Strange World (WDAS, November 23, 2022)

[Spencer_Kain92]

Unfortunate to hear they kind of just abandoned this. I’m predicting it’ll be on D+ by Christmas

[kylor]

Damn, a B score? It's a Strange World we're living in.

[avs commenter]

Originally Posted by Spencer_Kain92

Unfortunate to hear they kind of just abandoned this. I’m predicting it’ll be on D+ by Christmas

I hope so

[Deadend45]

The market flooded with CG animation and the disney formula writing bores people now including with Marble.

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by kylor

Damn, a B score? It's a Strange World we're living in.

Sesame Street: Patrick Stewart Soliloquy on B - YouTube

[drn211]

Originally Posted by Spencer_Kain92

Is there a short film attached?

No

[sandman slim]

Bombing hard here. Wakanda, Glass Onion & Devotion are all nearly sold out for the 7pm shows, Fablemans has sold 10, The Menu about 20... Strange World has sold five tix.

[brooks101189]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

The Iron Giant (WB), Titan A.E. (Fox) and Lightyear also under-performed..., but then you have Lilo and Stitch, Big Hero 6, Wreck-It Ralph, Wall*E. Disney was able to market those as event entertainment. Strange World seems destined as Disney+ content, nothing about the marketing yet says "event". Maybe because it isn't one.

True, but Lilo and Stitch wasn't hard sci-fi and was marketing much more as a comedy, Big Hero 6 is a superhero movie with Marvel connections that was brilliant in its use of Baymax in the marketing and Wall-E came out when Pixar films were treated much more as big movie events.

[ImBlu_DaBaDee]

Only tracking to do 20 million for the 5 DAY opening, only 15 million for the 3 day. How embarrassing!

[Hardback247]

Someone said this in a forum post on DVDizzy about Disney's animated output over the past decade, and I'm frankly shocked at how much he's oversimplifying and generifying their stories like this:

Disney needs to diversify the stories they tell. For the past decade every story can be basically narrowed down to a protagonist who lives in a world that is in danger from an unknown danger and has to go on a quest to figure out what is wrong and save their family and world. It's the basic premise of Big Hero Six, Zootopia, Moana, Frozen, Frozen 2, Raya, Encanto and now Strange World. They all have sub plots woven through it, but many films lack an actual antagonist, shy away from love stories. They all start to feel like the same story, in a different setting.

[Ruined]

Since no one has said it I will

This movie wasn't abandoned by Disney because of Disney+. Disney wouldn't have released in theaters if Disney+ was all they cared about.

This movie wasn't abandoned by Disney because it was a bad movie. History is shown that some of the worst movies in the world can perform really well with good marketing.

In my opinion this movie was abandoned because of the Lightyear effect. Disney's brand suffered immense damage because of Lightyear with certain segments of the population who did not want movies for kids with overt LGBTQIA+ plot points. The money lost by ensuring most people never even knew this movie came out is far smaller than the additional brand damage that would be incurred if another movie like Lightyear was released. Not to mention Disney went all-in on marketing light year and it still was the worst performing Pixar movie of all time - still without that marketing it would have done even worse. This movie's initial marketing was tracking the same with the gay teen romance being a centerpiece part of the initial media coverage.

Things are not fine and dandy with Disney, which is why their stock tanked and CEO was changed. Disney needs to get back to the spot where they used to be, where all parents from all walks of life felt comfortable taking their child to Disney movie without researching it first to see if it had elements they felt were highly inappropriate for their children. The reason this movie was released in theaters at all was likely to satisfy internal staff who worked on it and not create a new controversy with internal staff for canceling its theatrical run.

[Mikezilla3k]

Or maybe it's just because people are getting sick of bland CG films nowadays? Hell, even The Mitchells vs The Machines sucked.

Doesn't have to do with random plot points or marketing, they can't change that Animated films in general now for years have sucked. Only one that was legit good was Into The Spider-Verse

[Hardback247]

Originally Posted by Ruined

In my opinion this movie was abandoned because of the Lightyear effect. Disney's brand suffered immense damage because of Lightyear with certain segments of the population who did not want movies for kids with overt LGBTQIA+ plot points. The money lost by ensuring most people never even knew this movie came out is far smaller than the additional brand damage that would be incurred if another movie like Lightyear was released. Not to mention Disney went all-in on marketing light year and it still was the worst performing Pixar movie of all time - still without that marketing it would have done even worse. This movie's initial marketing was tracking the same with the gay teen romance being a centerpiece part of the initial media coverage.

