Disney Headlines for December 31st, 2024
Happy New Year, everyone!
Since I know you’re in a hurry to sip champagne and kiss at midnight, I’ll be brief with this week’s Disney Headlines.


Fantasy in the Sky fireworks
Let’s talk about a super-old guy and how kids have suddenly started to love him.
Indiana Jones and the Aging Demographic


Photo: Radio Times
Justin Hermes covered a story this past weekend that deserves some attention.
Indiana Jones has become relevant once again, almost by accident.



Photo: Lucasfilm
You probably recall that Disney spent a reported $300 million on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
This investment proved…poor. The final Indiana Jones movie earned a paltry $384 million at the box office.


Photo: The Nerdy
Deadline and other sites declared the film one of the worst box office bombs of 2023, and they were right.
Disney learned a hard lesson here about the demographics of Indiana Jones.


Photo: Disney
CEO Bob Iger had watched the movie several times and given it his seal of approval.
As someone who has run a wildly successful movie studio for 20 years, Iger has a firm grasp of what audiences want…as a rule.
This instance proved an exception, one with a fascinating explanation.
Iger was 72 years old in 2023, and that’s the problem, as Dial of Destiny possessed one of the strangest demo breakdowns ever.


Photo: Lucasfilm
Basically, the older you are, the more you enjoy the film. I’m not saying that randomly.
There was ample data showing that the audience grades for the film increased noticeably for each five years of age demographics.



Photo: Lucasfilm
In layperson’s terms, a 35-year-old was more likely to enjoy the film than a 30-year-old and so forth.
But you really needed to be at least in your late 40s to love Dial of Destiny.


Drs Jones. Image: Lucasfilm
This behavior makes sense in that Raiders of the Lost Ark came out in 1981.
Even the last great movie in the franchise, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, debuted in 1989. It’s been a minute.
I’m Dating Myself


Image: Lucasfilm
Disney attempted to rekindle the magic with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008.
Younger audiences largely know that film as the one with the ridiculous refrigerator scene.


Image: Lucasfilm
Personally, I enjoyed the film, just as I quite liked Dial of Destiny.
On some level, I know that they’re not as good as Last Crusade, which is legitimately in my all-time top 20, but that’s okay.


Image: Lucasfilm, LTD. and Paramount Pictures
I missed watching Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and was happy to have him back.
That’s because I’m in my 50s. Those of you who started with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull have no such strong affiliation to the character.


Photo: Disney Junior
Herein lies one of the hidden tricks for Disney’s sustained growth across countless generations.
Disney starts training consumers at a young age to love its products. Why do you think Disney Junior exists?


Photo: Billboard
The key to this strategy is that the stories must be good. When that’s true, kids fall in love with Disney for life.
We witnessed it with Frozen, Moana, Encanto, and now Bluey.


Photo: Disney
Children of the 1990s grew up with Disney Channel, while the 2000s hinged on Lizzie McGuire, Hannah Montana, and High School Musical.
In the 1950s, Disney used the Mickey Mouse Club for the same purpose.


Photo: Disney
The idea has worked all this time, and it translates to child-friendly stories like Marvel comic book movies, too.
But Indiana Jones? He’s an old dude with a hat and a whip. You had to be there in the 1980s to understand the appeal.
Modernizing the Audience


Deadline
In Disney’s best-case scenario, you need to be a lover of classic cinema who tracks down popular older films.
We don’t have many of those in a world where Netflix’s algorithm expects that many viewers are folding laundry while watching.


Photo: Netflix
Netflix legitimately asks writers to have the character explain what they’re doing onscreen, as it knows some of the audience isn’t looking.
As much as I love the character, Indiana Jones comes from a different era.


(Photo by Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP) (Photo credit should read TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Anyone born after 2000 has no reason to know who this is or why they should care…until now.
In early December, Bethesda Softworks, a video game titan, released Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.


(Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Hamleys)
As I’d expected, reviews for the game started in eerily the same fashion as Dial of Destiny.
Younger reviewers had no interest in the story and said as much while critiquing Great Circle.


Photo: mentalfloss.com
Older reviewers immediately warmed to the heartfelt tribute to Indiana Jones’ spirit of exploration in adventure.
After a few days, data suggested that Bethesda had a big seller on its hands, which is stunning.


Amazon
Xbox users who subscribe to Xbox Ultimate Game Pass can play the game for free. That’s what I’m doing.
Somehow, Great Circle became the second-best-selling video game for the first half of December anyway.


xbox.com
And if you want to be a top-selling video game, December is obviously the month when you want it to happen.
Everything Old Is New Again


Photo: Bank rate
Now, the data shows that Disney has almost accidentally reached a younger audience.
The gamer generation never watched Indiana Jones movies, yet they’re playing Great Circle.


Photo: Steam
In fact, they’re playing so much that a sequel seems certain.
In gamer terms, it’s like someone just used Phoenix Down on Indiana Jones. He’s come back to life!


Photo: skillastics.com
Suddenly, after wasting $300 million on a movie the under-30 demographic didn’t want, Disney has found a new way to connect.
This unexpected development could lead to more Indiana Jones stories soon, a scenario I struggled to envision at the start of 2024.
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