Once a powerhouse at the box office, all Disney seems to be churning out lately is “box office flops.” At least, that’s what critics and the trades keep saying. It’s not the only studio struggling at the box office, but given Disney's reign over the last century, it's all anyone wants to talk about — especially during its centennial celebration.
The latest Mouse House movie to serve up a disappointing box office is Wish, which aimed to celebrate the animation studio’s 100th anniversary. Debuting in the number three spot over Thanksgiving weekend, the movie was immediately written off as a failure. A similar thing happened to Pixar’s Elemental earlier this year, which had a rough start at the box office, but ended up crossing a major milestone. It's success only grew from there when it broke a Disney+ record upon its release.
Elemental isn’t the first movie to find luck on the streaming service after a subpar theatrical run, nor will it be the last if Disney keeps up its current release schedule. To put it simply, I believe the poor box office performance is directly tied to how the company is currently utilizing its streaming service.
Movies Are Coming To Disney+ Too Quickly
It’s no surprise that The Walt Disney Company has been prioritizing Disney+ over its other properties. It put a lot of money into the streaming service, and it needs it to succeed. In order to succeed, the studio need as many shows and movies as it can get on the streaming service, which means that new releases quickly get added to the platform.
This is great for Disney+’s bottom line, but it's doing incredible damage to Disney's box office performance. Last year's animated title Strange World is a perfect example of this. The movie was released in theaters in November 2022 and was quickly made available on Disney+ on December 23rd, where it became the most streamed movie on the service.
What’s the drive of going to the movie theaters if a month later families can watch a movie from the comfort of their home without spending a fortune on tickets and concessions? It’s a question that is becoming more common as families choose whether to see a movie immediately or wait a few months to catch it on streaming. After all, a trip to the movie theater is expensive for one person, let alone an entire family.
Of all the Disney properties, Pixar is the worst victim of Disney’s latest scheme. Hit the hardest during COVID with three movies releasing straight to Disney+ for free instead of making theatrical runs (until next year when Soul, Turning Red and Luca will hit big screens), the once-prolific animation studio is struggling at the box office.
Everyone is quick to blame the storytelling, but there’s nothing wrong with the new generation of Pixar stories. The problem is that families have started to equate the studio with at-home movie status instead of ones that deserve a visit to the local movie theater. We seem to have lost sight that animation is an art that should be watched on the biggest of screens with a community of fans.
How Can Disney Fix This?
If Disney doesn’t fix things quickly, I’m afraid that it'll never be at the top of the box office again. Thankfully, the fix is an easy one: stop releasing movies so quickly on Disney+.
Back in the day, movies had strict release schedules that they had to follow. This meant that a movie had to spend a certain amount of time in theaters before it could be released elsewhere. The next step was often hotels and airlines before a movie became available digitally and physically. When streaming was conceived, movies were able to join services a few months after physical/digital releases. A movie would then make its network/cable television debut a year or so after its initial release.
As time has progressed, these traditional release windows have become nonexistent. They started getting shorter as Netflix and other streaming services, and shrunk entirely when COVID hit and movie theaters were shuttered. But just because things have strayed from tradition doesn’t mean they can’t return.
If Disney and other studios are serious about wanting to perform well at the box office, they need to stop making things immediately available to active subscribers at home. It’s the only way for them to properly recoup production fees and also help save movie theaters that are struggling. In my wildest dreams, it could even lead to a decrease in movie theater prices since more customers mean they won’t have to charge so much to stay afloat.
The bottom line is Disney’s box office problem, is entirely their own fault. Hopefully, the studio realizes this as the 2024 movies schedule begins, and we’ll finally get to see those billion-dollar numbers at the box office again.
