Is Disney+ Hurting Disney’s Brand? Can It Be Fixed?

Is Disney+ Hurting Disney’s Brand? Can It Be Fixed? 

Disney is one of the biggest studios in the movie industry. But over the last several years, it’s clear that Disney hasn’t been as strong. There’s many different reasons as to why Disney has been struggling over the last couple of years. Why is that? Can Disney get back on track? Let’s talk about it!

What’s The Problem with Disney?: Before talking about the individual sides of Disney, I think it’s important to talk about Disney as a whole and if Disney can be fixed. Disney for a long time was run by Bob Iger and he was a great business man that helped Disney for years. He spotted the MCU’s talents very early on and decided to buy them, for years Disney has owned Marvel Studios and helped with The Infinity Saga. They bought the rights to Lucasfilm which means they had access to Star Wars. They had access to Marvel Studios and Star Wars, two of the most successful movie franchises of all time. But with the launch of Disney+, COVID-19, and Bob Iger stepping down for a period of time, things with Disney started to fumble. In November 2019, Disney+ launched with The Mandalorian, obviously a hit show that got a lot of views that is running for multiple seasons and now we’re getting a movie. A few months after that, COVID happened and shut down theaters. Every studio either delayed films or put them onto streaming in 2020 or 2021. But because of that, that had a trickle down when theaters started to reopen and people knew that these movies would be on streaming in a few weeks or a month. Bob Chapek was over Disney for a while and very clearly he was not running Disney very well whether it’s the entertainment side of things, the Disney parks weren’t that great for a while. Chapek was fired and Bob Iger came back. Another piece to consider here 2019 was a fantastic year for Disney at the box office. In 2019, nine movies made $1 billion at the box office. Eight of those movies were Disney owned films. They figured that people were loving their movies, so they could throw $250 million at a movie and it’ll make its money back. Because of COVID and streaming, movies simply couldn’t do that anymore. I think their ego got in the way of their movie release strategy for the 2020s and the movies that were being filmed. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny had a $290 million budget, the reason why that was inflated was because of COVID. They filmed that movie during COVID so the budget of the film went up.There’s other examples of movies where Disney didn’t need to give them $200 million for a movie. So when they drop in theaters, they don’t do well because Disney primed their audiences to just wait a month and it’ll drop on Disney+. That’s a basic overview of what I think is Disney’s problem over the last couple of years and why I think they’ve been hurting for a while now. With all of that out of the way, I’m going to be talking about each individual subset of Disney because every studio is a little bit different when talking about them. 

• Marvel: For 11 years, Marvel Studios was the top dog when it came to blockbuster franchises. What they were able to pull off in that 11 year run was pretty incredible. They were able to have this shared universe with interconnected stories and characters that all fit into an area that everybody can enjoy. They had massive success for 11 years all leading up to Avengers Endgame and managed to close out The Infinity Saga wonderfully in a satisfying conclusion. With so many characters in the Marvel Comics and established MCU characters that had more stories to tell, more MCU movies and newly added tv shows were coming. With the launch of Disney+, that meant that Marvel Studios was able to have a new form of storytelling. Because the amount of yearly content went up, there were a lot of more disappointing MCU projects. One of the reasons why Marvel was the top dog was because Bob Iger was great at working with talent. Iger was able to tell Kevin Feige “what do you need for me to be successful? Let me know what you need, I’ll help you out?” When Iger left and Chapek was hired it was right before COVID. Chapek went to the accounting department and asked them “how can we get stocks up?”. Accounting went “MORE CONTENT”, so Chapek demanded Feige was to put out three movies every year plus three tv shows. Because of the amount of yearly content, Feige and other resources stretched so thin the overall quality of Marvel went down. When Chapek was fired and Iger was brought back, several delays started to happen for Marvel. When Chapek was Disney they had a lot of content coming out. In 2021 they had five tv show releases and four movies. In early 2023 the release schedule for 2023’s MCU content shifted around. We only have three movies and two tv shows. Because of the strikes, more content was shifted around in 2024. This year, Deadpool & Wolverine is the only MCU this year. We’re getting a few tv shows, but not a whole lot. Clearly, Marvel is aware that fans aren’t as excited as they used to be because the franchise as a whole isn’t as strong. Individual projects can be very good. Part of the problem with putting out so much content wasn’t just that Feige was stretched so thin. They decided to make their movies and tv show so interconnected. WandaVision led directly into the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. If you hadn’t seen WandaVision, Wanda’s arc in Multiverse of Madness would make absolutely no sense. The biggest victim of the interconnected movies and tv shows was The Marvels. In order to understand that movie you have to watch WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, and Secret Invasion. Anybody that doesn’t have Disney+, isn’t going to understand who two of the three leads in The Marvels are. If Marvel can reduce the amount of yearly content, I think things are going to be fine. Next year, we’re getting four MCU movies. I think we only need three. Maybe we do have three movies + two tv shows come out. Doing X-Men ‘97, isn’t pulling resources from the main MCU, it's its own thing that the fans of the original animated series can enjoy. Marvel needs to start rebuilding the excitement for each individual project. With so much content coming out every year, the MCU projects don’t feel like events any more. Because there’s a new MCU thing coming out in a few weeks. With Deadpool & Wolverine being the only MCU movie of the year it means all of the excitement for them can go to that movie. 

