Disney Fatigue?

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Sotiris
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Disney Fatigue?

Post by Sotiris »

Do you think the public is experiencing Disney fatigue? Are they becoming disillusioned with the Disney brand? All of the movies Disney released this year underperformed, some more than others, with the sole exception of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (and even that grossed less than its predecessor). Disney Plus still evades profitability and its original content from its flagship studios like Lucasfilm and Marvel are performing below expectations. The once invulnerable parks have also taken a hit with attendance dropping for the first time in years.

What do you think is causing this? Do you think it's just a temporary slump or something more permanent? And how about you personally? Are you satisfied with Disney's recent output? Are you excited for their upcoming projects?

Let's discuss!
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by D23ExpoVisitor25 »

If there is Disney fatigue, it's a good thing Disney seems to be taking that seriously by only releasing 4 films in theaters next year and only one film from each brand/sister studio of Disney (Pixar's Inside Out 2, Marvel Studios' Deadpool 3, whatever the 2024 Walt Disney Animation Studios film is, and Mufasa: The Lion King).
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by Pokenonbinary »

Yes, disney has made mediocre movies for years and people have eaten them up, now people are more selective of what they pay

Wish is probably mediocre but so was Frozen 1 and 2, Encanto and other disney movies

And on the live action side I think only Beauty And The Beast was a good movie (the rest are watchable and I enjoyed them)
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by PatrickvD »

I think the company and its studios go through cycles. Right now creativity is dead at Disney, like it has been before. I think we’re definitely in another ‘dark age’. I think the ‘Bambi joke’ in Wish is like a nail in the coffin to me.

What worries me is that last time there was a big ‘save Disney’ campaign because people seemed to care (outside of Roy Disney obviously). That’s not really the case now.

But I guess with actual nazis in Congress America has bigger things to worry about.

Me personally? I’ve definitely lost interest overall. Especially when it comes to music. I used to have a new Disney musical on repeat. Their new music is so bland now it makes me want to listen to the songs from Fox and The Hound or The Rescuers. It’s all very uninspired.
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by DisneyJedi »

I want to say some of this “fatigue” stems from the poor decisions made by leadership in recent years. COVID made people a bit lazy and conditioned to waiting for new titles to come to Disney+ because they’re used to that happening a month after a movie’s theatrical release (case in point with Encanto and Strange World). The fact that some of Pixar’s recent outings (namely Soul, Luca and Turning Red) got dumped onto the service despite originally being slated for theatrical releases doesn’t help their case.

As for Star Wars and Marvel, I think it boils down to over-saturation. I do, however, think there is a growing fatigue with the live action remakes. I kind of consider them the DTV sequels of the previous decade and this one too.
Last edited by DisneyJedi on Sun Nov 19, 2023 10:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

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I personally think Disney is in serious need of new leadership. People who believe in creativity and not playing it safe. Wish was the only one I was really looking forward to seeing from them this year, and the mixed reviews have made it less than promising. I'll still go just to see how I feel about it, but I don't have high hopes. Otherwise I'm like, wake me when Disney makes another 2D production. (On that note, I really SHOULD check out Once Upon A Studio, it seems to have probably succeeded where Wish might or might not have fallen short.)
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by DisneyJedi »

JT, please, for goodness sake’s, don’t take the word of Rotten Tomatoes’ critics for it. It’s the same site that gave trash like Cuties a certified fresh rating. Granted, I haven’t seen Cuties, but if what people who aren’t RT critics have said about it is true, then it must be pretty bad.

With that in mind, watch Wish with your own merit.
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by JTurner »

DisneyJedi wrote: Sun Nov 19, 2023 10:29 pm JT, please, for goodness sake’s, don’t take the word of Rotten Tomatoes’ critics for it. It’s the same site that gave trash like Cuties a certified fresh rating. Granted, I haven’t seen Cuties, but if what people who aren’t RT critics have said about it is true, then it must be pretty bad.

