Strange World

[EricJ]

Raya is not largely unliked.

Ignored, maybe, once the significantly more audience-friendly Mirabelle showed up with her hit song, but unliked?

People were not rooting for MTR to fail.

Well, that depends on whether you classify movie/box-office analysts as "people".

("Could this be Lasseter's first big misstep too far, taking the failing reins from Eisner, yada-yada?..."
Analysts were still pushing the death-of-2D and anti-Eisner drama narratives, not to mention the horror stories of Robinsons' production difficulties before Lasseter took over, and did not want reality to intrude at all costs.
Sort of like with Iger vs. Chapek at the moment: Once the press smells a good decline-and-fall story, a sudden competent turnaround success ruins their day, and they pretend it isn't happening.)

[Ben]

Cry for help? Disney Animation still has the majority of Thanksgiving weekend records. And this is only happening with Strange World because Disney is beating themselves with Wakanda Forever.

…and never got the marketing in shape and rolling out properly in the first place. They want it to fail so they can point to streaming and say, "hey, look, these films do *so* much better there"…

And they already told us it’s on D+ in a month!

[Farerb]

First time a WDAS film gets a "B" cinemascore.

[Daniel]

Oh no, anyway...

[GeffreyDrogon]

It got a lower CinemaScore rating than Spirit Untamed, Paws of Fury, and Bros, but it will certainly do better than all of them nonetheless.

[gaastra]

Sister went today. They were the only ones in the showing! Not good.

Edit--it's a bomb and the worst disney animated thanksgiving opening in history!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235269474/

[EricJ]

And considering that Treasure Planet was crucified twenty years ago for a Thanksgiving opening of $16M in 3200 screens...Also with killer competition from its own studio a few weeks earlier.

But Strange World also has to deal with a lack of publicity, coherent or otherwise, some audiences still not returning to theaters after the pandemic (I haven't been back, but just because nothing looks good), and a certain other factor that got way too much wild overpromotion by the overenthusiastic but also crushed Lightyear's box office and overseas release.

[Ben]

Sister went today. They were the only ones in the showing! Not good.

Most importantly…what did they *think* about it!?

[Bill1978]

Disney shot itself in the foot with announcing it was coming to Disney+ so soon after the release. I am contemplating going to see it this weekend, but that depends if the main road to my cinema (an hour away) is open after the recent flood caused major damage. There is a part of me that just feels just wait until it is on DIsney+ but the other part is screaming 'Go, you make an effort to see all Disney animated films at the cinema'

Disney really needs to decide if rushing a movie to Disney+ actually worth it, when it could be eating into box office receipts causing a movie to bomb at the box office and be labelled a 'flop' in history when possibly it could have succeeded if people were forced to go to the cinema to see because it wasn't going to be available digitally for a few months.

[EricJ]

As I recall, one of the things that sank 3-D re-releases at Disney overnight was their being unable to understand why Monsters Inc. 3D was a no-show at the box office, even though they helpfully pointed out it was going to be on Blu-ray in a month.

I remember, back in the 10's, when arthouse distributors like Magnet discovered that they could get more exposure for an indie by saturating the new streaming services like Instant Netflix and Amazon Prime, I lived literally just around the corner from our local cute college-town storefront arthouse theater, that might often be showing the slowly-distributing indie films of note at the same time as they were showing on Netflix. And yes, it was a tough choice, as I often had to choose whether to go around the corner to satisfy a mild curiosity about "Trollhunter", when it was streaming in my living room for no-obligation free.

The idea for studios to premiere movies on streaming was a product of our initial Lockdown trendiness for getting everything home delivered, even new movies, studios all wanted a piece of Universal's Trolls: World Tour, and we'd all get a chance to see that new Artemis Fowl movie and live-action Mulan after all.
But the idea that Disney+ was going to continue to run the Entertainment division is one of Chapek's velvet-rope darlings, and Iger's comments about "Storytelling driving the company" more than a little suggests that's one of the first things on the list to clean house.
Looking for Strange World alibis is only going to focus a laser point on that. (And then maybe they can get around to the problem/s that sank Pixar's Lightyear.)

[gaastra]

Most importantly…what did they *think* about it!

"Good not great" Sister fell alseep (could have been the big thanksgiving meal she ate before and not the film but she never falls asleep at films) and niece saw it as "ok" and she is really easy to please with cartoons.

[Ben]

Sounds like a minor "okay, nothing special" outing that needed a much better, mystery buildup marketing campaign. Feels like we’re back in the Robinsons/Princess & Frog/Pooh days, waiting for the next Tangled/Frozen rush of new creative juices to start being pumped through.

But then, this is what you get with so much quantity. Between Disney and Pixar, not to mention the flood of features from several other studios and indies, not every one is going to be an out and out winner or undiscovered gem.

[GeffreyDrogon]

Strange World is basically dead at the box office.

[Daniel]

Yep, a real turkey.

[EricJ]

One YouTuber basically summed up what we all suspected, but nobody wanted to say:

(And if had JUST been Lightyear, it wouldn't be a larger problem for the studio that needs fixing.

I'm glad a small niche of their D/P animators feel personally fulfilled and socially vindicated now, but when Iger said "We need to get back to Storytelling as the root of our product", and you might have wondered "As opposed to what?"...this is What.)