For generations, just having the Disney name and marketing machine behind a film was practically a license to print money. Add properties like Pixar and Marvel, and thier future was headed ‘to infinity and beyond’.
Until they decided they had to get overtly political, that is.
Picking a fight with DeSantis over legislation preventing the teaching of sexually-explicit materials to school kids younger than 4th grade, and then declaring their willful intent to shoehorn same-sex relationships into the storylines to shape the views of impressionable children was a high-risk, low-reward gambit.
Their woke gambit came back to bite them.
Not only did they lose the PR fight over the Groomer bill that makes no reference to the word ‘gay’ despite propagandists dubbing it the ‘don’t say gay’ bill, but DeSantis turned around and stripped Disney of its special status in municipal oversight. Now it’s just another theme park like all the others.
But the decision to work open propaganda into their storylines didn’t work out as planned. The public panned the new Buzz lightyear film — maybe it had something to do with an entirely unnecessary lesbian kiss.
Bring out the guaranteed blockbuster to save the day
But their ace in the hole is the Marvel Franchise, right? Crank out some super-hero multiverse stuff and the money is sure to come pouring in, right?
The curtain went up for Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania a few weeks ago, and Disney had a chance to test that theory.
Following another huge decline in box office grosses for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, analyst Valliant Renegade declared the film a “bankrupt enterprise.”
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania declined 60% in its third weekend from its second weekend. The film only grossed $12.8 million domestically. It has only grossed $188 million total domestically and $232.6 million internationally for a global gross of $420.7 million.
Analyzing these numbers, YouTuber Valliant Renegade said, “Even after a full three weekends in release it is unlikely that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is even going to breach $400 million at this point.”
He added, “This movie is done, folks. I think $500 million is almost entirely off the table. And this movie may conclude its box office run both here in the U.S. and abroad maybe somewhere around $450 million. And that is a big loss for The Walt Disney Company.”
— BoundingIntoComics
The article goes on to cite other critics drawing similar conclusions and noting an ongoing downward trend.
Bounding Into Comics likely had no idea that the person whose video review on the poor showing they were quoting had said something about this film that may have been a strong predictor for why this film didn’t fly with the public.
Once again, it comes back to Disney’s insistence on pushing propaganda:
That just goes to show you that our shirts mocking Disney are perfectly on-point.
If there is a more vivid example of ‘get woke go broke’ than this, we haven’t seen it.
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