How Big of a Failure Was 2023 for Disney?
2023 was a rough year for entertainment companies and studios.
©The Walt Disney Company
While SAG-AFTRA fought for better working conditions and better pay for actors, the movie studios struggled to continue producing movies. Several studios had long lists of projected movies to be released in 2023, but not all of them were able to be finished and released. As most of us know, Disney was affected by the strike in this way as many actors could not start or complete movies this year. The company also struggled with getting viewers to the theaters. So how badly did Disney suffer in 2023? Keep reading to find out!
Box Office
©Disney
After lots of concern over Disney’s so-called “woke agenda”, Disney CEO Bob Iger recently said that Disney creators had “lost sight” of what they should be creating. Instead of “messages” they need to “entertain first.” But then a point was brought up that perhaps the “messages” weren’t the problem. Instead, Disney’s focus on sequels and live-action remakes could instead by the issue.
©Lucasfilm
The box office numbers prove Disney has gotten behind the curve in 2023. Originally, they had over 17 movies announced for 2023, but how many were actually released?
Projected
Several movies were announced to premiere in 2023. There were Marvel, Disney, Pixar, and 20th Century Studios movies meant to be released. A couple of them were original stories, but most were remakes or sequels, just as ScreenRant expressed to be the issue for Disney.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania at AMC Theatre in Disney Springs
While many went straight to Disney+, we were supposed to see quite a few on the big screen. The following are 11 of the movies and their projected release dates that were meant to hit theaters this year:
- February 17th, 2023 – Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
- April 21st, 2023 – Next Goal Wins
- May 5th, 2023 – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
- May 26th, 2023 – The Little Mermaid
- June 16th, 2023 – Elemental
- June 30th, 2023 – Indiana Jones 5
- July 28th, 2023 – The Marvels
- August 11th, 2023 – Haunted Mansion
- October 6th, 2023 – True Love
- November 3rd, 2023 – Blade
- November 22nd, 2023 – Wish
Wish Billboard
Released
So which of those movies came out in 2023? We actually got to see the following:
- February 17th, 2023 – Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
- May 5th, 2023 — Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
- May 26th, 2023 — The Little Mermaid
- June 16th, 2023 — Elemental
- June 30th, 2023 — Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
- July 28th, 2023 — Haunted Mansion
- November 10th, 2023 — The Marvels
- November 17th, 2023 — Next Goal Wins
- November 22nd, 2023 — Wish
Ariel meet-and-greet in Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Out of the 11 movies on this list, 9 were actually released. That’s not too bad considering how long the strike lasted. However, we did some shifts in release dates. The Marvels was released way late and interestingly, The Haunted Mansion was released early.
©Marvel
Both True Love and Blade have been pushed back, with Blade not expected to be released until 2025, now. Perhaps the bigger issues are the 2024 release dates which we have seen get rearranged. Movies like Mufasa: The Lion King and Deadpool 3 were anticipated to open earlier in 2024, but are now being pushed. Mufasa specifically was anticipated to be released on July 5th, 2024 but is now not heading to theaters until December 20th, 2024.
©Disney
So was there an issue for Disney’s movies in 2023? The box office numbers and dropped movies would indicate, yes. However, it sounds like Disney has several good movies expected to come out in 2024. We’re especially excited to see Inside Out 2! But a media analyst recently predicted that it’s not going to be a good year for movies. They anticipate that not one movie in 2024 will touch $1 billion.
©Disney
Disney+
So the box office didn’t do quite as well as Disney probably would have liked, but how about Disney+? According to Disney’s 4th quarter earnings report, Disney+ subscribers were up! Iger has stressed that this is his primary goal within the company, and at the end of 2023, it seemed like things were improving. The streaming service gained 7 million subscribers globally.
©Disney
But has Disney+ been part of the issues for the box office decline? Elemental may be a good indicator for that. According to The New York Times, The Pixar movie flopped when it initially hit theaters. On its opening, it only earned $29.6 million, the worst of any Pixar film in theaters. However, over time it improved, finally reaching $500 million. But over on Disney+, it had some of the highest streaming numbers.
Elemental Photo Op in Hollywood Studios
Pete Docter, Pixar’s chief creative officer, shared this insight, “There has been an overall shift in viewing habits as a result of the pandemic, but it’s also specific to Disney+. We’ve told people, ‘Hey, all of this is going to be available to you on Disney+!'” So could this shift be part of the downslide at the box office? Disney’s newest animated movie Wish felt these effects as well.
Asha from the new movie ‘Wish’
On opening weekend, Wish was projected to see upwards of $50 million but it ended up only grossing around $19.5 million, according to Forbes. After seeing the results of Wish, Deadline stated, “It’s clear the Mouse House is in competition with itself.”
Some stated the poor performance of the movie could be attributed to the trailer lacking any insight into the plot. One feature distribution analyst even stated, “Since the pandemic, not a single original IP animated film has been able to open above $30M. That suggests that studios have to work extra hard to create the urgency that comes with familiar IP. Otherwise, they’ll just wait to watch it at home. That speaks to more systemic problems with the genre.”
©Disney
In the end, many non-critic viewers enjoyed Wish and it also saw improvement in the theater as time went on. But many people still simply wait until the movie is on Disney+, which may improve subscriber numbers as Iger hopes, but in turn, may hurt the company at the box office. We may have to wait and see what comes in 2024 and how the company can overcome this problem.
For more Disney news, keep following DFB!
The 32(!!) Remakes, Reboots, and Sequel Movies in the Works at Disney Right Now
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