Disney+

[Scott W.]

Artemis Fowl streaming on June 12th:

As somebody who has never heard of this, this looks beyond terrible.

 

[GadgetGuru]

As somebody who has never heard of this, this looks beyond terrible.

As a kid, I was obsessed with these books. Absolutely loved them.

I barely remember what they were about though. I do know that this movie doesn’t feel like an Artemis Fowl book.

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

As somebody who has never heard of this, this looks beyond terrible.

It would have joined a venerated list of expensive failures
Mars Needs Moms
John Carter
The Lone Ranger
Wrinkle in Time
Tomorrowland (maybe? I think it made decent money)

I do somewhat worry about Disney's film division beyond Animation, Marvel, and Star Wars. Having seen these films, I have no idea how some of them could have cost over $200 million and the fact that Disney can't seem to find theatrical success without the remakes is concerning. However, that might largely be a problem of what audiences want to see . Unfortunately, Disney's pidgeonholed themselves into a family-friendly market and no longer really have a Miramax, Hollywood Pictures, or Touchstone to give them breakout adult fare. yes there's Fox but nothing's come from that of late for Disney, beyond the I.P gains...

 

[TheGentTrent]

It would have joined a venerated list of expensive failures
Mars Needs Moms
John Carter
The Lone Ranger
Wrinkle in Time
Tomorrowland (maybe? I think it made decent money)

I do somewhat worry about Disney's film division beyond Animation, Marvel, and Star Wars. Having seen these films, I have no idea how some of them could have cost over $200 million and the fact that Disney can't seem to find theatrical success without the remakes is concerning. However, that might largely be a problem of what audiences want to see . Unfortunately, Disney's pidgeonholed themselves into a family-friendly market and no longer really have a Miramax, Hollywood Pictures, or Touchstone to give them breakout adult fare. yes there's Fox but nothing's come from that of late for Disney, beyond the I.P gains...

You can add the new Nutcracker movie to that list as well.

But yeah, audiences just don't go for original live-action films these days, especially if it's from Disney for whatever reason. For all the talk of people getting tired of remakes and sequels, they sure like going back to what's familiar.

 

[Tobias]

Tomorrowland (maybe? I think it made decent money)

A $209 million worldwide gross against a $330 million overall budget is a loss.

It wouldn't surprise me if Artemis Fowl would've landed in that list of expensive flops. An the Lone Ranger is still the one of the only ones in that list that I still watch. Even with it's flaws and the fact it could've trimmed about 40 minutes off it's runtime, the good parts make up for it such as the finale which is fantastic.

 

[GadgetGuru]

For the longest time, it seemed like Disney would try one big swing a year to try and make a new franchise.

I have no idea why none of them succeeded. They’ve gotten good directors and good writers in the past (glares at Tomorrowland), but the results just never seem to work out.

Artemis Fowl was clearly supposed to be this year’s attempt. It’ll be weird to see what happens if putting it on Disney+ turns out to be a good idea

 

[LieutLaww]

The Artemis Fowl movie is not following very closely to the book by the looks of things.

 

[Jamesh22]

Disney just aren't good at marketing original/new movies.

John Carter was a good movie, but the marketing was awful as it made you think it was something completely different. Same goes for Tomorrowland, their marketing strategies just don't work.

There is also the problem of budgets, they spend way way too much on movies that are not guranteed returns. Sure you can spend more on a sequel if the first is succesful but you generally don't blow $250=300m on an original movie.

I am still hoping that Disney+ will see the move into more mid budget movies suitable for the whole family which they can just launch on the service like Netflix does.

 

[Nick]

Disney just aren't good at marketing original/new movies.

John Carter was a good movie, but the marketing was awful as it made you think it was something completely different. Same goes for Tomorrowland, their marketing strategies just don't work.

There is also the problem of budgets, they spend way way too much on movies that are not guranteed returns. Sure you can spend more on a sequel if the first is succesful but you generally don't blow $250=300m on an original movie.

I am still hoping that Disney+ will see the move into more mid budget movies suitable for the whole family which they can just launch on the service like Netflix does.

Disney+ movies are all so far in the Low to mid-budget range (Most at $20M or below). Artemis was originally supposed to be theatrical though, which is why it has a $125M budget.

 

[Jamesh22]

Disney+ movies are all so far in the Low to mid-budget range (Most at $20M or below). Artemis was originally supposed to be theatrical though, which is why it has a $125M budget.

I get that. My point was about Disney's budgeting of theatrical movies in general - just like their theme park attractions they seem to end up with totally ludicrous budgets.

 

[Nick]

I get that. My point was about Disney's budgeting of theatrical movies in general - just like their theme park attractions they seem to end up with totally ludicrous budgets.

