What Went Wrong with Disney Films in 2023?

Each year, MickeyBlog publishes a slew of annual recap articles.

We review the current year before looking forward to the next one.

I’m kicking off the 2023 analysis a couple of weeks earlier than usual because there’s no point in waiting. We already know the deal here.

So, what went wrong with Disney films in 2023? The answer is a comical amount.

Let’s evaluate one of Disney’s worst years for movies since the days of The Black Cauldron.

The Pure Disney Films

Let’s start with the three films you’d most closely associate with the Disney brand.

At its core, The Walt Disney Company will always identify as an animation company since that’s what its founder, Walt Disney, intended.

In 2023, Disney released two animated films plus a live-action remake of an animated classic.

These three titles, on their own, underscore the challenges that Disney faces in the current pop culture climate.

If you asked the average movie fan how well the three films had done, the most likely answer is that they bombed. That’s objectively inaccurate.

In fact, the nuanced box office performance of Elemental forced no less than the President of Pixar to comment.

That person, Jim Morris, bluntly stated, “(Elemental) will certainly be a profitable film.”

At the time, Morris set the goalpost at $460 million or possibly a bit lower. Elemental earned $496 million worldwide.

So, why does everyone think the Pixar film failed? It claimed the worst opening weekend for a Pixar release in the 21^st century.

Thankfully, Elemental’s charm won over movie-goers worldwide, especially in America and South Korea.

That same thought process applies to the remake of The Little Mermaid as well.

Simply stated, for reasons passing understanding, some people wanted this film to fail. I’m happy to state unequivocally that it didn’t.

The Halle Bailey star-making film earned $570 million against a $240 million budget.

Even better, a disproportionate part of that revenue came from North America, which is highly beneficial to a Hollywood production.

Then, we have Wish, and there’s just no sugarcoating this one. It’s not the disaster that Strange World was, but it IS a financial failure.

Disney spent $175 million on a movie that may not earn $300 million worldwide…and possibly much less. It’s a worst-case scenario performance.

The Marvel Releases

So, we’ve discussed two successes and one failure.

Then, we reach the Marvel part of the conversation, and it probably won’t go the way you’d expect.

Financially, Marvel films have done quite well, at least in a vacuum. That reality changes once we factor in realistic box office expectations.

For example, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, for all its shortcomings, earned $476 million against a $200 million budget.

Since nearly half of its box office came from North American ticket sales, it’s basically a financial draw during its theatrical run.

I just ran the math, and based on a cursory glance, it’s a razor-thin margin either way. But that doesn’t factor in the large advertising spend.

Marvel didn’t lose a ton on this project, but it’s not a win, either.

However, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is so big a winner that it might cover all the other Marvel movie struggles.

This title earned $845 million worldwide, with $359 million coming from North America, against a $250 million budget.

That’s a massive hit, especially in 2023.

Then, we reach The Marvels, and the conversation takes a sharp turn into the deeply unpleasant.

The action film starring Brie Larson (and pals) likely won’t reach $100 million domestically. Even $90 million isn’t even guaranteed.

The Marvels isn’t doing any better internationally, either. It’ll probably wind up in the range of $250-$275 million worldwide…and maybe even less.

For a title with a budget of $220 million, that’s terrible.

Still, when we combine the box office and production costs of the three Marvel movies, it’s a net positive.

That’s the story nobody will tell you, as it won’t garner any headlines, but it’s the truth.

We’re talking about total budgets of $670 million against revenue in excess of $1.5 billion.

The Name Brand Disasters

The problem with Marvel is that we’d expect more – and I mean A LOT more – from those three titles.

That’s the sticking point with many of Disney’s biggest 2023 releases. In fact, the summer included two of them.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is legitimately one of the strangest films I’ve ever covered…and I’ve been doing this for 25 years.

I mean, here I am talking about The Matrix in Salon in 2003. I’ve been at this for a while.

Few stories surprise me the way that Indiana Jones 5 did, and I mean that two different ways.

On the one hand, I think we all knew that Disney probably waited a bit too late in finally concluding the Harrison Ford saga.

What none of us could have fully anticipated is how completely modern audiences are over Indiana Jones.

Dial of Destiny earned a modest $175 million domestically and $382 million worldwide against a financial outlay of $300 million.

Now, Disney staggered that expense across seven different years due to all the delays, but it still counts.

Even quirkier is how audiences received the film. There are many metrics that show your enjoyment of Indiana Jones 5 depends almost entirely on your age.

People liked it more with every five years of age. So, a 25-year-old probably hated the film, while Dial of Destiny might have reduced some 75-year-olds to tears of joy.

I’d make a Lawrence Welk reference here, but the people who disliked Dial of Destiny wouldn’t understand it.

Then, Disney turned around and spit the bit with Haunted Mansion. That one is an unforced error by Iger that we’ll discuss in a bit.

Still, the film cost $157 million to make and grossed $115 million worldwide. The entire movie was one huge Doombuggy.

The Disney Films in Name Only

Then, we have the films that Disney released that you don’t even remember.

Tell me if any of these rings a bell:

• The Boogeyman
• Chevalier
• The Creator
• A Haunting in Venice
• Next Goal Wins

Which of these titles was the biggest box office success? You won’t believe me if I told you, but I’ll do it anyway.

Disney spent a modest $35 million on The Boogeyman and was rewarded with $82 million in global box office.

Second place belongs to A Haunting in Venice, which cost $60 million to produce but managed only $122 million worldwide.

Yes, among these five titles, the second-best performer lost money. It was that kind of year for Disney.

Chevalier, which I doubt you even know, cost more than it earned, albeit on a very small scale.

