One of the most expensive animated films of all time becomes a huge flop: Disney loses so much with “Strange World”

“Strange World” grossed just $18.9 million at the North American box office last weekend. It’s a disastrous number — especially considering it was the long, five-day Thanksgiving weekend, which often leaves families with plenty of time and opportunity to go to the movies.

This is where Disney traditionally starts family films before the end of the year, is actually used to box office results of between $40 and $60 million, and even made $67.3 million this weekend with “Frozen.” Even the start of “Encanto” at a time in 2021 that was still significantly weaker than the coronavirus was higher at $27.2 million. But far too few people are interested in Disney’s new adventure film – also in Germany, by the way. Just over 60,000 movie tickets were sold in this country.

$180 million cost, at least $100 million loss

Things aren’t looking any better in the rest of the world either – and “Strange World” cost a whopping $180 million. Together with “Wall-EThe family adventure is the 10th most expensive animated film of all time.

For Disney, “Strange World” becomes a huge loss-making venture. Analysts are already calculating that Disney will ultimately lose at least $100 million to Strange World, even after its release on Disney+, other home theater offerings, and TV.

“Lightyear” was already a mega flop

It is already Disney’s second major animated film megaflop in 2022. ‘Lightyear’ already went down at the box office in the spring. The worldwide gross of $ 226 million only reads well at first glance. Knowing that only part of that money goes to Disney, and that Lightyear alone cost $200 million to produce (plus marketing costs), that’s a disaster too.

Incidentally, it is increasingly becoming a problem for Disney that the costs for animated films have been getting out of hand for years. The 14 most expensive animated films of all time come from Disney and its subsidiary Pixar (topped by “Rapunzel – Neu Verföhnt”, cost: $260 million). When “Raya and the Last Dragon” cost “only” $ 100 million, it was already celebrated as a savings success. After all, it hadn’t been possible to make a movie for less than $150 million in years. Competitor Illumination recently dropped its sequel “Minions – In Search of the Mini Boss” for just $80 million (and grossed over $920 million at the box office worldwide).

Core problem: marketing!

But back to the current flops “Strange World” and “Lightyear”: both films share a core problem: marketing! If the author of these lines asks around his circle of acquaintances, even those interested in Disney haven’t even noticed that a new Disney movie has hit theaters since last weekend. And if anyone has heard of “Strange World”, they can’t say anything at all about what the movie is about – except maybe “something involving discovery of a colorful fantasy world”.

That was already the case with “Lightyear”. Disney hasn’t even tried to show audiences what kind of story awaits them in the cinema. And even if no one wants story-heavy trailers that spoil everything, not only studies have shown that a certain knowledge of the plot is a decisive criterion when buying tickets.

Diversity as the cause of the flop would be a wrong conclusion

The poor, sometimes completely lacking marketing was certainly not the only factor, but as so often there were a lot of different causes that played a role. From certain circles there is also reference (usually very maliciously) to the diversity of the film. Among other things, the son of the Clade family, who is central to the story, is homosexual, which is reflected in the fact that he is in love with a boy from his circle of friends.

That may also have played a small part – especially since right-wing trolls joined forces to carry out so-called “review bombing”, i.e. to flood the film with the lowest ratings on internet platforms. The resulting poor average ratings may have put some people off going to the cinema, but that’s certainly not the real cause of the flop. Because maybe far too few people have noticed that “Strange World” is playing in the cinemas…

Is it still worth going to Strange World? As far as we are concerned, absolutely. Because even if the story doesn’t offer much beyond the classic family adventure, ‘Strange World’ offers a lot visually – and that is of course much better in the cinema than later at home – for example as a stream on Disney +. The adventure film has not yet been officially announced for the streaming platform, but it has we expect that “Strange worldComing to Disney+ later this year to coincide with the Christmas holidays. Disney did the same with Encanto in 2021.