‘Wish’ on Track To Be Disney’s Biggest Bomb of 2023

What do The Marvels (2023), Strange World (2022), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), Lightyear (2022), and Haunted Mansion (2023) have in common?

They were all underperforming movies produced and distributed by The Walt Disney Company.

Some have used the term flops or box office bombs to describe the poor performance.

Related: Disney World and Disneyland Will Suffer Because of ‘The Marvels’

Disney At the Box Office

In fact, some even put the figure out there that Disney has lost close to $2 billion at the box office in the past two years. A Forbes article from this summer pointed out four projects in 2023 alone that cost the company $1 billion (and that was before the recent flop of The Marvels).

The article points to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Little Mermaid (2023), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and the Disney+ show Secret Invasion, which cost $211.6 million to produce.

Related: New Disney ‘Wish’ Show Debuts at Disney Park

However, it doesn’t appear that the new Disney movie Wish is positioned to do much better. It currently has an opening box office forecast for a low of $40 million (which is $7 million less than The Marvels). Although the range hits a high of $60 million for its opening weekend, that number isn’t much better.

Disney Wish Box Office

In addition to the lower-than-hoped box office numbers of Wish, its reviews have also been pretty mixed. Depending on where you get your movie reviews, you can expect to hear that Wish is the best Disney movie ever made…or one of the worst Disney animated films to ever exist.

Having yet to see the movie, this writer cannot verify any such claims about the quality of animation, songs, or storytelling. However, even if the film is the best thing Disney has created since Frozen, it won’t matter if the Disney Wish box office is weak.

The problem with Disney (and Star Wars, Marvel, etc.) is that they need to connect to the average moviegoer. They seem to target hardcore fans and create content that only they would enjoy.

Related: Disney Pixar’s New Harry Potter Movie

This is arguably the problem with the Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser. The only people willing to spend a lot of money for an all-immersive experience are hardcore Disney Star Wars fans. And although there is nothing wrong with catering to that market, Disney needs to know that it is very niche.

Similarly, with The Marvels. Only the biggest MCU fans will have followed up with the entire slate of movies and TV shows since Avengers: Endgame. The average moviegoer or “normie” hasn’t taken the time to invest more and more hours of content homework just to go to the movies.

Related: Disney Signals Plans to Remove IPs From Theme Parks

Wish may be less of a niche than these other entries, but it may fail to connect with moviegoers. The reasons for this could be many.

It could be the culture war Disney is currently involved with. It could be that no one trusts the studio to deliver quality content anymore. Or it could be that people have decided they’ll just wait for it to show up on Disney+ and forego the theater.

The Disney Wish Movie

The new Disney Wish movie is directed by Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn who worked on Frozen and Raya and the Last Dragon, respectively. It also stars Ariana DeBose as Asha, Chris Pine as King Magnifico, and Alan Tudyk as the goat Valentino.

Regardless of the reasons, one thing is for sure…

Disney must change the direction of the company. If audiences have lost interest in Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, Disney Animation, Indiana Jones, etc… what’s left?

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