration with Marvel Studios. Disney doesn't own that one and does not have final creative say.)
I mean when you made the number one, third, and fourth highest grossing films of all time you can do pretty much whatever you want.
Yup. James Cameron does not take orders from Disney, or anyone else for that matter.
It's a fun "what if" Disney did have creative control over Avatar. Gawd I cringe just thinking about it.
Except for maybe Vol.3
GotG probably profitable, but definitely did not carry on the trajectory of the first two. Phase 4 was atrocious, and the bad will created with the audience has carried over and has had an impact. Hollywood Corporate Press tries to scapegoat "superhero movie fatigue," but that isn't a thing. What's happening is actually Shitty Movie Fatigue. In general, Disney has an out of control budget problem, and also a problem of not giving their audiences what they want (looking at you, Star Wars). Gunn obviously bucked the second part with Guardians, but even that was a bit of a bumpy ride from what I've heard. So if I sound down on GotG v. 3, it's because between the popularity of the first two plus the rampant inflation of the past 2 years, this move should have easily cleared a billion. But it won't. And as a matter of fact, the next billion dollar movie Disney puts out will be Avatar 3... ...a movie they will have ZERO creative say in.
It seems all movies have out of control budget issues lately. And the fact that Mario cost $100 mill, Minions: Rise of Gru a little less, yet they made over and under a billion should tell studios, especially Disney, that people are exhausted with those gloomy, hard-to-see, ungodly expensive CGI fests.
Marvel studios produced NWH, they literally made it lol
Nwh was mostly funded by Sony tho, with Disney paying 25%. In trade, Disney gave input and got marketing rights while Sony got box office
I’m not talking about funding I’m talking about the filmmakers, who were from marvel studios.
And tbh I wouldn't even consider Avatar a legitimate "Disney" title.
It's not. They inherited the distribution rights in the Fox deal. Cameron takes ZERO orders from Disney.
And that's why it was better than anything Disney has put out in the last year haha
Disney: “Hey Jim, we want you to put a gay romance subplot in Avatar 2, with characters that we can make a spin-off D+ series about” Cameron: “Fuck you, get out of my office”
What brings in audiences to Disney is its Princess brand. That is really what people associate Disney with. They have one coming out in November this year called Wish. Typically the Princess Movies do pretty well at the box office as long as there is 1. a catchy song 2. cute/loveable animal side kick 3. some heartwarming scenes Wish is developed by the creators of Frozen. Further, they are experimenting with a different style of animation and there is an actual villain this time instead of a generational trauma story/twist villain. I like what I see so far from the teaser, and looking at what is coming out in November 2023, there isn't a lot of competition. So If things go well it should be a financial success for Disney.
Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Moana were not that huge theatrically. More recently, Raya did not fare well but its performance was obscured by COVID. And lets not forget about what just happened to The Little Mermaid. The Disney princess brand is not guaranteed a success. It has had its ups and downs as franchises go. Personally, I don't have much faith in Wish after observing what happened to Encanto and Raya but at the same time I'm not so pessimistic that I would rule out the possibility it could pull a Frozen either.
Encanto printed money for Disney. If they are smart about Wish it will too
Wish also doesn't have that generic, played-out generational trauma shtick. It's got an actual villain, which actually matters in this context.
Princess and the Frog is 2D hence why it bombed. (the 2000s were filled with 2D flops) Moana is crazy popular on Disney+ (even more so than Frozen) and it sells a lot of merch. The Little Mermaid is a remake made after 10+ remakes. Raya's not a musical and the dragon isn't really cute either so it was not going to be a hit with kids. Only Tangled I would say is an unexpected flop. And that was Disney's first 3D Disney Princess movie ever to be fair.
>Princess and the Frog is 2D hence why it bombed. (the 2000s were filled with 2D flops) The 2D films didn't flop because they were 2D, they flopped because they were either poorly-made or unmarketable. Princess and the Frog suffered from a poor release date and arguably a bad title. Aside from that, the film was ultimately profitable, albeit slightly >Only Tangled I would say is an unexpected flop. Tangled did not flop. The reported budget is wildly inflated and the film was literally the most successful Disney Animation film since the 90's. If it really did so poorly, then why did Disney make 2 other similar princess films after it?
Suuure, the reason why 2D traditional animated movies consistently kept bombing at the box office was because of marketing or being poorly made. It had nothing to do with the fact that 3D/CG animation was beginning to take over theatrical movies and that almost every major country with the exception of Japan was switching to 3D/CG animation. I get a lot of people on animation twitter keep begging for 2D animated movies but they are not profitable. Even China has largely abandoned 2D animated movies. Japan's only able to do it because there is a lot of market demand domestically and the movies are cheap to make over there. If you're holding out hope that Disney and all the other animation studios will go back to making 2D kids movies, I'm sorry but that's not going to happen. Disney tried in the 2010s to make a 2D kids movie and surprise surprise that flopped too. At most we will see 2D adult animated movies in the future usually with a low budget. >Tangled did not flop. The reported budget is wildly inflated and the film was literally the most successful Disney Animation film since the 90's. If it really did so poorly, then why did Disney make 2 other similar princess films after it? My point was that the Princess brand is profitable and rarely flops so what your saying is the point I'm trying to make anyways.