I give Disney brownie points for LGBTQIA+ representation, but the problem is that the Disney company's success has always been about being inclusive and accessible to pretty much every audience possible. Unfortunately, even though things have gotten better in certain parts, queer people are still a very taboo subject. It's probably still too soon for something like that in a Disney animated feature.

[Monterey Jack]

Originally Posted by Hardback247

I give Disney brownie points for LGBTQIA+ representation, but the problem is that the Disney company's success has always been about being inclusive and accessible to pretty much every audience possible. Unfortunately, even though things have gotten better in certain parts, queer people are still a very taboo subject. It's probably still too soon for something like that in a Disney animated feature.

It's that Disney keeps patting themselves on the back for being "Inclusive!" in all of the social media marketing materials for months on end prior to the movies' releases that rankle people. Whether it's gay representation, POC characters or "Girl Power!", they spend too much time puffing their chests out with pride about their "Groundbreaking!" casting/storyline choices (while chastising anyone who gets annoyed by this as being a "troll", even inserting commentary about them into the movies and shows themselves!), instead of just telling a good story with likable characters. It wasn't like this even as little as a decade ago. It's gotten tiresome.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Mikezilla3k

Or maybe it's just because people are getting sick of bland CG films nowadays? Hell, even The Mitchells vs The Machines sucked.

Doesn't have to do with random plot points or marketing, they can't change that Animated films in general now for years have sucked. Only one that was legit good was Into The Spider-Verse

If that were the case minions would have tanked because that movie was nothing special but made gangbusters money

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by Mikezilla3k

Or maybe it's just because people are getting sick of bland CG films nowadays? Hell, even The Mitchells vs The Machines sucked.

Doesn't have to do with random plot points or marketing, they can't change that Animated films in general now for years have sucked. Only one that was legit good was Into The Spider-Verse

If they do Frozen again, and that makes money then the brand wars will start again. Every time people claim they want something new, the market says otherwise. Another year of Remakes and Sequels on top of the charts.

[avs commenter]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

It's that Disney keeps patting themselves on the back for being "Inclusive!" in all of the social media marketing materials for months on end prior to the movies' releases that rankle people. Whether it's gay representation, POC characters or "Girl Power!", they spend too much time puffing their chests out with pride about their "Groundbreaking!" casting/storyline choices (while chastising anyone who gets annoyed by this as being a "troll", even inserting commentary about them into the movies and shows themselves!), instead of just telling a good story with likable characters. It wasn't like this even as little as a decade ago. It's gotten tiresome.

Making up stuff again? Are you going to prove it and post evidence of Disney promoting this film for being inclusive?

[Kuja]

Exactly. The LGBT character wasn't heavily marketed at all...

This film always looked like a flop to most longtime Disney fans because WDAS were clearly imitating previous flops from the company like Treasure Planet and Atlantis: The Lost Empire. I have a feeling Disney knew the risks and still went ahead anyway not really caring if it flopped, because they didn't market it as much as past films. That may also be why they placed it beside a safe hit like Wakanda Forever to balance out this film's loss.

WDAS will be fine. Wish is coming out next year and I'd be very surprised if that flops. And then of course they still have Frozen III on the way. An existential crisis would be more deserved if Wish performs poorly than a film like this one.

[Havenbull]

Originally Posted by Kuja

Exactly. T

WDAS will be fine. Wish is coming out next year and I'd be very surprised if that flops. And then of course they still have Frozen III on the way. An existential crisis would be more deserved if Wish performs poorly than a film like this one.

Wish will flop. I assure you. It was made during a time when Disney was (and still might be) listening to the wokesters in creative, and not to the general pulse of the money-spending public.

[Hardback247]

Originally Posted by Havenbull

Wish will flop. I assure you. It was made during a time when Disney was (and still might be) listening to the wokesters in creative, and not to the general pulse of the money-spending public.

How do you know that? We barely know anything about it so far, and we don’t even have a trailer yet!