Disney's Wish

[Ben]

Maybe they should stop then… Behind the scenes specials, yeah, sure, that’s promotional. But adding a trailer, which, yes, is also promotional, does seem to more imply that said content is coming to the platform. They need to make that cut if they really want to make that big screen distinction cut through as the old "only in cinemas" used to.

[Dacey]

Not really? It’s just a trailer, and a trailer that says “coming only to theaters” no less.

I mean, if anything, it helps marketing. Makes the trailer even more accessible than it already is.

[Ben]

Ah, okay. Haven’t checked it out on D+ yet, but good that it makes the theatre distinction. And nothing like a subscription for paying to watch "commercials"…!

[Randall]

... and, it's not like it's a secret that it WILL be on D+ 2-3 months later anyhow. (Even though they should widen that out to several months, at least.)

[Ben]

But that’s s the point.

In the 90s, when "only in theatres" was the thing, we all knew they would come to video, but the question was "when?". When Disney had their practice of holding back prints for Europe for the following *year* it still wasn’t a guarantee that we’d get a film on tape or LD in the US before it made it theatrical in the UK and Europe. So theatrical was still very special.

In the mid 2Ks, it got a bit silly that "only in theatres" meant a film was pretty much guaranteed to come to video and DVD, then BD, in around three months, but that phrase still held out as windows were still a good three months, sometimes more.

It’s generally regarded that Disney harmed their own model during the pandemic by putting three or four major Pixar movies on the platform in quick succession, devaluing the product and making it feel less of an event to cinemagoers. This is not me talking, that’s the widely-held view from the exhibitors and analysts. Iger himself has come back and said they were too quick to release stuff that way and out streaming over the established model.

Which is interesting, because as we were saying in another thread, Disney doesn’t have a tech firm to lean back on, like so many other studios do. Outside of filmed entertainment, Disney's major other business component is live entertainment, from theme park, events, theatres and cruises. Those were all shut down during Covid. So they didn’t have much choice but to lean into the one thing they had going for them, which was a shiny, just-launched-in-time, new streaming platform.

So I get that they didn’t have much choice and, like a lot of things, companies and even governments during the pandemic, there was a lot of knee jerk reactions, good and bad decisions, fumbling, and trying things out. Disney did well to stay afloat, but vulnerabilities were exposed. In providing content where it was needed — and was super successful — that premium content's value was also squandered (see the performance of both Disney *and* Marvel content theatrically since).

Part of this was also audience apathy to venturing into cinemas again, and part of this was down to just not having very good films, or at least films that weren’t enough to make people want to risk a visit to the big screen, but it was proven a good couple of times that given the right film — and interestingly ones that had no clear immediate streaming future — audiences would turn up (No Time To Die, Spidey: No Way Home, etc).

Chapek announcing Strange World would be on D+ a month after the cinema release *the week before the cinema release* did not help things there. Iger himself again has said they need to "train" the audience back into thinking a movie *won't* necessarily be automatically available on streaming three months later. Hence why Avatar 2 did not announce or have a streaming plan — it will be *six months* between its initial cinema showings in December and debut on D+ in June.

My point being was that maybe Disney should use D+ for promotion more judiciously. It’s a bit of a stretch to say promotional programming is good value on a streamer, since we are already paying to have commercials played back to us, but I get it. We all want to see new stuff and behind the scenes on an upcoming, anticipated movie. That’s what Walt's Disneyland and various Wonderful World shows were all about.

They should, in fact, lean into this more and maybe do a weekly or monthly "news" show, maybe even named D23 or keep that Disney Insider show going for upcoming releases, "disguising" blatant promotional programming as interesting behind the scenes or "exclusive" peeks, etc. But shoving a basic, widely available trailer on D+, even if they’ve done it before, just sends the consumer a subconscious message that, "hey, we are already trailing this movie on our platform. Just wait a bit and you can see it here".

Yes, we know that’s inevitably true, but my point is that this doesn’t help Disney's aim to differentiate theatrical from streaming again. Yes, promote a new release and build antici…pation. But adding what is essentially an extended commercial? That’s just announcing what’s "coming soon", yes, to cinemas…but also to your streamer.

[Dacey]

Again, not really?

I don’t think this is going to negatively impact the film’s box office one way or the other. Maybe one or two people will be like “let’s wait for streaming,” but ultimately this is just like placing a trailer on a VHS tape back in the day. Marketing is marketing. And as Daniel said, they’ve already been doing this for all movies anyway. Really it would be a red flag if they didn’t use D+ to help sell the film.