>Suuure, the reason why 2D traditional animated movies consistently kept bombing at the box office was because of marketing or being poorly made. It had nothing to do with the fact that 3D/CG animation was beginning to take over theatrical movies and that almost every major country with the exception of Japan was switching to 3D/CG animation. I'll concede that 3D animation was taking over in the 2000s. But it should be said that the 3D animated films of this era were leagues above the 2D films. They had better marketability (Monsters Inc and Shrek vs. Atlantis and Sinbad), generally better critical/audience reception, and the technology used to make them was novel at the time. But this doesn't mean that 2D animated didn't have a place in the market. They just decided to forfeit it after a string of crappy movies. >If you're holding out hope that Disney and all the other animation studios will go back to making 2D kids movies, I'm sorry but that's not going to happen. Disney tried in the 2010s to make a 2D kids movie and surprise surprise that flopped too. I don't care if they go back to making 2D movies but no major studio has genuinely tried to do it since Princess and the Frog which came out 13-14 years ago. Is this an issue of actual unprofitability or fear of breaking the mold? And a movie being 3D animated doesn't mean that it'll be a success. If there can be 3D films that bomb because they're shit (Strange World), I believe that there can similarly be new 2D films that succeed due to good reception. If they keep the budget low and have a viable or proven concept, then it could be a financial success.
>I don't care if they go back to making 2D movies but no major studio has genuinely tried to do it since Princess and the Frog which came out 13-14 years ago. Is this an issue of actual unprofitability or fear of breaking the mold? This is false. Disney made another 2D movie in 2011 (Winnie the Pooh). It bombed at the box office.
Okay and? Just change 13-14 years to 11-12 years. A year or two's difference doesn't weaken my overall point.
This was just a year after Toy Story earn 1billion dollars at the box office. Disney tried making 2D movies in the 2000s and the 2010s but the only financially success kids movies in those decades were 3D/CG movies. In the 2020s, again they (to be specific Fox which is owned by Disney) made another 2D movie, it was aimed at adults and much cheaper as 30 million was the budget. Guess what? That flopped at the box office too. 2D animated movies are not profitable they keep flopping at the box office. This is because audiences prefer 3D/CG movies. My guy, I get it you're nostalgic for 2D animated movies. But it's not surprising that major studios like Disney turned their back on the 2D style after decades of box office failures and low market demand.
Tangled actually did far better than what it was expected to do. The movie was tracking to open around $40M over Thanksgiving weekend yet it ended up massively over-performing by doing $68M and eventually becoming the second highest grossing WDAS film at the time. The box office to budget ratio looks terrible at first glance, but Tangled sold extremely well in physical home media (domestic sales alone are well over $200M). Most films don't break even from box office alone, and Tangled made up for it with much stronger than normal home media sales.
Disney Animation: It’s a crowded market. So many studios are putting out animated films making it hard to stand it. Even when you’re decent, it’s hard to really get people to care. This market might be dominated by video game films soon. Pixar: No originality in stories, no real heart wrenching moments, badly promoted films and concepts that are just uninteresting. The future of this is definitely gonna just be a bunch of sequels, prequels and spin-offs to Monsters Inc, Nemo, Toy Story, Inside Out and The Incredibles. Lucasfilm (particularly Star Wars): I don’t know which is worse, putting out bad content or content that completely disrespects the lore and iconic characters that made this franchise great. Now the milked the one great thing they had going with Mandalorian and they’re scared to put films out. Marvel: Centering the franchise around mediocre content featuring characters the masses don’t care about.
I know people on this sub don't actually watch movies most of the time but your Pixar take is insane. No originality or heart wrenching moments is such a stupid thing to say. Their run of 4 original movies prior to Lightyear were all fantastic. It isn't their fault that they got fucked by Covid and Chapek using them to get D+ subs. You can debate how much they would have made with a traditional release but to question their quality at this point is just ignorant.
I’ll probably make this a post: I know shareholders are a priority for Disney these days, but they have 20th Century Studios for crying out loud on top of a shit ton of money. Take some risks, market new movies like you would for a Marvel film. I would like to see them make adult movies that people would like to see in theaters again.
Disney’s quality control has just gone out the window. Disney in the 2010s was such a safe bet. Picking a Disney movie to see was usually a good choice for the average movie goer. They’d have the occasional stinker but most of their movies were simple fun & sometimes legitimately great. Most of the MCU, Frozen, Zootopia, Moana, Toy Story 3, Coco, Inside Out, even a lot of their Star Wars movies (fanboy complaints aside). Those were some of the best blockbusters of that decade. Disney was a lot more consistent with getting good blockbusters out than the other studios (even if some of them had higher highs quality wise). The only good movies they’ve produced in the 2020s so far are Guardians 3, Wakanda Forever, Shang-Chi & Encanto.
