Disney Headlines for January 3rd, 2024
Quick! Can you name the most popular film franchise of 2023?
I’ll spoil the answer in the latest batch of Disney Headlines!
Fandom Says WHAT?
Last year, Fandom, an entertainment website, branched out with something new.
The company entered the analytics field by publishing some survey results from its various readers.
At the time, Fandom surprised some people with its results, as the first survey revealed that Marvel was NOT the most popular film franchise.
Instead, fans favored a little sci-fi film named Star Wars. That announcement surprised many observers, but what just happened is downright shocking.
Fandom has determined that the most beloved film franchise of 2023 was Star Wars once again.
Have you figured out why this is weird yet? Lucasfilm hasn’t released a Star Wars film since 2019.
As a reminder, that film, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, wasn’t exactly beloved by all, either.
How could Star Wars be surging in popularity yet again despite the lack of a new product and the mixed feelings about the previous one?
Well, this answer exists on two levels. On one hand, many fans are kinda mad at Marvel right now.
That’s what happens when you release titles like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Secret Invasion in a short time frame. People lose faith.
But the real story here is how Disney has accomplished its goal in reinvigorating the Star Wars franchise.
In the wake of The Rise of Skywalker, critics bemoaned the way Disney had released too many titles in short order, reducing the quality of each one.
Does that sound familiar? Yup, it’s the same criticism Marvel is getting right now.
How did Star Wars regain consumer confidence? Oddly, it took an alternative approach.
People respect the film franchise more in the wake of Ahsoka, The Mandalorian, and Andor, all of which were…television series.
Yes, that’s weird, but you can’t argue with results. So, make better television shows, Marvel!
A Weird Kind of Popularity
Since we’re finishing up the holidays, I’m focusing primarily on Disney entertainment. It’s a lot more fun than legal proceedings, right?
One such Headline relates to what we just discussed: the popularity of Star Wars titles on Disney+. And Marvel comes into play as well.
Newsweek just discussed the most pirated television series of 2023. You remember media piracy, right?
At the turn of the century, a dude invented torrents, and they became the easiest way to watch media programming without paying for it.
Lately, streaming sites have modernized their technology, and they’re typically one step ahead of federal law enforcement.
I say this because Hollywood has lobbied the United States for more stringent laws against content piracy.
Some other countries look the other way. In fact, the old Pirate Bay proved so influential at one point that it started a political movement in Sweden.
We don’t really live in that world now, though. Streaming piracy is as simple as knowing which sites to visit or hardware to own.
No matter what anybody does, someone will always try to steal content. It is what it is.
For Disney, the most popular entertainment brand on the planet, the piracy issue remains a sticking point.
According to Newsweek, four of the most frequently stolen television series are Disney products.
The popular Disney titles on pirate sites are The Mandalorian and Loki, which fell behind only The Last of Us overall in terms of content theft.
This behavior is nothing new for Disney+, as the most pirated show of 2020 was The Mandalorian followed by WandaVision in 2021.
In a way, this kind of piracy offers a weird tribute to Disney. People wouldn’t be watching the shows illegally unless they were good enough to build a buzz.
Disney’s Film Year in Review
Last month, I evaluated what went wrong with Disney films in 2023.
More recently, Variety took the same approach, albeit with a different headline.
The publication performed an evaluation of the various film studios during 2023.
As you might imagine, the grades…weren’t great. We don’t tend to grade this stuff on a curve, and 2023 was pretty brutal across the board.
The only studio that received an A was Disney’s cross-media competitor, Universal, which claimed two of the top three films overall.
Meanwhile, Disney earned a C+, which is a fair evaluation.
As I detailed in my piece, the highs were better than critics admitted, but the lows were quite dreadful.
I would quibble within the margins on some of this analysis, specifically the part that states The Little Mermaid and Elemental didn’t match expectations.
Both films turned a profit, which is more than anybody was projecting during their opening weekends.
The authors also note that no film should cost what Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny had.
While true, that analysis is also a bit glib. The film cost so much due to the multiple delays in getting the project off the ground.
Then, once everyone was ready to proceed, a pandemic occurred. Not coincidentally, many 2022 and 2023 releases cost more than they should.
The others didn’t cost as much as Indiana Jones, but another film did.
Nobody talks about it now, but Avatar: The Way of Water cost more than Dial of Destiny. It was similarly delayed and hampered by the pandemic.
People overlook this fact because it still dominated the box office. Its budget proved to be a non-topic because of the results.
The final Indiana Jones film suffered a different fate due to its quality, but the budget part is understandable.
Two More Headlines
I’m gonna sneak in a couple of other Headlines because I liked them too much to cut.
First, here’s an article about how Disney executives improved the latest Doctor Who story.
I’ve only watched the first 2023 holiday special, so I haven’t seen the new Doctor yet.
However, the show’s producers happily recount how Disney offered one show note that made all the difference.
During an early cut of the final holiday special, the one with the new Doctor’s debut, the character didn’t arrive until late.
Disney advised that fans wanted to see him much sooner, and that single suggestion led to a better final cut of the holiday special.
Generally, network notes range from “Your ideas are terrible…” to “I’m gonna bite your face off if you ever talk to me again.”
Here’s a rare example of a company known for its fan service passing along a bit of wisdom to a new business partner.
Finally, we have this Collider list of the best Disney animated movie protagonists of the 21st century.
I have a LOT of problems with this one – the Brother Bear and Home on the Range rankings are wholly indefensible – but here’s what I want my wife to know.
They got the top selection right.
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Feature Photo: Disney