[Ben]

Sell it, yes. Trail it, again not so much? For practically all the reasons I spent all that time describing. But if you don’t agree, that’s fine. I’m just putting a point across about a certain kind of advertising, and Disney wanting to actively draw people away from streaming and back to other revenue avenues like theatrical and home video.

And the only reason they’ve been "already been doing this for all movies anyway" is because the launch of D+ coincided with the pandemic that threatened so much of the theatrical output. We haven’t really known a time when D+ *hasn't* been used to sell or advertise a film for cinemas that will come to it sooner rather than later…

[Farerb]

Amazon has uploaded the cover of the art book:

[Daniel]

Pretty. Gives me Eyvind Earle/Sleeping Beauty vibes.

[Ben]

Slightly, though it’s mostly softer and rounder than Earle's hard vertical look. Kind of reminds me more of David Hall's concepts for Alice and Pan…?

[Daniel]

Yeah, I can see that too.

[Daniel]

20 minutes were screened at Annecy. Here's a summary:

"At first we meet the headstrong teenager as she interviews to serve as sorcerer’s apprentice for the regal Magnifico, a so-called benevolent mage who rules over his Kingdom of Rosas by guarding and granting the many wishes his subjects offer to him in tribute. Only the interview doesn’t quite go as planned after Asha pulls down the glowing crystal orb that holds the wish of her 100-year-old grandfather, begging the sovereign to grant it. No deal — Magnifico, it turns out, claims his regal powers by hoarding.

Dejected, the heroine returns home but finds herself unable to fit back in. She’s seen beyond the veil, and, newly aware of the cynical ruse that governs her land, she flees the homestead and burst into song – a very specific “I Want” song that finds her looking over familiar sights with new disappointment. “So I make this wish/to have something more for us than this,” goes the refrain, and once DeBose hits the crescendo a star alights in the night sky, illuminating the whole kingdom.

The star goes by Star and resembles a marshmallow Peeps set ablaze. After following it to a forest bed, Asha watches the Star shed gold dust on flora and fauna alike, with each beneficiary suddenly able to speak – and sing! “You’re a star,” sing an arboreal chorus that call back the Grandmother Willow from “Pocahontas;” “You’re a star,” add the birds and the bears and Asha’s pet goat Valentino, who now boasts the pipes of Alan Tudyk; “You’re a star,” all of nature intones with one voice.

When the song comes to close, a doe turns to its natural predator and says, “thanks for not eating me.” “Don’t mention it, Bambi,” comes the reply."

That last part sounds terrible and pretty cringey.

[Ben]

Yeah. Oooh, no: it’s going to be full of nods, winks, injokes and you-see-what-we're-doing-here-doncha moments that ultimately get nauseating, isn’t it?

[Foualier]

The Beast in the sultan's pile of toys in Aladdin was discreet and amusing. Since then, I've come to hate easter eggs. I know they're popular but I see them as distracting. They're a cheap gimmick and they don't make a movie good.

[Ben]

You know what? What I’ve actually come to "hate" is the *term* Easter Eggs.

We used to live in a world where there was such a thing as in-jokes. In-jokes were little bits of knowing dialog, a quick cameo, or a prop placement in a film from another film, or where costars knew each other or the director enough to pop in to another set while shooting was ongoing. These kinds of things go back to Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton and Laurel & Hardy, and went into overdrive when comics started breaking the fourth wall and the likes of Hope and Crosby referenced their Paramount contracts in the Road movies of the 40s.

When DVDs came along, the term — obviously after the way eggs are hidden for kids to discover at Easter — began to be applied, mostly just as a way of describing this practice with *some* kind of moniker more than anything, to the "hidden" options on the disc menus. You know, on the subtitle screen, go up once and twice left to highlight the icon that plays a trailer or an onset gag reel, etc.

Somewhere along the line, these two things have become confused, to the point that I roll my eyes when someone describes an in-joke as an Easter Egg. This is wrong. An Easter Egg, as explained, describes a hidden object that rewards on discovery. An in-joke is in plain sight, actively waiting to be noticed for those that are, naturally given the name, "in on the joke". They are *not* Easter Eggs, but like many things nowadays, people are lazy and wish to reduce words and phrases down to their bare minimum, as a "catch-all" term.

What’s worse is that now these things, incorrectly assigned the term, are put in intentionally for people to geek out over. But they’re still in-jokes, *not* Easter Eggs!

/rant.