• Pixar: Pixar is one of the top animation studios that had a legendary run of films from 1995 to 2010. In that 15 year run, their lowest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes was Cars that has a 76%, that’s still a very good score. I think Cars is still a good movie. All of the other movies had a 90% or above. That is a legendary run for Pixar and no other studio has come close to having that amount of great movies come out in a period of time. In the 2010s, they still had some great movies in there with Inside Out, Coco, Incredibles 2, and Toy Story 4. But they also had some of the weaker films with Cars 2, Brave, and The Good Dinosaur. Very clearly, in the 2020s Pixar hasn’t been the best. For three of their movies they dropped them straight to Disney+. Releasing Soul on Disney+ in December 2020 makes sense. You didn’t want to release that in theaters, fair enough. But releasing Luca and Turning Red on Disney+ after movies had been doing very good at the box office when they came out is weird. I don’t get their decision making with that, Pixar was priming the audience to just wait for Disney+ when they drop. In June 2022 when Lightyear came out, it bombed. Because people just said “I’ll wait till Disney+, it’ll drop soon”. That movie cost $200 million and barely moved $200 million at the box office. The following year we had Elemental come out, it opened to Pixar’s worst opening, it looked like it was dead on arrival. BUT, the word of mouth was positive so it has great legs and ended up making $475 million at the box office. I don’t know how profitable it actually was, but it made money for them. The problem with Lightyear and Elemental was that they cost $200 million to make. It’s crazy and insane why those movies cost that much money. That’s one of the problems with Disney as a whole, they’re throwing money at movies that don’t need those types of budgets. Two weeks before Elemental came out, Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse came out. That movie only cost $100 million and its animation is 10x better than Elemental. If Lightyear and Elemental cost $75 million-$100 million, they would have made more money. Pixar is having a big win this year with Inside Out 2, which has made $1.5 billion at the box office, it’s one of the highest grossing animated movies of all time. Pixar has made quotes recently talking about how Pixar hasn’t been the best in the 2020s and how they want to do more sequels and safe bets to make up for the money lost. On the one hand, they need to make some money back. I’m guessing that Inside Out 2 is making the money that Lightyear and Elemental lost. We know that a Toy Story 5 is coming out, it feels like a safe bet. The reason for them wanting to do more prequels is their own problems. They taught their audience to just wait for Disney+ for their movies. If they had released Luca and Turning Red in theaters, they wouldn’t be in this problem. Also, they’re throwing money at the movies that don’t need that much money. Lightyear doesn’t need $200 million to be great, like I said that movie could have worked on a $75 million budget. I don’t get these quotes that Pixar has been saying recently, they’re not doing a great job of reading the room of what is actually happening. Disney+ has hurt Pixar’s brand and its box office. Because they taught their audience to just wait for streaming. 

• Disney Animation: Disney Animation might be the ultimate example of dropping their movies on Disney+. I think their strategy hurt Pixar’s theatrical movies. In November 2021, Disney Animation released Encanto. It did ok in theaters, it didn’t do great, it didn’t go bad it did fine. One month later, they dropped the film on Disney+ and it became a global phenomenon. Everybody was watching Encanto and listening to the soundtrack. Pixar decided to drop Turning Red on Disney+ that March, because Encanto did so well. They did that again in 2022 with Strange World, a movie that was dead on arrival and bombed at the box office. It dropped on Disney+ and there was no chatter about it, nobody was talking about it, and it didn't come close to recapturing the magic that Encanto did. 2023 was Disney’s 100th celebration. So they released a lot of movies last year, their movie to celebrate was Wish. I still haven’t seen that movie, but it did not do well at the box office. It did better than what Strange World did. But it still didn’t do very well, but they didn’t drop it on streaming a month after. It wasn’t until April 2024 when it dropped on Disney+. It looks like maybe Disney is releasing that. Let's wait a while before we drop it on Disney+. But earlier this year they announced that Moana 2 is happening this November. The thing with Moana 2 was that it was originally a tv show for Disney+, but they thought it was good enough for a movie so they turned it into one. When that was announced, a lot of us were thinking this feels like Disney trying to make their money back. They lost a lot of money over the last couple of years, they know an entire generation loves Moana (2016), so they know Moana 2 will make a lot of money. After the success of Inside Out 2, I wouldn’t be surprised if Moana 2 makes $1 billion at the box office.  