With that in mind, watch Wish with your own merit.
Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT parroting Rotten Tomatoes by any means. I just have lowered my expectations. If I like the film, I like the film. If I don't, I don't. I don't have high expectations for this, but does that mean I expect to hate it? No. I'm just going in with small expectations.
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by megustajake »

Pokenonbinary wrote: Sun Nov 19, 2023 1:24 am Wish is probably mediocre but so was Frozen 1 and 2, Encanto and other disney movies
I would say Wish is worse than all three films. Storywise, it's probably on par with Frozen 2 (which made no sense) but at least that had established characters and a slightly better score going for it.

As much as I love Disney, I'm glad audiences are finally starting to "vote with their dollar". Their live-action remakes are so uninspired... they absolutely flooded the market with half-baked Marvel and Star Wars movies... and their animation department has been mostly following trends instead of creating them for the better part of two decades. They've been playing it too safe for too long.
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by Mooky »

Marvel is a victim of its own model and subsequent success. It was never going to work in the long run -- it has come to a point where you have to see 20+ movies and 10+ shows before watching any new MCU entry to be able to get the full picture and understand character relationships, and nobody likes doing homework. Unless you're someone who grew up alongside MCU, it's not an easily penetrable entertainment territory for newcomers and casual fans. And if it's complicated now, imagine just how complex it's going to be 10 years from now. Also, people really, really want to see the X-Men (re)introduced in the MCU and Marvel seems to not have a clear plan on what to do with them, frustrating fans in the process. Oversaturating the market has also led to a general superhero movie fatigue, but what also doesn't help is that the movies themselves rarely stray away from using the same tired formula. One time they tried something different (Eternals), most people disliked it.

Star Wars/Lucasfilm has had a bad stewardship from the start. No proper plan on how to approach it was ever in place and it's evident by how the sequel trilogy was handled. Hence all the movie announcements, only to be canceled months later. I assume the logic was that people will eat up anything with a SW logo on it.

Actually, thinking about it, that could be the root of all issues, treating everything they release as a brand first and expecting people will show up in droves just because something is a Disney movie, a Star Wars movie, a Marvel movie, without treating those properties as movies-first, brand-second. Strong movies build up a brand (see Marvel 2008-2019), release a few bad movies and the value of that same brand goes down, and bad brand hurts individual movies even when they're good.

Disney+ and Disney's never-ending quest for *content* just "helped" bring it all down quicker -- most of the MCU/SW shows they put out have been excruciatingly mediocre, and don't follow rules of serialized storytelling which defeats the purpose of them being developed as TV shows in the first place. Most if not all of them have a lot of filler, and should have been re-cut into shorter running-time movies.
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by RyGuy »

I think there is a fatigue.

In addition to the endless parade of remakes (which in many respects seem to be diminishing in popularity with few exceptions) many of the plots of recent WDAS and Pixar films seem to border on the bizarre or perhaps overly cerebral. Ralph Breaks the Internet and Lightyear come to mind. It's not my intention to knock either film, but I would think kids aren't going to understand the "Ralph's neediness is a villain!" thing or all of the time travel science in Lightyear the way an adult would. So while I'm an adult who enjoys animation, there aren't enough of me to sustain a market that no matter how you slice it, is significantly comprised of children/families with children.

When my kids were small, I was more choosy with movies because of the expense of going and the realization that I was going to miss a chunk of the movie with toilet breaks for them (I saw many animated films twice for that reason with one viewing being by myself lol). Add to that inflation, how quickly movies arrive for home viewing, and all of the bad press about "WOKE" themes and I think the family market is starting rapidly to shrink. I think it's no longer a given that families will take their kids to see the newest Disney flick.

EDIT: I'm not saying the WOKE criticism is or isn't valid, so much as noting that I believe it IS a factor for many families who aren't flocking to Disney films these days the way they historically might have
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by PatchofBlue »

Thoughts about any legitimate "Disney Fatigue" sits weirdly with me because I feel like Disney is one of those things that the public is always ready to air complaints about, whatever the creative performance of their movies. Like, people were talking about how they were "OVER Disney" back in 2016 back when Marvel Hype was at its peak, Zootopia was doing gangbusters, and we all still had faith in the new Star Wars trilogy.

