Disney's Wish Disappoints With $33 Million Start At The Thanksgiving Box Office
What's that line from "Wicked?" Something about "getting your dreams, it's strange but it seems a little, well, complicated." Right. It comes to mind whenever I think about Disney, and especially whenever I'm made to think about its underrated (next to Zaslav, at least) archvillain CEO, Bob Iger.
You see, the Walt Disney Company is currently harvesting fruit from the seeds Iger planted way back in 2005, when he first succeeded Michael Eisner as CEO. Eisner was nothing if not exacting and dictatorial as chief landlord of the House of Mouse, but it's hard not to have some nostalgia for his tenure. Put simply, Iger's biggest change once he stepped in was pivoting the focus from quality to quantity. With a wave of his wand, the days of carefully constructed, meticulously brainstormed, sensibly timed animated feature releases dissipated, and in came a new era of cheap and dirty overproduction.
This isn't my interpretation. Iger has said himself that decisions like expanding the Marvel Cinematic Universe into Disney+ shows, sending Pixar releases to streaming, and churning out needless live-action remakes have irreparably hurt the brand. Iger seemed to assume the Disney brand was so invulnerable to tarnish or decay, that its global following was so strong, he could reduce quality and maximize output without any negative fallout. But the box office underperformance of Disney's latest output from Marvel ("The Marvels"), Lucasfilm ("Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"), Walt Disney Pictures ("The Little Mermaid"), and now Walt Disney Animation Studios ("Wish") are painting an ugly picture for Iger and the studio.
The Ballad of Flops and Failures
The latest box office reports are tracking "Wish" in a close race for second place with Ridley Scott's "Napoleon," as the "Hunger Games" prequel "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" holds on to the top spot. "Ballad" will take in an estimated $27.7 million across the three-day weekend and $41.1 million over the five-day Thanksgiving window. That's more than enough to top the $32-33 million "Wish" and "Napoleon" are now on track for, and down considerably from the $49-66 million range "Wish" was projected to hit (via BoxOfficePro).
Thanksgiving is a big event in the movie business. Studios know every year that the holiday will fall right before the weekend, that most potential moviegoers will have the weekend off, and that they'll be with family and eager for an easy group activity. That's generally a recipe for success — especially for a family-oriented company like Disney. It has had massive success in the past with Thanksgiving contenders like "Frozen II," which set a new record for the holiday with a whopping $125 million grossed over the five-day frame. What's worse: the budget for "Wish" is an estimated $50 million higher than "Frozen II," at $200 million. What went wrong?
First off, the film faced tough competition from films of various genres geared toward vastly different audiences. There was the "Hunger Games" film, always strong with young female audiences; "Napoleon," sure to be a hit with dads; and Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving," which is bound to be popular with anyone over the age of 18, as horror often is. "Wish" also doubles as a centennial celebration of Disney animation, which isn't easy to advertise and doesn't necessarily jive with the film's a-plot. In the animated-movies-for-kids field, "Wish" was competing with the latest entry in the modestly successful "Trolls" movie franchise. But another thing counting against "Wish" is the fact that, well, many people thought it was very bad.
A wish deferred
Over at Vulture, Bilge Ebiri called the film "the ultimate cop-out — a lifeless, uninspiring mess of bland brand management." For The Guardian, Benjamin Lee described the film as "another self-aware, formula-tweaking Disney Princess narrative with as many radio-friendly power ballads as there are Christmas-timed merchandising opportunities." /Film's very own Josh Spiegel found the story to have "shaky logic," the songs "flat and lifeless," and that the "prior fun of identifying an Easter egg in a Disney Animation film [...] has now become an exhausting game in which there are no winners."
The film has its boosters and its mixed critics, and it holds a decent audience score on the tomato website, for whatever that's worth. But these reactions reflect the big problem at Disney, that too much emphasis on output necessarily comes at the cost of quality. And here's what Iger failed for too many years to realize: the quality of individual projects is not only important, it's the key to Disney's entire appeal. People have long flocked in droves to Disney and Pixar's animated films because they tell good stories, look beautiful, have great songs, and teach kids important lessons. If you take even one block out of this Jenga tower, you risk it all toppling over.
"Elemental" made Pixar history with a company-worst opening of $29 million in June, which sounded alarms across the industry. But by September, it had overtaken behemoths like "Cars" and "Toy Story" at the global box office. The same could happen for "Wish." But if we've learned one thing about Disney as of late, it's to not wish too hard.