Disney is one of the most recognizable and beloved film studios today. In 2022, they commanded a staggering 18.22% of the box office from just nine films, marking the seventh consecutive year that Disney was the market leader. Disney’s financial success in recent years has also corresponded to its success among critics with films such as Avatar: The Way of the Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, being bestowed the highly touted ‘certified fresh’ distinction from internet critic aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
The year 2023, however, has proven difficult for Disney, with numerous financial and critical failures proving to be black markers on the otherwise triumphant studio. Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Elemental, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and even The Little Mermaid were big-budget projects that disappointed financially with all five films receiving (at best) dubious receptions from critics.
Disney’s shortcomings at the box office coincide with the recent troubles its streaming service has incurred. Costly projects such as the Mandalorian Season 3 and Secret Invasion have received underwhelming critical responses, seemingly damaging Disney+ which reportedly lost 11.7 million users in its last quarter and operated under a $512 million loss in the same time period. All this begs the question as to why recent Disney projects have been unable to catch the audience’s eye.
For me, the main reason why Disney has disappointed as of late is a perceived lack of risk and originality behind many of their projects. With so many avenues for people to enjoy films and series from the comfort of their own homes and the willingness of studios to allow for more thought-provoking cinema through previously established franchises (Greta Gerwig’s Barbie being a recent, successful example), it can be argued that Disney’s reliance on previously established franchises, with little perceived ‘originality’ in its films, has hurt the studio. For years, Disney has been criticized for their ‘reimagining’ of their prior classics, which take previously beloved animated features and recreate them in live-action. While the first films in this series, such as The Lion King, received significant financial success, the ability of general audiences to watch, for example, the original Little Mermaid on Disney+ has potentially made this genre of Disney film superfluous. While the original Little Mermaid is famous for its beautiful world-building and visual awe, the new, reimagined version has been described as “aesthetically unappealing” by journalist Alex Abad-Santos. Therefore, it is not astonishing that, with such ease of access to the original, the new film was underwhelming at the box office.
A further reason for Disney’s recent failure is how Ant-Man and the Wasp explores the multiverse within its story. Films such as Everything Everywhere All at Once and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse have similarly tackled multiverse stories to much greater fanfare from general audiences. Therefore, the film’s poor performance could be attributed to its lack of originality. Additionally, the new Indiana Jones film has been described as ‘unnecessary’ as Kingdom of the Crystal, while not universally beloved, was released with the expectation that it would be the last in the Franchise, with Mr. Jones riding off into the sunset as a newly married man. The return of Indiana Jones, thus, was met with little fanfare, as a character returning to a story that had already ended was not enticing to audiences. Disney’s want to retread previously exhausted franchises, rather than explore the possibility with new IPs – as was the case with the two most successful films of the year so far, Barbie and Super Mario Bros. – is most definitely harming Disney.
Does this, therefore, spell the end for Disney’s dominance of the entertainment industry? Well, Disney is unquestionably struggling as of late. In March, the company announced its intentions to make $5.5 billion in cuts, which accompanied Bob Iger’s announcement of Disney’s downsizing, with the sale of ‘non-core’ assets such as ABC and FX in July. Ultimately, their future success depends upon their ability to once again venture into original storytelling that follows good filmmaking practices. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (a Disney product) succeeded both financially and critically this year in no small part due to the allowance for creative risk and the desire of audiences to see the continuation of these characters’ stories. Consequently, for Disney to prevent future failure, they must encourage projects that tell new, exciting stories, rather than those which are unoriginal and retread upon what has come before.
