This is a worldwide entertainment crisis, and the century-old empire Disney is in danger of collapse

June 5, 2023 | Issue 3257

The group mocks Disney's 2023 version of "The Little Mermaid", which has been one of the great events of the Chinese Internet in the past 10 days.

The movie "The Little Mermaid" was released globally on May 26, a blockbuster with a production cost of US$250 million and a first-day box office of 3.66 million yuan, setting the worst start for Disney's live-action film in China. Up to now, the box office of "The Little Mermaid" has not exceeded 26 million, and Maoyan Professional predicts that the total box office in the mainland is 27.8 million yuan.

In the past, Disney's live-action fairy tale films performed at the domestic box office, and the best was "Beauty and the Beast", with 590 million yuan. "Mulan", which was also ridiculed by the group, also had 278 million. "The Little Mermaid" undoubtedly became the worst grossing film introduced by Disney to the Chinese film market. In contrast, the North American box office trend of "The Little Mermaid" is quite good, but not as good as "Aladdin", and the reviews are still polar.

It can be said that "The Little Mermaid", which has been involved in controversy since the beginning of casting, finally reaped a lose-lose ending at the box office and word-of-mouth, and changing skin color does not make "The Little Mermaid" belong to the world.

Disney, known as the happiest place in the world, has also been difficult to be happy recently, and the Disney princess crisis reflected in "The Little Mermaid" is just one of the difficulties facing this huge entertainment empire. 2023 marks Disney's centennial, and perhaps the year its crisis peaks.

Disney destroyed the princess with its own hands

Disney's princess films have been filmed for almost a hundred years, although there are processes of adapting to the trend of the times at different stages, such as the image of the princess from a good wife and mother who loves housework and waits to be saved by the prince to a more diverse, more active, and more adventurous, but in general, there is not much newness.

Disney, responsible for dreaming and healing, knows very well that as long as people's lives are still bad, they will not get tired of the love myth that belongs to princesses. Even if it's old and the story isn't so round, no girl can turn down a princess film. The reason why Disney continues to remake classic animation works into live-action movies is simply because the group of audiences who grew up watching princess animation grew up and could kill with feelings.

In fact, almost every live-action princess movie remade by Disney over the years has faced controversy, but in general, as long as there are highlights, it will not affect Disney's continued withdrawal. For example, the casting is enough for the top, the protagonist's face is beautiful enough, and the skirt is enough for Bling. Even if people say that Disney is conservative and lazy, and all princesses share a set of story formulas, the body will still honestly pay for it.

"The Little Mermaid" is Disney's most "radical" one, from the casting of Harry Bailey, the three words "do not accept" flood the Internet.

In recent years, Hollywood's political correctness has been overkill, and the image of the Black Mermaid has exploded audience dissatisfaction. In addition, Harry Bailey's appearance is not as beautiful as Harry Berry, known as the Black Pearl, even if people can accept the Black Mermaid, they cannot accept Disney's operation of "choosing a princess without looking at her face", even if she sings well.

And Disney seems to be determined to take the black and red route, between "conservative + emotional killing" or "curiosity + political correctness", Disney chose the latter. But for the audience, the casting breakthrough of "The Little Mermaid" means a plot breakthrough. Because the male and female protagonists are not good-looking, the audience will double the connotation, profoundness, and innovation from Disney, so that it can be worth the ticket price.

Innovation, Disney has done, but not much. In "The Little Mermaid", not only can people and fish love each other, the heroine's father, King Chuandon, has only one wife and can still give birth to seven daughters of different races, while the white male protagonist can become a prince adopted by a black queen. Such a community of species is too historical nihilism.

It is difficult to say who is the real fairy tale and dream of believing in the myth of love in today's booming feminism and ignoring history to call the earth in the post-globalization era? Who is harder to be convinced? Who is more out of place?

The fourth stage of superhero cannot be sold

Of course, due to the natural aesthetic isolation of black protagonists in East Asian audiences, it is expected that the Chinese, Japanese and Korean markets will be difficult to substitute for "The Little Mermaid" and not pay. However, in addition to the princess crisis, Disney's Marvel Super British Universe is also not optimistic about the future of the mainland market.

Since 2019, Marvel blockbusters have been absent from the mainland market for three years. Marvel's fourth phase of superhero films has been criticized for the collective decline in quality, and the "Eternals", "Shangqi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" and "Black Widow" produced during the epidemic have not had a satisfactory reputation.

