I'm shocked, I tell you! Shocked!
The Walt Disney Company has reportedly lost $890 million due to multiple recent box office flops.
How could this happen?!?
Not The Bee has reported on each of these movies and Disney's decline, but let's review!
Strange World (which features a gay "romance") lost $197.4 million, according to Deadline.
Lightyear (which features a lesbian kiss) lost $106 million.
Deadline thinks the two main issues at the box office for Lightyear were that "devoted fans weren't thrilled that Tim Allen wasn't doing the voice-over" and "the movie taking liberties with Toy Story canon."
I love Toy Story as much as the next guy, but does anyone really think this movie's box office failure was over its canonicity?
No, the lesbian kiss clearly was a deciding issue. The main actor himself felt the need to publicly defend it, saying those who don't like the lesbian kiss are "idiots" and will "die off like dinosaurs."
"The Little Mermaid" did well on opening weekend in America, but fell flat in the global market, and there are serious concerns that the film will not make the $560 million needed to recoup the cost of production and advertising. For a major Disney flick based on one of the most beloved animated films ever, barely breaking is a flop.
As for the Pixar film "Elemental," it made only $29.5 million on opening weekend against a $200 million production budget, not including advertising.
You probably haven't seen Elemental (and neither have I), but someone who knows better said the movie "talks about the evils of xenophobia, and boasts [Pixar's] first non-binary character."
Disney's financial struggles are beyond just the box office numbers.
In February, Disney announced it was going through "strategic restructuring." Last month, Disney reportedly reached their goal of 7,000 job cuts.
Disney's theme parks are struggling, too.
Universal's Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida, is getting more visitors than three of Disney's four in the same city.
With or without Disney's wokeness, this is merited since Islands is objectively the better theme park.
(Trust me on this. I am a roller-coaster enthusiast, a Florida resident, and a former band student that took at least one trip to these theme parks every single school year.)
Disney's streaming services Disney+ and Hulu have also been removing shows from its content libraries to cut costs.
Moreover, as Hollywood analyst Valliant Renegade points out, since Disney has long-taken their content off other streaming services (such as Netflix and Amazon), they are losing out on big money that they previously enjoyed.
"Disney consumes all of its own content post-theatrical, meaning that Disney that used to license their big content out like the entire [Marvel Cinematic Universe] to places like Netflix for years, those were billions of dollars' worth of third-party contracts that have now been taken off the table," Valliant Renegade said.
"So not only do we need to consider how much money Disney has lost at the box office, we also need to consider how much money Disney has lost in economic-opportunity costs."
"If Disney had just taken the Universal-type deal with those two major streamers, Disney would have a lot more money in its pocket. But they've chosen to keep it all home to support Disney+."
Disney's descent into woke-ness and broke-ness continues.
When are they going to wake up?
