Disney better step up their game...Amazon is coming for them
Not saying it will be easy but Disney needs to focus less on having more and more and just making every film a hit...if its not a hit then send it to Disney Plus to fill out the library but Disney also needs better critics or who ever makes those choices because Chip and Dale and Disenchanted are both fun family films people want....and Buzz and Strange Worlds are what we are getting in theaters
Okay. I'm home, i've eaten, and let's go more in depth on this. First off on the "better choices" bit, I 100% agree. The first thing Iger did upon his return was fire the middle man Chapek installed to decide where each project went. Under Iger, creatives have always had control over where their content goes. If they wanted it to be theatrical, it went there. If it was meant to be a smaller scale Disney+ film or home video thing, then that's where it went. Chapek took that control away and a finance guy had full say in where every project went, which has ultimately been a disaster.
"Needs to focus less on having more and more" - I agree here to an extent... Less crappy streaming movies and perhaps a few less Searchlight movies. However Searchlight makes extremely cheap and normally high quality films, so to me those are not a problem.
"Focus on making every film a hit" - I agree here as well, although i'm not sure if for the same reason. If a movie debuts in theaters and doesn't make a ton of money or bombs, then to me, that's a film you need to bail on and send it to streaming shortly after. However, if a film proves to be a big success at the box office, let the film succeed. Don't undercut it by announcing a date that the film will go to streaming ahead of time. As long as the film is making bank at the box office, you should keep it there. What's the rush to get things onto streaming? Just look at the Glass Onion situation for example. Sure, it's a Netflix original movie. But what's the rush? This movie would be great counter programing against Avatar all the way into January but instead Netflix is going to undercut it's earning potential and send it to Netflix where it will make $0 and people who are already subscribed anyway will get to watch it at no extra charge.
Now at the same time, they are following Iger's strategy in terms of the type of films being made to attempt to make hit films. Three MCU per year, Animated releases (Turning Red, Lightyear, and Strange World) in March, June, and Thanksgiving week. No Star Wars in December, but Disney still has a big Blockbuster coming out in December with Avatar 2. A slew of sequel/prequels (Disenchanted, Hocus Pocus 2, Ice Age 6, Death On The Nile), remakes (Pinocchio, Cheaper By The Dozen), and the newest entry into the Disney canon - Horror/Thrillers (Fresh, Barbarian, No Exit, Prey) and Awards bait (Amsterdam, See How They Run, The Banshees Of Inisherin, The Menu).
The bones of what Disney typically does is there, but the quality control has gone out the window. They had fails in every category I listed except for Horror really (and there was still a major fail there in them not releasing Prey to theaters. Disenchanted, Pinocchio, Amsterdam, Cheaper By The Dozen, Strange World, Lightyear, all either were just bad or bombed. I also don't think anyone will really argue too hard to say that the MCU has been perfect, either. It seems everybody has an issue with at least one of the MCU theatrical releases this year which wasn't always the case.
Disney will have released 63 films or documentaries in 2022. 16 of them got released in theaters worldwide. 19 were Lain American/Brazilian/Indian only releases. 28 were released as either Hulu or Disney+ originals. I don't think it's the number of releases that's the issue to me though, I think it's purely the quality not being there consistently enough and some movies just being released to the wrong place (streaming instead of theatrical or conversely theatrical instead of streaming).