Credit – Disney
The House of Mouse, the innovator of new creative ideas in storytelling and imagination, has an epidemic of retelling and rebooting movies and TV shows that they’ve already done. Mix in some diversity and inclusion, and Disney has become predictable, boring, and their entertainment is now falling wildly flat with its audiences. Disney has announced yet another live action reboot of one of their popular animated movies, ‘The Aristocats’. Is it necessary, or is it Disney trying to make some profit off of an established franchise? Does Disney even remember how to make a live action movie without it being a reboot? Disney entertainment is in a dark place right now, and needs an original live action hit at the box office soon, and rebooting established animated franchises is a gamble these days, with a frugal audience being very picky about where they spend their money.
Disney Has Had a Lot of Missteps in the Last Year and a Half
Disney has had some initial success in the past decade with their live action remakes, such as ‘Cinderella’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Aladdin’, and ‘Jungle Book’. They were successful to a new younger audience that wanted to see their favorite princesses and characters up on the big screen. Disney stayed true to their original stories, and movies like ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’, became extremely successful and profitable as a result. In the last year and a half, however, Disney’s reboots have since taken a nose dive with audiences and fans, with missteps such as ‘Mulan’, ‘Lady and the Tramp’, ‘Cruella’, ‘Home Sweet Home Alone’, and ‘Jungle Cruise’. This also included TV shows or movie to TV series, that Disney has felt the need to reboot or is rebooting, such as ‘Doogie Howser’, ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’, ‘National Treasure’, ‘Lizzie McGuire’, ‘Three Men and a Baby’, ‘Home Sweet Home Alone’, and ‘Turner and Hooch’. ‘Jungle Cruise’, ‘Mulan’, and ‘Cruella’, were financial disasters for Disney along with TV reboots like ‘Doogie Howser’, ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’, and ‘Turner and Hooch’ falling flat with Disney’s audience, with ‘Turner and Hooch’ being cancelled after just 12 episodes.
Credit – Disney
Disney’s Last Non-Reboot Live Action Box Office Success Was Almost 20 Years Ago
Disney’s last profitable, original(not including sequels) live action box office blockbuster, that was not a reboot, was ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’ in 2003. That was almost 20 years ago. Sure it was based off of a popular Disney World attraction, but it was original, and successful, and also doesn’t say a lot about Disney’s track record for live action hits. You can go to IMDB to see a list of Disney’s original live action movies, and the hits are scarce. There were moderate successes with ‘The Santa Clause’ and ‘The Princess Diaries’, but again, we’re talking about movies made almost two decades ago. Disney has relied on reboots, sequels, and remakes to pay the bills, and of late, the bills are becoming past due. What the failures of ‘Mulan’, ‘Jungle Cruise’, ‘Lady and the Tramp’, and ‘Cruella’ are telling Disney, is that fans are craving something new and worth their price of admission.
Disney is Stuck in a Constant Loop of Diversity and Inclusion Reboots
The audiences in the last year or so, have been craving good, original storytelling, and Disney’s providing neither. They are stuck in a constant loop of reboots, and have added diversity and inclusion into their storytelling. A diversity and inclusion, that has taken center stage in all things Disney, and is turning off half of its paying audience. For years, Disney has been trying to thread the needle of staying true to the legacy of Walt Disney, while at the same time, navigating and cowering to a social media mob, that has Disney sacrificing their hundred year history of being a frontrunner in entertainment, to becoming a boring has been that no ones interested in. You only have to look at the last four live action movie reboots I mentioned above, to see where the audiences attentions are. On the flip side, however, the movies that Disney’s competitor Sony are releasing, are a testament to the success you can have if you just one, listen to the fans, and two tell a great story without infusing woke politics into it. ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’, ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, ‘Venom’, and ‘Cobra Kai’, should be lessons that all studios learn from. Sony’s entertainment at the box office has been almost entirely devoid of woke wankery, while Disney on the other hand, has felt the need to interject it into their entertainment, hoping for box office success.
Disney Needs to Find Their Inner Walt Disney Again
Disney announcing another reboot, of another classic animated movie, is a big yawn, and proof that Disney is trying to play it safe with the representation crowds. If Disney didn’t get the clue from their own live action failures in the last year, they only have to turn to their Marvel and Star Wars entertainment to see how well they are doing by using the same recipe of reboots, diversity, and inclusion. Marvel has had three box office failures in a row, trying to bring unheard of superheroes to the big screen from comic books, all in the name of representation. They are doing the same with their Disney Plus shows, which have all dropped in viewership. The sequel trilogy for Star Wars has become a lightning rod of division with the fans, with no Star Wars movies in production. Disney needs to focus on what made them a success all those decades ago, and get back to the basics. They need to be the innovators they once were, they need to be courageous in the face of the woke mob mentality, and need to tell stories that won’t alienate half their audience. I hope Bob Chapek was true to his word when he released those three pillars that represented a path to success at the Disney box office. As Walt Disney once said: “To be successful you must be unique, you must be so different that if people want what you have, they must come to you to get it.”
Related: A Relentless Focus on the Audience
