Disney Headlines for June 21st, 2023
This week in Headlines: we talk about confused firefighters, favorable Disney polls, and an Elemental question.
Disney has experienced another odd week. Let’s talk through the weirdness.
Frog Meets Scorpion
“Politics makes strange bedfellows.”
“If you’re playing a poker game and you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.”
Both those quotes came into play this week with the reveal that the Reedy Creek Fire Services department discovered the obvious.
Nobody should trust Ron DeSantis. Ever.
Over the past few years, any number of Florida employees and elected officials have discovered that DeSantis’s word doesn’t mean much.
The latest example involves the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (CFTOD), the modified version of the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
Only one Reedy Creek group took the governor’s side when DeSantis targeted Disney for taking a political stance.
That organization, the Reedy Creek firefighters, believed that as political allies of DeSantis, they’d earn higher salaries under the new regime.
Some of these firefighters believed that Disney hadn’t paid them their worth or staffed their department enough.
Since one of the leading firefighters had championed DeSantis before his election, they felt confident he’d take care of them at the first opportunity.
Realistically, that’s what everyone expected, as that’s an easy win for the governor.
He could reward allies and make Disney look bad in one fell swoop.
Alas, DeSantis has fallen into a downward cycle over the past few months, starting with Disney outflanking him with Reedy Creek.
His team’s decision-making has turned his presidential campaign into a glorified tire fire, as we’ll discuss in the next section.
Meanwhile, the governor of Florida has deprioritized his state, delegating most tasks…like the negotiations for a new firefighter contract.
According to AP News, the new board promised firefighters a raise from $55,000 to $65,000.
Guess what hasn’t happened yet! That’s right. The CFTOD hasn’t signed the paperwork yet, which has caused firefighters to go public with their grievances.
Polls Favor Disney over DeSantis
I fully expect this story to go away soon. It’s embarrassing to DeSantis at a time when his campaign appears to be sinking.
The CFTOD had no problem paying the District Administrator $400,000 to head the operation. It should be able to find money for firefighters, too.
Still, this latest too-public blunder exemplifies how DeSantis continues to sink in the polls while Disney holds strong.
I discussed this last month when the initial poll based on Reedy Creek went in Disney’s favor.
Now, another one has come out, and it’s even more of an indictment of DeSantis.
Newsweek starts its story with this:
“Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has seen his favorability drop across the country as his nemesis, Disney, gets more popular.”
So, yeah. It’s bad for him and great for Disney.
An organization known as Navigator Research, a part of the Sixteen Thirty project, has performed this poll.
Unlike last time, I cannot quantify their polling accuracy, as 538 doesn’t track this service, which is five years old.
Here are the two key takeaways from Time:
“DeSantis’ popularity rating has fallen since November and almost half of Americans see him in an unfavorable light.”
“Over the same period, Disney’s favorability rating has remained high, with people siding with the corporation in its beef with DeSantis and nearly two in three Americans having a favorable view of the media giant.”
Later, the story summarizes:
“The majority of people, across all ethnic groups, sided with Disney and believe it is in the right in the Florida governor’s “crusade” against it.”
What the Numbers Say
Here’s the quote that should freak out the DeSantis campaign:
“Even worse news for DeSantis is that his favorability rating among Republicans has declined 19 points since November.
One in five Republicans sided with Disney, believing the company is in the right.”
The underlying political rule here is simple. If you’re gonna pick a fight like this, you’d better win. DeSantis is getting destroyed in polls.
Last November, Florida’s governor held a +2 favorability rating nationwide. Today, he’s at -16 and dropping fast.
Contrast that to Disney, whose net popularity is +31. For comparison, Disney’s popularity in May 2022 was +32.
Given the margin of error involved, Disney could be, if anything, better liked in the wake of the Florida Feud.
Meanwhile, DeSantis’ poll numbers have fallen in literally every demographic since November 2022. Here’s the poll if you want to see for yourself.
In his BEST demographic, DeSantis has fallen “just” 17 points. You can understand how this is terrible news for him, right? Well, it gets worse.
Overall, the poll respondents voted that “Disney is in the right” by 17 points.
Among Independent voters, the group DeSantis needs to have any chance of getting elected, Disney wins by 28 points.
Finally, here’s the worst part for the governor.
Only 23 percent of Republicans, his primary voting base, have heard “a lot/some” about DeSantis running for President.
His daring political ploy has blown up in his face thus far. Now, the question becomes whether the court system will side with Disney or DeSantis.
The Elemental Pixar Discussion
Over the past few days, MickeyBlog has discussed the box office performance and reception of Elemental.
Even Pixar legend Pete Docter admits to confusion about what’s happening.
As I mentioned three weeks ago, Disney allowed seven critics to influence the overall perception of Elemental, thereby creating a negative Headline cycle.
More than three-fourths of Rotten Tomatoes critics enjoy the film, and I agree with them.
Even so, I’ll readily acknowledge that the film’s opening weekend box office was disappointing. But I’d expected that.
Please allow me to introduce the context you won’t find anywhere else about Elemental.
The film’s opening weekend box office of $29.5 million represents a drop of 24 percent from what Onward managed just before the pandemic.
Did you know that early 2023 box office was down 25 percent from its pre-pandemic levels in 2019?
From that perspective, the drop from Onward, a new story, to Elemental, another new story, is perfectly in line with expectations.
Also, are you aware that new Transformers, Fast & Furious, and DC Universe movies are all underperforming right now?
Let’s Talk about the Big Picture
Folks, the box office hasn’t recovered fully yet, and the situation is that much worse internationally.
We’ve thankfully had a few films like Avatar: The Way of Water, Top Gun: Maverick, and The Super Mario Bros. movie overachieving.
Their triumphs are all the more impressive because they’ve managed this feat in challenging circumstances.
Realistically, what happened this past weekend wasn’t a Disney or Pixar problem. It’s an industry-wide problem without a short-term solution.
Right now, the numbers don’t add up for either theatrical release OR streaming, and that’s why most Hollywood/media stocks are struggling.
Pixar made another excellent movie, which continues a trend with Turning Red, Luca, Onward, and Soul.
Let’s not confuse disappointing performance with a downturn in quality. There isn’t one.
Those four films hold an average Rotten Tomatoes grade of 92 percent. And while history won’t remember it that way, Lightyear is at 74 percent, too.
Don’t let the Headlines trick you. Pixar is fine. As long as the studio is churning out good-to-great movies, we should all be happy.
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