It’s been a rough stretch for Disney. The woke, former family favorite has been taking enormous losses at the box office, in streaming, and at its theme parks. Much of the damage is self-inflicted due to the company’s insistence on pushing leftist narratives, injecting inappropriate content into children’s programming, and a much-publicized fight with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
However, the company has still insisted on pushing forward with woke content, and subsequently, audiences have begun pushing back. The company has seen bomb after bomb on its streaming service, losing subscribers and canceling underperforming content on a regular basis.
Disney has also cut costs at ESPN and reportedly is seeking to sell the “worldwide leader in sports,” along with failing ABC and even Hulu, provided they can find a buyer.
Needless to say, the mouse has been absorbing heavy blows. The one area Disney could always count on success was at the box office, but even that has become more miss than hit, as everything from “Buzz Lightyear” to “Indiana Jones” has been dead on arrival, costing the company billions in losses.
Disney has revealed that the cost of making the woke, live-action version of its classic cartoon, “The Little Mermaid,” bloated to more than $300 million by the end of August 2022. That was more than $50 million over what the projected budget was to be.
Considering the cost overruns, the movie was already up against the wall before word got out that the title character, Ariel, portrayed in the cartoon as a redheaded white girl, was now being cast as a black mermaid with dark hair. While this may seem innocuous on the surface, taking into account the damage Disney has already done to its brand by woke stunts, the backlash was severe.
Naturally, the liberal media called the entire backlash racist and blamed bots and a choreographed smear campaign on IMDB for the poor scores and the subsequent failure. However, as one outlet noted, perhaps the CGI was a bit offputting in comparison to the simplicity and charm of the original: “There’s something about these depictions that triggers an uneasy response. Maybe it’s the prolonged, lingering shots on their ‘smiling’ faces or that their tiny mouths are contorted in unnatural ways. It’s as though there’s almost something sinister hiding underneath the computerized animal skin – and that’s even before they start singing and dancing.”
This review was written by Vox, which isn’t exactly a conservative publication. The actual budget was only revealed because the Disney Corporation was seeking tax credits from the United Kingdom, where much of the movie was filmed. The UK requires much more transparency with the film’s finances, and thus, the true numbers were revealed.
While the leftist media attempted to blame racism for the film’s failure, it also severely underperformed in China, as well as the rest of the world. The Little Mermaid flamed out at the worldwide box office with a meager $567 million haul. When you’ve spent $400 million total on a movie that grosses $567 million from a box office where about 50 percent of that $567 million stays with exhibitors, you are looking at a tremendous loss.
There is a litany of reasons the movie likely didn’t land with consumers. The stale premise, overdone CGI, the alteration of key characters, including adding a drag queen, and Disney’s growing reputation for pushing their leftist narrative surely added to the recipe for disaster.
We are watching a once bulletproof brand die in real-time, and to be honest, considering their unwillingness to alter their game plan, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for Disney. Instead, sympathy is replaced by sadness that wokeness has ruined a good thing, and Disney may never recover.
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