Disney Headlines for December 10th, 2024
No, the Disney Channel isn’t shutting down. But yes, Disney is receiving some criticism for Moana 2 and Snow White.
We’ve got a strange, opinionated week of Disney Headlines.
Please Use Snopes, People
Disney Channel
The other day, a friend asked me a question so wholly off-base that it briefly puzzled me.
He wanted to know whether Disney Channel and possibly Disney+ were shutting down.
Now, I’m used to folks sometimes asking me patently absurd questions about Disney.
That’s happening more and more as society blurs the lines between fact and fiction, and I accept it’s par for the course these days.
This one surprised me because the friend asking me WORKS IN THE MEDIA!!!
You’d like to think that people in the industry are a bit better informed about this stuff, but here we are.
Photo: Forbes
I know that my friend is a smart person and a lovely human being. So, I quickly researched the subject.
Don’t get me wrong. I knew that the questions he was asking were wrong. They didn’t even pass the laugh test.
Photo: The New York Post
More than anything, I was curious why someone as smart as him would believe such a thing.
That’s when I stumbled down one of those wretched internet rabbit holes and discovered the source of the misinformation.
Photo: Wikipedia
Something is happening in France right now, and it’s so obscure it’s not even worth mentioning.
But I have to discuss it today to clarify the source of confusion.
Canal+
The Disney Channel has chosen not to extend its contract with Canal+ and Net TV.
Unless you’ve spent much time in France or Spain, you probably don’t even know what those are.
Disney Channel
Let’s just call them a cross between a network like ABC and an official government channel like PBS or BBC.
Those channels lost access to the Disney Channel next month. That’s it. That’s the story.
Why the Confusion?
Photo: Playbuzz.com
So, you’re probably wondering why two international networks you don’t even know led to such absurd speculation.
Well, here’s where the cottage industry of Disney Hate and social media engagement comes into play.
Some muckrakers started connecting several non-existent dots to reach an utterly absurd conclusion.
What they decided was that if Disney Channel wouldn’t be available in France and Spain in January, it must be shutting down.
Families Streaming Disney+
This seems like a good time to mention that Disney Channel content will switch to Disney+ next month.
That’s part of a coordinated global effort by Disney to get as many customers watching content online as possible.
Photo: English Jargon
Disney believes it will make more by enticing the next generation of kids to stream Disney Channel content via an app than by watching cable.
That strategy makes perfect sense since so few children ever bother to watch cable television today.
Photo: Getty Images/Ringer illustration
Effectively, Disney is future-proofing its business model, at least internationally.
In America, the economics are different. Disney has a sweet deal with cable carriers and gets massive carriage fees for its channels.
ESPN
The biggie is obviously ESPN, but Disney Channel remains a solid breadwinner as well.
Thus, Disney has plenty of incentive to keep it operational, at least for now.
Photo: ESPN
Down the road, executives may make the same decision here, but Disney itself states it’s already programmed the cable channel through 2026.
That’s as strong a commitment as Disney could possibly make toward one of its linear networks right now.
What about Disney+?
Image: The Healthy Mouse
I get why people may wonder about its long-term viability, though. The part of the story that makes zero sense involves Disney+.
Once the rumors started spiraling, some blatant liars indicated that Disney+ was such a failure that Disney was shutting it down.
Photo: Getty
As MickeyBlog has mentioned multiple times recently, Disney projects a $1 billion profit for Disney+ this year.
How many businesses netting a billion dollars shut down? Exactly.
To a larger point, why would Disney be pushing French and Spanish viewers to Disney+ if that service were going away soon?
Like I said, none of this passes the laugh test yet the rumor gained enough traction that sites like USA Today had to address it.
If you see an annual subscription deal for Disney+, grab it! I promise you the service isn’t going anywhere.
On the contrary, Disney+ is unequivocally the company’s future.
Photo: vecteezy.com
As for the Disney Channel, if Disney says it’s programmed for the next two years, I believe them.
The money’s too good for Disney to abandon the channel. It’s another billion-dollar business, after all.
The Movie Controversies
Getty
Disney got hit twice this week, and both were frontal assaults on the film division.
That’s a strange thing to happen during the same week that Disney broke the Thanksgiving Week box office record by $100 million.
Photo: Disney
Alas, Moana 2 has faced some criticism. Some fans consider the soundtrack a bit subpar.
I’ll note that the soundtrack has already performed well on the Billboard charts, but there are some harsh reviews.
(Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
In fact, the writing duo for this soundtrack recently stated “give it a month” while defending their work.
They’re right in that even Encanto took a while to become a hit, but it unfortunately comes across as a somewhat defensive response.
Photo: Disney
Then, we have the realization that Disney’s main animation team in Burbank didn’t create Moana 2.
Since this was originally a Disney+ project, Disney sent it to the new backup studio in Vancouver. Basically, it’s an outsourced project.
Disney
Now that the film has become a mega-blockbuster, digital animation artists worry that this is the industry’s future.
They believe companies like Disney will ship work to other countries to save a few bucks.
MOANA 2 – © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
That fear exists on top of the one about AI being exponentially faster to generate animated images.
So, even though Disney’s behavior here is perfectly understandable, some artists are assailing the industry’s most famous animation company.
“I Don’t Remember You Being This…Opinionated”
Photo: Getty
Then, we have the Snow White saga, which just isn’t going away.
This week, word leaked that Disney will spend $210 million on the project after tax incentives.
Walt Disney Archives
That reveal led to another wave of echo chamber conversations about how doomed the project is.
Now, we heard that with The Little Mermaid which turned out to be a modestly profitable film in theaters.
Still, the Snow White issue will linger because the film’s star, Rachel Zegler, is proudly outspoken about a wide range of topics.
This has made Zegler wildly unpopular in some circles, causing a strange subsection of society to want this film to fail.
Photo: Disney
So, they’ll likely talk about Snow White as if it has failed, even if it doesn’t.
The concern I’ve got here isn’t anything political, as I’m all for people with positive voices speaking up.
Instead, I’m worried that Snow White’s trailer…well, it looks like this:
If that makes you happy and excited, I’m ecstatic to hear that. I’m being sincere, too. Love what you love, my friends.
Photo: Disney
Personally, I couldn’t get past how weird and artificial-looking the Seven Dwarfs are.
Also, the “opinionated” line strikes me as one Disney used in the trailer as an inside joke, but woof. That’s a dangerous game to play.
Photo: Disney
On the bright side, Zegler’s voice is an absolute weapon. So, I have high hopes for the soundtrack, but Disney’s marketing team has a lot of work to do.
A lot of people want to hate this film, and this trailer is far from a homerun.
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