Whether Disney is a princess film or a super-British film, the production cost is high, and the consumption potential of the Chinese market, they have already seen on "Avengers 4", in fact, whether Hollywood or Disney, it is difficult to leave the mainland market.

However, without the core members of the first generation of the Avengers, it is difficult for Marvel's other new superhero movies to reproduce the "sweep" phenomenon of the past, and the new generation of young audiences will more turn their consumption enthusiasm to domestic blockbusters.

This year, Marvel movies officially returned to the mainland market, and "Black Panther 2", "Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantum Frenz" and "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" were released one after another, scoring box office results of 106 million, 272 million and 587 million respectively.

As the opening work of the fifth phase of Marvel, the Douban score of "Ant-Man 3" is only 6.1, and the "Silver Guard 3" with the consistent style of "Rolling Guide" (James Gunn) has the best box office and word of mouth. Compared with the achievements of Japanese comics in the Chinese market, the influence of Marvel and even Hollywood blockbusters is visibly declining.

Unfortunately, "Silver Guard 3" is the last work of Rolling Director in Marvel, he has jumped ship to the next door DC, announced the restart of DC New Universe, the first chapter "Gods and Monsters" will start with "Superman: Legacy" released in 2025.

In addition to "Ant-Man 3" and "Silver Guard 3", the movies to be released in the fifth phase of Marvel include "Captain Marvel 2", "Blade", "Captain America 4" and "Thunder Agents"; The sixth phase contains two blockbuster sequels, "Avengers 5: Kang's Dynasty" and "Avengers 6: Secret War". The opponents faced by non-first-line heroes are Sony Pictures' "Spider-Man: Across the Universe", Warner's "Barbie", and "Dune 2" and other movies, and the pressure of sequel IP in the next few years is not small.

At the same time, the landscape of Hollywood is changing. A24, a cutting-edge super label that started with distribution, has entered the theater step by step, sweeping the Oscars with "Instantaneous Universe", A24 shows a good enterprising spirit while cultivating directors, which to a certain extent relieves Hollywood's aesthetic fatigue. It is worth mentioning that the series "Angry Life" was launched by Netflix and A24.

Streaming brought down Disney

At the end of last year, Disney's high-level shock and emergency change of coach, Robert Iger who had been the soul of Disney's CEO for 15 years returned to Disney, replacing the radical Bob Chapek, and after the change of coach, a series of actions such as layoffs and throttling restructuring quickly began in Disney.

The story also starts in 2020, when Bob Chapek just took over the throne of Disney's CEO, and caught up with the outbreak of the global epidemic, Disney's theme parks were closed on a large scale, theatrical movies were impacted, and the stay-at-home economy gave birth to the streaming media business, and Chapek began to focus on streaming strategies.

As a result, Disney+, which was officially launched on November 12, 2019, began to burn money for growth, and it took 3 years for subscribers to compete with Netflix. It's just that the streaming media business relies heavily on IP spin-off dramas, and the lack of original dramas requires high content and technology costs. Chapec's excessive tilt of streaming resources has also clashed with Disney's film business.

"Mulan" was paid online during the epidemic, which brought an earthquake to the relationship between the theater network, and then Pixar's high-reputation animation "Spiritual Journey" and "Youth Metamorphosis" all met with the audience online, causing Pixar to be dissatisfied. And the Marvel movie "Black Widow" released in 2021, Disney also directly skipped the window period, and the theater release and streaming media were launched on the same day, causing Scarlett Johansson to confront Disney in court.

There is no end to burning money, but there is a ceiling to membership growth, and the streaming business is not very good, dragging down Disney.

Since 2019, Disney+ has accumulated losses of $8 billion, and subscribers have declined for the first time this year. At the earnings conference for the first quarter of fiscal 2023, Iger said, "The next step will be $5.5 billion in cost cuts, including $3 billion in content costs, and plans to cut 7,000 employees." ”

The business strategy adopted by Iger is the same as that of domestic manufacturers, through bold open source and cost reduction, to ensure cash flow and profitability. Even if the century-old business empire has deep pockets, it also needs to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and feel the stones in the exploration of streaming media business models.

The pandemic has changed relationships, social media and short videos have reshaped leisure methods, and a worldwide crisis has engulfed the traditional entertainment industry. In addition to the Disney princess and Marvel Universe crisis, as well as the dilemma of streaming, Disney also faces the problem of succession. After all, Iger, who was born in 1951, is 72 years old. After Egger, who will continue to steer the Hundred Year Empire? And what kind of content concept will be adopted to achieve emotional resonance with the new generation of audience? Everything remains to be seen.

【Text/Flying Fish】