Things continue to go poorly for the woke Walt Disney Company, which just lost its top spot at the global box office. In 2023, a number of woke flops for the moviemaker piled up and weighed down its performance around the world, while movies produced by Universal managed to garner audience interest and draw global viewers back into theaters.
Particularly, Universal saw great success in 2023 with its “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and its summer blockbuster, “Oppenheimer,” while Disney struggled to even break even with woke flicks like “The Marvels,” “Wish,” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”
Reporting on Universal’s box office victory, The Hollywood Reporter noted that Universal managed to rake in $4.91 billion in worldwide ticket sales in 2023, whereas Disney brought in a slightly lower $4.83 billion in global ticket sales. Universal released 24 movies over the year and Disney released 17.
Further, The Hollywood Reporter noted that Universal beat Disney at the box office both domestically and globally. At the domestic box office, Universal brought in $1.94 billion in revenue to Disney’s $1.9 billion, and at the international box office, Universal brought in $2.97 billion to Disney’s $2.92 billion.
Universal’s 2023 success might have come thanks to its better mix of film types. Such is what Comscore chief box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian was quoted by the Hollywood Reporter as indicating, saying, “Universal seems to have found the perfect balance of franchise films, animation, horror and everything in between — and these assets are given every possible advantage with a pitch perfect strategy that combines great filmmaker relationships, fantastic marketing and a rock solid distribution plan.”
Jim Orr, the Universal Pictures president of domestic distribution, commented on Universal’s success in a statement, saying, “In 2023, Universal once again found success at the box office with our eclectic slate of films. Our slate featured blockbusters like Christopher Nolan’s epic Oppenheimer and Illumination’s record-breaking The Super Mario Bros. Movie, horror hits including Blumhouse’s breakout hit M3GAN, comedies, dramas, and family films from two of the biggest names in animation, Illumination and DreamWorks Animation.”
Disney CEO Bob Iger, explaining in November why the company’s movies kept bombing, said, “Quality needs attention. … It doesn’t happen by accident. Quantity, in our case, diluted quality.” Continuing, Iger added that the movie was shot during the Covid pandemic and “There wasn’t as much supervision on the set, so to speak, where we have executives there really looking over what’s being done day after day after day,”
Further, Disney’s 10-K filing with the SEC noted that its products were having a hard time gaining consumer acceptance, saying, “Generally, our revenues and profitability are adversely impacted when our entertainment offerings and products, as well as our methods to make our offerings and products available to consumers, do not achieve sufficient consumer acceptance.”
That filing went on to add that the brand’s drift to the left likely impacted its profitability negatively, saying, “Further, consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.”
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