• Lucasfilm: This is a tricky one, because I feel like the problems with Lucasfilm don’t start with Disney+, they start with Kathleen Kennedy. I’m not the first person to say this, but Kathleen Kennedy is not good for Lucasfilm. Kathleen Kennedy is a legendary producer that worked on Jurassic Park and several other big movies. Because she was good at one thing, that doesn’t mean that she’s great at running a studio. Very clearly, Kathleen Kennedy is not the right person to run Lucasfilm. Because Kathleen Kennedy is over Lucasfilm, I think that’s why so many of these Star Wars shows haven’t been what we hoped. Don’t get me wrong, there’s been some great seasons that Star Wars has had. Seasons one & two of The Mandalorian, great. Season one of Andor was great, I’m excited for season two. It seems like the majority liked Ahsoka, people didn’t quite love it as the other seasons I mentioned. Still got solid reviews. Everything else that Star Wars has done on Disney+ has been disappointing in regards to everybody. I think the ultimate example of Kathleen Kennedy ruining these Disney+ Star Wars shows is with The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian Season 2 & 3. The whole arc and story of season two of The Mandalorian was about finding a Jedi master to train Grogu, they delivered an awesome finale with Luke Skywalker that was great to see. The following year, they did The Book of Boba Fett. Which is an interesting idea, the trailers looked like they were doing The Godfather in the world of Star Wars, that’s interesting to me. That’s something new and different, but it fits with Boba Fett and where we last saw him. The actual story of the season was not good, it’s so simple and forgettable. The two most memorable episodes of the show, Boba Fett is barely in them while The Mandalorian is so present in them. Episode five should have been the season premiere to season three of The Mandalorian. Episode Six is like Star Wars the episode, Luke Skywalker and Ahsoka return. By the end of the season, The Mandalorian and Grogu are reunited. Which means there’s no episodes of The Mandalorian where the two characters are separated. It feels like they undid the ending of season two because they realized that Grogu merch makes a lot of money. If they stop selling Grogu merch, they’ll lose money. I can’t imagine that’s what Jon Favreau pitched The Book of Boba Fett as, I bet that’s what Kathleen Kennedy mandated. They also did Kenobi, which some people liked but a lot of people were disappointed by. For me, that’s the most disappointing Star Wars show they’ve done. It should have been an easy win for them, but it wasn’t. A couple of months back we got The Acolyte, that got a lot of people talking about the show. Sometimes it was for the good, sometimes it wasn’t. If you remove the agendas and politics that people want to throw at the show. The show had a lot of problems, there was a lot wrong there with a lot of problems. It’s another show that should have been an easy win for Star Wars, but it wasn’t. I’m saying all of this because I feel like the disappointment of Disney+ will affect the movies they have moving forward. As of now, the next Star Wars movie we’re getting in theaters is The Mandalorian & Grogu. We know they’re building towards this showdown with Thrawn, so they’re using season four of The Mandalorian and turning it into a movie. I don’t know how well that’ll do at the box office, because season three was disappointing. We’re getting Rey’s Star Wars movie soon, which again I don’t see doing very well at the box office because Disney+ has been disappointing for Star Wars. Of course, the sequel trilogy not being what people had hoped will definitely hurt the movie’s chances of making $1 billion. 

Final Thoughts: I think Disney+ is a good way to help Disney, I just don’t think that right now they’ve figured out the best way to use Disney+. I think part of the problem is that Disney+ launched months before COVID started. COVID affected the entire movie business. If Disney+ launched at a different point or if COVID didn’t happen, I don’t think we would be having this conversation right now. The other question I asked was “can it be fixed?”. I think it can, they just need to notice the mistakes and fix them. If they keep on repeating the same mistakes over and over again, they'll dig a deeper hole for them. We’re now four and a half years into Disney+ launching, so there’s enough data to show what has and hasn’t been working. But I think every segment of Disney has different work to do. What Marvel needs to do to fix things is very different then what Lucasfilm needs to do. I think Disney’s brand can be fix, they just need to do the hard work to fix it.