Opinion: The New Disney Dark Age
Disney has become an even larger entertainment giant. But as they say, the taller they are — the harder they fall.
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Oakland, CA — After two decades of mergers and acquisitions, Disney has gone from a name usually associated with movies for families to an unprecedented media monopoly.
For Disney fans, the conglomerate has a responsibility to do all their beloved franchises justice — which it's been failing over the past few years. Animated movies like “Soul” and “Wish” did less than great at the box office making $121 million and $254 million, respectively.
Even Marvel movies like “Thor: Love and Thunder”, “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantimania” and “The Marvels” have either been doing just as badly in the box office or getting mediocre ratings. “Thor: Love and Thunder” got a rating of 6.2, “Ant-man and The Wasp: Quantamania” got a 6.1, and “The Marvels” got a 5.6 on IMDb.
Disney+ series like “Book of Boba Fett” with its inconsistent foci, and “Obi-Wan Kenobi” with its general poor writing are just a few other examples of the downfall of the Disney empire. The only thing that has been giving Disney a good reputation in the last two years was “Spiderman: No Way Home”, (a Sony co-production) who was able to make nostalgia work, and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”, which had a great mix of emotion and humor.
Let's take Disney's Marvel movies and series (MCU) as an example. In 2019, the MCU released around seven hours worth of content, compared to 2021 with a whopping 36 hours of content and 2023 with 17 hours. The people who were satisfied with their seven hours in 2019 are not going to want to catch up on all these new series and movies that Disney is releasing every few months.
The working conditions that caused the 2023 WGA strike, and later the SAG-AFTRA strike, may also be to blame as many potentially good releases have been delayed. The effects are especially felt in recent projects’ writing, and some writers have been appalled to find that studios have been using AI to draft scripts.
This is also seen in Star Wars series’ releases. People loved the "Mandalorian", but as more kept coming out “Book of Boba Fett”, “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and “Star Wars: Ahsoka” — audiences were either dissatisfied or fatigued. So by the time a highly rated series Andor came out it was the least watched Star Wars series.
When the pandemic hit Disney opted to release its animated Pixar movies “Soul” and “Luca” on Disney+. These films were later decided to be rereleased in theaters, where “Soul” did very poorly, not even making half a million over three days. Luca has not been rereleased in theaters at the time of writing this article.
The Disney+ releases were understandable given the lockdown, but later “Turning Red” was released in theaters AND Disney+ at the same time? Then the poorly marketed movie “Lightyear” was released in theaters and bombed. The more recent “Elemental” and “Wish” did get good ratings at 93% and 81% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and made some money in the box office at $496 million and $254 million, but nowhere near any 2010s Walt Disney Animation or Pixar movies.
But why is this happening? This drop in quality is primarily due to Disney’s over-investment in Disney+. The working conditions that caused the 2023 WGA strike, and later the SAG-AFTRA strike, may also be to blame as many potentially good releases have been delayed. The effects are especially felt in recent projects’ writing, and some writers have been appalled to find that studios have been using AI to draft scripts.
Disney’s competitors have been doing films like the "Spider-Verse” trilogy or even "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish", which have been risky with their crude humor and use of raw and genuine themes. “Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse” won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, while its sequel was nominated in 2023. Between those films, “Puss and Boots: The Last Wish” was nominated in 2022. If Disney doesn’t follow suit with groundbreaking films, it won’t return to its former dominance.
Eli Borowsky (he/him) is a young journalist and a student at Leadership Public Schools, Hayward, California.
Edited by shaylyn martos