Next Goal Wins, a Taika Waititi film – you know, the guy who directs the Thor movies! – is currently something you could watch in a theater right now.

You had no idea, did you? Disney recognized this one was a clunker and didn’t perform much advertising.

Even allowing for that, it may not earn back half of its budget, which is stunning for a film that only cost $15 million to produce.

Then, we have The Creator, this year’s biggest box office bomb that nobody knows.

Disney hired Gareth Edwards, the director of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, to create a sci-fi epic.

Edwards spent $80 million on the film, which only crossed the $100 million global box office barrier a few days ago.

As with Next Goal Wins, Disney ultimately gave up and buried this one.

What Went Wrong with Disney Films in 2023?

I could write an entire essay on this, and I suspect somebody will by the end of the year. And yes, the short answer is everything.

Still, let’s respect the topic enough to cover all the realistic explanations.

First, we should acknowledge that some of the reasons were beyond Disney’s ability to control. Other wounds were entirely self-inflicted.

Specifically, Haunted Mansion and The Marvels suffered due to the rules of the Hollywood strikes.

Once SAG-AFTRA joined the WGA on the picket line, celebrities could no longer promote their films.

That’s tragic because the cast of Haunted Mansion shared tremendous chemistry and could have helped boost the film’s box office prospects.

Similarly, the trio of heroines in The Marvels would have won people’s hearts, as they’re magic together.

Instead, they couldn’t even mention the film until literally the day before it came out in theaters. By then, it was far too late.

Bob Iger could have prevented those strikes by negotiating in better faith earlier in the year. He didn’t, and karma came back and bit him. Hard.

Then, we have the unavoidable political component. Several conservative sites have turned Disney into the source of their ire, which isn’t new.

The same thing happened during the 1990s whenever some conservative religious leaders wanted a quick headline.

The difference is that this one took a deeper hold due to Disney’s willingness to defend all its cast members.

Some critics libel/slander Disney repeatedly, and there’s not much the company can do about that. And it has hurt the box office.

Even More Reasons for the Failure

Then, we have the elephant in the living room, which exists on multiple levels.

We are less than two years removed from the worst outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The global health crisis shut down society in March 2020, and Disney is still feeling its ramifications to this date.

For starters, then-CEO Bob Chapek, with now-CEO Bob Iger in agreement, collapsed the theatrical window.

That’s how the industry describes the shortening of the date when a streaming service can broadcast a recent theatrical release.

Studios had wanted to do this for many years. The pandemic gave them a reason, and now they’ve realized they should have been careful what they wished for.

Chapek started releasing titles on Disney+ at the same time as they were available in theaters since many customers didn’t feel safe outside.

Disney has since abandoned that practice. Similarly, for a while, you’d find new Pixar releases on Disney+ exclusively.

Now, Disney is attempting to remind customers that they should go to the theater to watch films.

These consumers aren’t idiots. They remember getting to watch these films at home as part of their streaming subscription.

Similarly, these viewers know that films like Wish will appear on Disney+ in a couple of months.

Other studios followed Disney with this business tactic. Not coincidentally, overall box office remains far lower than it had been before the pandemic.

In short, streaming has disrupted the theatrical movie-going experience, and it’s messed up studio financials for big-budget productions.

Yes, we’ve had titles like Barbie, Oppenheimer, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, but many more films have bombed than excelled this year. It’s not just Disney struggling.

Still More Reasons for the Failure

Despite all these other issues, I believe in the basics.

With Disney, the current struggles come down to one simple truth.

Their 2023 releases weren’t good enough to restore trust and consumer loyalty in the brand.

The struggles started with Quantumania, which caused people to sour on the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole.

Then, summer films like Dial of Destiny and Haunted Mansion didn’t win over fans the way that anchor tentpoles like those should.

Similarly, Wish and The Marvels felt slight and somehow missing ingredients.

That aspect once again takes us back to the pandemic.

People outside the industry will never fully understand how challenging those productions were.

Obviously, they were a trivial concern compared to the real-world suffering many faced during the pandemic.

Still, the movie sets faced daily COVID-19 tests. Should anyone fail a test, others in contact with them had to quarantine.

The film producers struggled with unimaginable challenges behind the scenes.

Sometimes, entire scenes had to be rewritten on the fly due to cast unavailability.

Novice directors were especially susceptible to this sort of filming uncertainty.

This happened to be the time that Disney was giving more new storytellers a chance to write, produce, and direct films.

Even seasoned pros were in over their heads. You can imagine the degree to which inexperienced directors struggled.

The end result is that despite countless reshoots, these various Disney titles haven’t exemplified the magic we expect from our favorite brand.

Ultimately, that’s Occam’s Razor here. These chaotic film shoots led to movies that weren’t quite as good.

Audiences already indecisive about returning to theaters waited on reviews to make up their minds. And those middling reviews kept them away.

Final Thoughts

The only good news I have about the entire disastrous year is that Bob Iger and his team are currently reevaluating everything they’ve been doing wrong.

The last time Disney turned so introspective, the Disney Renaissance occurred. Here’s hoping that history repeats itself. 

Until then, the best summary of what went wrong with Disney films in 2023 is a simple one.

This year marks the first time since 2014 that Disney hasn’t had a billion-dollar movie. Fittingly, Disney’s biggest film that year was Guardians of the Galaxy as well.

Part of the discrepancy in global box office is because international cinema hasn’t yet recovered from the pandemic and may not for another few years.

Still, the onus is on Disney to make better movies than it released in 2023. We mostly missed the magic this year.

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Photo: DIsney