It is 2019 and the filmmaking industry has just had its best year yet. Disney is at the forefront of this with 7 of the top-grossing films of the year, including Avengers: Endgame, which has just broken the very enviable record of the highest-grossing film of all time. “Things can only get better from here,” many observers commented. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be the case.
The following year, 2020, COVID-19 struck and the towering industry cratered. Theaters shuttered and many jobs were lost. It wasn’t until 2021 that some semblance of normalcy returned to the industry. Still, it would take another year – until 2022 – to see real growth and for things to start looking up again.
When this happened, people, both within and outside the industry, became optimistic that things would improve and 2023 would continue the upward trend. Unfortunately, 2023 has done the opposite.
While two movies have grossed over $1 billion this year, many more have tanked. And much like it was at the forefront of the gains in 2019, the biggest box office year in history, Disney has once again found itself at the forefront of the losses this year.
In 2023, the House of Mouse has seen several of its movies fall flat at the box office, including two of the most expensive films of all time. One of these films, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny cost over $300 million, according to Deadline, but could only muster $368 million at the box office, losing the studio about $100 million.
The second film is The Marvels which has clawed its way to a little under $190 million at the box office despite its $220 million budget, becoming an even larger loss despite being better received than most recent entries in the downward trending MCU.
Even though the film is still showing in theaters and could still, in theory, make enough to offset its budget, there is negligible possibility that will happen. For one, the film has lost steam. Worse, there is a stream of new releases competing for the attention of fans – and winning it, too.
With Indiana Jones and The Marvels’ box office results, Disney now has four of the five biggest box office bombs of all time. Apart from those two, Disney is also behind 2022’s animated adventure film Strange World, which grossed $73 million against a $180 million budget (or $200 million with marketing), and 2012’s John Carter, which grossed $280 million against a $305 million budget.
The four Disney productions are joined by the Warner Bros. movie The Flash, also released this year. That film, starring Ezra Miller, pulled $270 million at the box office. But then, its production budget of $200 million means it didn’t even break even, talk more of turn a profit.
While The Marvels and Indiana Jones are two of the biggest flops this year, they are not the only unprofitable projects from The Walt Disney Company in 2023. The studio is also responsible for The Little Mermaid, Elemental, and Haunted Mansion.
The Little Mermaid and Elemental probably broke even – not that this means they turned rave profits – but the Haunted Mansion proved to be a massive box-office failure as it only managed a $117 million gross against a $150 million budget.
With the year almost at an end, Disney will be hoping it can press the reset button and leave behind this year’s horrific performance at the box office. To do that, the studio will have to find a way to get audiences back in theaters, despite their superhero fatigue especially since its best-performing franchise, the MCU, is set in a superhero universe.
The studio will also have to trim its movies’ budgets – many of them performed decently at the box office and could have turned a profit. Unfortunately, they had bloated budgets which weighed them down.
However, if there is one company you can trust to turn a bad situation around, it is the House of Mouse. After all, the company would not even exist if the founder hadn’t found a way to overcome incredible challenges that threatened to destroy it before it got started.
That being said, it’s increasingly looking like a movie industry crash might soon hit – and that might not even be a bad thing.
