A quarterly investor conference call took place last week in which Disney chief Bob Iger expressed concerns with the 20th Century Fox film slate and New Mutants.
Fox’s box office performance “was well below where it had been and well below where we hoped it would be when we made the acquisition.”
This is bad news from the House of Mouse, and explains the sudden cancellation of a vast majority of Fox films still in production. Disney still wins in the deal, as the deal included the X-Men franchise. Returning these characters to Marvel increases the box office continuity chances of the MCU.
A new report from Variety outlines Disney’s disappointment in the Fox properties they inherited. Out of the four Fox films in theaters this quarter, only one, Breakthrough, was profitable, grossing $50 million from a budget of only $14 million. Stuber, The Art of Racing, and Dark Phoenix all flopped. Phoenix‘s failure was a major factor in a $170 million write-down.
Disney doubts the viability of future Fox projects, and seems to think that most show little promise.
This catastrophic failure is affecting Disney’s stock. Part of the stock drop can be attributed to Bob Iger over-promising returns this quarter. With a number of big missed-steps, this is only a chink in the Mouse armor, rather than cause for panic.
Another minor thing affecting the drop is the Disney parks ticket sales decline this quarter. This is mainly due to Star Wars Galaxies Edge. With the new Harry Potter: Hargrid ride issues, execs thought that they could circumvent long ride lines. They restricted annual pass holders from entering Galaxies Edge for the first 30 days of it opening.
With the bulk of Disneyland’s attendees being annual pass holders, this hindered attendance. (It also lead to the ’empty park’ rumors from a number of sources.) With Galaxies Edge Orlando opening in a few weeks, Disney is fixing a lot of these errors.
Iger has forced Fox vice chairman Emma Watts to the side, and put Alan Horn and Alan Bergman in charge of “redefining 20th Century Fox’s film strategy for the future, applying the same discipline and creative standards behind the success of Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm.”
Most of the Fox slate is dead in the water, with only Avatar and a few franchises with Disney+ capabilities surviving the culling. Disney cancelled at least $50 million in developments.
The report goes on to say that Disney is worried about most of the completed films in the Fox lineup through 2020.
Finished films or films in post-production are struggling for studio support and production teams calling for reshoots have to jump through hoops to justify the extra spending. Disney froze all projects while they priorotize the ‘sure bets’. One films cancelled as a result of this was Lumberjanes.
Another highly-anticipated film under fire is the X-Men spinoff New Mutants. The report states that the studio is not impressed with the film and thinks it has limited box office potential.
Another film under fire is Taika Waititi’s comedy Jojo Rabbit. One Disney exec even cited during a screening that the content will alienate Disney fans.
Finally, there is the problem of trying to fit Deadpool into the MCU. The aim is to keep the character PG-13 when he teams up with other franchises.
