Disney's Wish

[Farerb]

53 on Metacritic:
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/wish/

Rotten Tomatoes:

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wish_2023

Lowest scores for Disney Animation since Chicken Little.

[gaastra]

Boy and the heron by the way has a 98 score with 90 reviews!

[Randall]

About what I'd expect, given the lackluster trailer. Even the positive reviews are largely giving only mild praise. Still, I'll look forward to seeing it, but likely on disc rather than the theatre, unless I hear a groundswell of praise. Though, I'm tempted to see it in the theatre regardless (obviously the way it was intended), given its historical significance.

[gaastra]

It's showing in amcs tomorrow in early a screening but can't make it.

[Ben]

Historical significance…!?

I know it’s being pushed as this big 100 thing, but that doesn’t really make sense. Strange World and Elemental are two other animated films that have been released in this anniversary year, so it’s not even a big milestone for Disney Animation. The big one was when Tangled was their 50th animated feature. The bigger one will be when Snow White hits 100 in 2037, or when they hit 100 animated features.

It’s great that you’ve bought into the hype that Wish is special because it’s based on the star that Geppetto wished upon — which would make that anniversary make more sense if it was 2040 — and because it’s apparently packed with Disney references, but which ones nowadays aren’t?

Once Upon A Studio is much more the significant milestone tribute, since it actually features Mickey front and centre and, more sensibly, Oswald, although even he doesn’t date the studio back 100 years. They’d have been better off, as a true tribute, going for something like that Search For Mickey Mouse film they proposed a while back and essentially making a feature Once Upon A Studio of a kind, or do something with all the princesses teaming up, or something.

They played one of the Big Songs from Wish on the annual Children In Need charity show here on TV last night, and I can’t say I was particularly wowed. Usually I can come away humming the new song tunes right afterwards, but this one had trouble sticking. Perhaps the performance wasn’t great, for whatever reason, but the visuals they played on screens in the background still don’t look fully rendered either. Unfortunately, Wish just doesn’t look that special, and questionably "historically significant"…

[Randall]

Y'know, I typed "historical significance" just to get a rise out of Ben.

So easy.

[Ben]

That’s just mean, man.

[Randall]

[Farerb]

It’s great that you’ve bought into the hype that Wish is special because it’s based on the star that Geppetto wished upon — which would make that anniversary make more sense if it was 2040 — and because it’s apparently packed with Disney references, but which ones nowadays aren’t?

The Wishing Star in Pinocchio was the Blue Fairy. Not some emoji.

[Ben]

Yes, but she came from an emoji.

[Farerb]

https://deadline.com/2023/11/box-office ... 235616095/

[Bill1978]

Ouch. True but ouch.

[Ben]

The other thing is that brands sell, which is why franchises are king.

True, Disney is its own brand, but just having the name above the title doesn’t hold the cache that it used to, as it’s become both watered down by stuff that isn’t head and shoulders above everything else, and swamped by a lot of very similar product.

Very few people care now if a film is a Disney or a DreamWorks, but they *will* make a decision based on "what is this Wish thing I have never heard of?" against "oh, there's another Trolls movie; I get that and know what that is". So the Universal thinking isn’t so far off, especially if Disney’s film isn’t good enough to sprout legs.

It *doesn’t matter* if Trolls is any good or not — and we can pretty much guarantee that it probably won’t be as "good" or fresh-feeling as Wish — as they already have that built-in crowd that will turn up. The other thing is that, without any other significant family features popping up immediately, there is space for both — unless one is *so* much greater than the other and steals all the repeat business…

[Ben]

Eyeing a $75m global bow. Not bad, but not really great-great either. I’m sceptical about this being brilliant, but I do want it to do well, so hopefully it’ll have some legs over the holidays:

https://deadline.com/2023/11/wish-napol ... 235630318/

[gaastra]

Thanksgiving is the wild card as families like to go to the movies on it and christmas. Trolls 3 is out also, however fighting for the family moviegoers. Next few weeks wish will have to deal with godzilla, studio Ghibli's new film, beyonce, wonka, migration with a minion short and the live grinch rerelease for family money.