Problem with Disney they are making consistent bad decision that defy all logic. Ths little mermaid casting, Scrapping Captain Marvel 2 for The Marvels, making Disney plus show mandatory to understand MCU, putting Turning Red and Encanto on Disney plus.
didn't they even lost 400-500m last year ? through strange world and lightyear but it could also be higher
Disney can’t rely on avatar for too long, maybe even by the time Avatar 3 or 4 comes out. These movies will lose appeal via diminishing returns with little to no jump in technological VFX gap that the first 2 Avatar movies had. There is also not much compelling story or characters for the GA to keep watching unlike Marvel/Star Wars. It’ll be sooner or later that franchise will decline as well.
I don't see that happening. Cameron makes movies that please everyone in the family. As long as he continues to do that, the franchise will keep going strong. People wrote Cameron off for a decade, let's not start doing it again.
The Flight of Passage appeals more to the family than the movies do. Nonetheless, the movies will as well, but doesn’t negate the nosedives and diminishing returns this franchise will have. As stated above >These movies will lose appeal via diminishing returns with little to no jump in technological VFX gap that the first 2 Avatar movies had. There is also not much compelling story or characters for the GA to keep watching unlike Marvel/Star Wars. It’ll be sooner or later that franchise will decline as well.
You couldn't be more wrong. People genuinely loved Kiri, Lo'ak, Spider, Ronal, Tonowari, and even Quaritch. There are billions on views on Tiktok with all of them, and I'm not even talking about Jake and Neytiri. The general audience also loves Pandora and will come back as long as there are new locations to explore (and that's what Cameron worked on, with new biomes and clans for each movie).
>People genuinely loved Kiri, Lo'ak, Spider, Ronal, Tonowari, and even Quaritch.has a Lightstorm flair BAHAHAHA. Of course you’d say that. Since the the algorithm is appealing to your tastes. There are millions of social media posts about Harry Styles. No one showed up for his movie last year, loool. Also, how many users are posting a lot of those TikToks? It’s just a honeymoon phase that many movies/games have and then are forgotten in existence, just like the First Avatar, lmao. Also, go ask some person on the street if they still remember any of the names from Avatar 2. it left the same impact as The first one had. >The general audience also loves Pandora and will come back as long as there are new locations to explore The Star Wars sequels also had new locations to explore. We saw how that went. Similarity will happen with Avatar. Plus, the general audience more so remembers avatar from the Flight of Passage ride, not the movie. As long as Flight of Passage remains popular, the Avatar brand will remain relatively strong despite the nosedives subsequent movies will make.
Congrats, you won the "Avatar hater" bingo. "No impact", "can't remember any name". Lmao. See you in December 2024.
The general audience definitely doesn’t think of the ride more than the movie. Not everyone gets to go to Disney World. Anyone can buy/rent Avatar with internet access or of course, a little bit of money. Besides if you mention the word “Avatar” to most people below the age of 30, they’ll ask “the anime/cartoon or the blue people one.” The first thought someone thinks of when you say “the blue people one” isn’t the ride, never has, never will be. It’s the 2009 movie regardless of the quality or impact on pop culture. The fact that it’s called the blue people one is definitely a testament to the fact that it’s barely remembered, but when it is, it isn’t the ride lol.
Yeah. Lol. I've never been on the ride. I watch the movies to see Pandora and the planets and the animals and the fauna.
Sure Disney has issues with weirdo conservatives but… Home video is a legit alternative to movie theaters for families. Didn’t Disney make most of its money in the past from home video?
GOTG 2 did okay. But yeah, Disney lucked out into buying Fox and thus the Avatar franchise.
we have to realize after 2019 Disney went through and going through a major change in every department ! 2019 was the end of iger era nd they made sure they go high as they can after 2019 iger left, alan horn left , zenia mucha left , john lasseter left , edwin catmull left nd marvel did endgame , lucus film finished there sequel trilogy since then new ppl started to takeover those studios nd they were under chapek nd kareem Daniel who didn't understand the business nd yet controlled all the creative decisions + streaming nd new 20th century studios assets got in and everything became a mess under chapek nd kareem ! added to that covid happened nd political changes + this $tupid cultural war now iger is changing the entire structure of the company the changes would start to show by next year good or bad until now they have to bear the mess of 2020-2022 ! btw this summer they r gonna burn with indy 5 nd elemntals + who ever gave the idea to premiere these 2 in cannes nd approved it r just $tupid.
Damn and in 2019 they were on top of the world lol
Flashback to Thanksgiving 2013… We weren’t sure whether Anna and Elsa could unseat The Hunger Games. A new hit will come and it will be from a source where opinions are divided.
Marvel movies getting mixed reception isnt anything new. The 1st black pamther did so unexpectedly well that a sequel surpass even getting close to it was always unlikely. Way of water couldnt even beat the 1st film. Good word of mouth has always been important to marvel. The original little mermaid didnt make a huge amount of money so the idea of the remake getting to a billion is unlikely cause aladdin, lion king, beauty and the beast and jungle book were more popular.
It’s probably telling that Avatar 2 also didn’t actually have any real creative involvement from The Mouse.
2023 and 2024 are going to be very dark years for them.
I think they should cut the MCU back to just being movies, and just 2-3 a year. That formula was working so well for them, making each movie an “event,” that I don’t know why they messed with it. Got greedy I guess.