None of this is to say that their business model or practice is beyond reproach, but I also feel like some people in the journalism field have been waiting to launch the Disney Fatigue headlines for a while. It's my observation that people tend to take issue with Disney for doing the same things that other entertainment models do. And a lot of the reporting on their struggles this year has come with a sense of gloating that feels unfounded.

While I haven't been pleased with all their recent output, I also can't say I'm happy with how the cards are dropping. Yes, the remakes have been historically awful, but The Little Mermaid was an objectively better movie than The Lion King. And whatever the potential fallout of this year, we just know that animation is going to suffer the most because of course it is.
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

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PatchofBlue wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 8:12 pm Thoughts about any legitimate "Disney Fatigue" sits weirdly with me because I feel like Disney is one of those things that the public is always ready to air complaints about, whatever the creative performance of their movies. Like, people were talking about how they were "OVER Disney" back in 2016 back when Marvel Hype was at its peak, Zootopia was doing gangbusters, and we all still had faith in the new Star Wars trilogy.
I agree. The only time I remember when WDAS was actually what I'd call "the popular thing" (as far as being spoken well of) was for a brief time in the '90s after The Lion King, although Pocahontas and Hunchback punctured the sentiment because of how divisive they were. It's always been fairly popular to hate Disney, even back when they were delivering huge hits in the 2010s. It's a big part of what drove interest in PIXAR over the years, that sort of sneering disdain the critics have for the fact that WDAS would make mostly female-driven films and fairy tales.

As for me personally, no. I think WDAS has more room to grow right now than they've had in a long time. I've liked all of Frozen II, Wish, Encanto, and Strange World to varying degrees. They're next film is supposed to be a somewhat high fantasy film? Looking forward to that (in theory) as well. I hope it's a male-driven film this time and also a musical--hopefully with a new composer (the Lopezes will be too busy with Frozen sequels and Miranda with Encanto 2 and the Moana remake as well, I imagine).
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by DisneyJedi »

I know Disney has had financial dilemmas in the past, but they’ve rebounded from them before and have shown they can do that time and time again.

My biggest worry, though, is that they might never make a rebound this time. Outside of most Marvel films and Avatar 2, Disney hasn’t exactly had a huge financial hit on their hands. I mean, yeah. The Little Mermaid and Elemental were profitable, just barely. But… yeah. :(
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by Farerb »

More and more people are voicing concerns that Disney is in a new dark age. The sad thing though is that this year was supposed to be their 100 anniversary and they can't celebrate this again in a different year.

How did we come to this?
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by carolinakid »

Someone commented it took Disney 100 years to build their empire and 10 years to destroy it.... or something to that effect.
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by geniuswalt »

Too much “product” means nothing’s special and most of it is cookie-cutter.
I like most Disney movies as much as anyone but 2 (and some years as many as 3!!!) new animated feature films each year is unsustainable and it shows. Whoever came up with it didn’t think it would stretch thin their creativity but apparently that’s where we are now. In addition, it’s clear that even though they’re all in on Disney plus, they have not realized that this ended up cannibalizing a lot of their theatrical revenue.
I have yet to see Wish (holding out for digital sell-through) and I’m not a Disney plus subscriber but I’m sure many more people/families would have shelled out their hard-earned money to see it during its theatrical release but nowadays they’ll just wait a bit longer and watch it on D+
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by carolinakid »

Je ne peux pas résister....

Je suis fatigué de Disney!
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Re: Disney Fatigue?

Post by Patricier21 »

geniuswalt wrote: Tue Nov 28, 2023 8:01 am Too much “product” means nothing’s special and most of it is cookie-cutter.
I like most Disney movies as much as anyone but 2 (and some years as many as 3!!!) new animated feature films each year is unsustainable and it shows. Whoever came up with it didn’t think it would stretch thin their creativity but apparently that’s where we are now. In addition, it’s clear that even though they’re all in on Disney plus, they have not realized that this ended up cannibalizing a lot of their theatrical revenue.
I have yet to see Wish (holding out for digital sell-through) and I’m not a Disney plus subscriber but I’m sure many more people/families would have shelled out their hard-earned money to see it during its theatrical release but nowadays they’ll just wait a bit longer and watch it on D+
You should be seeing it on the big screen in order to at least play your part in order to help/prove what you are claiming here
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