Yup. It seems to me they seem misguided and think people will go see anything with the Disney name slapped on it. A lot of their live action stuff for Walt Disney Studios proper sucks. Why some of these properties are given such a high budget is amazing to me, but Martin Scorsese wants $200M to make another one of his dramas that should probably cost $80M tops. Hollywood as a whole doesn't know how to control budgets at all right now.

With Disney seemingly wanting a live action franchise beyond just their remakes, it's very surprising to me that they haven't gone back to TRON. Give that franchise - one that has an instantly recognizable aesthetic and score - a good script, and it should be an easy winner for Disney. That was the problem with Legacy was that it had a fairly lackluster script. The groundwork and world building that has been done for a potrntial TRON 3 though is all there.

 

[Jamesh22]

Yup. It seems to me they seem misguided and think people will go see anything with the Disney name slapped on it. A lot of their live action stuff for Walt Disney Studios proper sucks. Why some of these properties are given such a high budget is amazing to me, but Martin Scorsese wants $200M to make another one of his dramas that should probably cost $80M tops. Hollywood as a whole doesn't know how to control budgets at all right now.

With Disney seemingly wanting a live action franchise beyond just their remakes, it's very surprising to me that they haven't gone back to TRON. Give that franchise - one that has an instantly recognizable aesthetic and score - a good script, and it should be an easy winner for Disney. That was the problem with Legacy was that it had a fairly lackluster script. The groundwork and world building that has been done for a potrntial TRON 3 though is all there.

100% This.

Tron Legacy was a really good starting point for more. It's also still one of the Blu-Rays I put on to show off my home theater system - the soundtrack is amazing.

You would think with the absolute power that Disney now has as, that they could hire someone to find decent new scripts, and with the skills to shepherd them through to really great movies.

 

[Nick]

Disney+ exclusive Simpsons short is on twitter to watch for free for the rest of the day. Apparently this played in front of Onward, so nobody saw it.

 

[Tobias]

Yup. It seems to me they seem misguided and think people will go see anything with the Disney name slapped on it. A lot of their live action stuff for Walt Disney Studios proper sucks. Why some of these properties are given such a high budget is amazing to me, but Martin Scorsese wants $200M to make another one of his dramas that should probably cost $80M tops. Hollywood as a whole doesn't know how to control budgets at all right now.

A recent great example of this is The Call of the Wild. A $107 million gross can be considered a decent haul for most, but when the film had a $125-150 mil budget, that's a straight-up loss.

Some places really need to take cues from studios like Blumhouse. Give the film a low budget where a decent haul can easily make it's money back (in many cases, in it's opening weekend.), and a great haul is one heck of a profit. Conversely, if for some reason a film bombs, it's not a huge write off.

 

[GadgetGuru]

A recent great example of this is The Call of the Wild. A $107 million gross can be considered a decent haul for most, but when the film had a $125-150 mil budget, that's a straight-up loss.

Some places really need to take cues from studios like Blumhouse. Give the film a low budget where a decent haul can easily make it's money back (in many cases, in it's opening weekend.), and a great haul is one heck of a profit. Conversely, if for some reason a film bombs, it's not a huge write off.

Call of the Wild is a great example of some of the churn in the industry though. It was meant to be a Fox tent pole, but Disney didn’t know what to do with it. Hence, bomb.

When a movie totally bombs, there’s usually a bigger story to it. It was tailored for a different international audience, corporate churn left it abandoned, cultural shift during production, etc

 

[Nick]

Call of the Wild is a great example of some of the churn in the industry though. It was meant to be a Fox tent pole, but Disney didn’t know what to do with it. Hence, bomb.

When a movie totally bombs, there’s usually a bigger story to it. It was tailored for a different international audience, corporate churn left it abandoned, cultural shift during production, etc

Call of the Wild was never going to make much more than it did. It may have been hurt slightly from the early worldwide effects of COVID, but it was a movie about a man and his dog. For some stupid reason, they chose to do a CGI dog instead of a real dog. The amount of money that was wasted is crazy.

 

[Nick]

So this is probably very unlikely, but the director of the SONY Silver & Black Spider-verse movie has now come out and said that it may not be a movie anymore and instead... a show on Disney+? Would be interesting if it happens because then it really opens up the question of is the MCU and Spider-verse more interconnected than we would've thought they'd ever be?

Director teases Sony's Silver & Black might now end up 'on Disney+ as a limited series'

The tumultuous life of this superhero project looks like it could go to the small screen.

www.syfy.com

 

[TheGentTrent]

*insert Disney buying Sony rumor*

 

[Nick]

Gotta say I’m really loving the Prop Culture show. The whole season dropped yesterday, which I think is a first for Disney+. The show is a bit up the American Pickers lane, but at the Walt Disney Archives.

Looking forward to the Mandalorian docuseries as well on Monday.

 

[UNIrd]

Watching Bride of Boogedy currently (just dropped yesterday) but will get to Prop Culture eventually.