Strange World (2022)

[Mike Blakesley]

I'll start with saying I haven't watched this myself yet, for some reason I can't put my finger on, I just can't get interested in it. I looked at the trailers, I really liked the teaser one-sheet, but listening to the movie just kind of leaves me cold.

We've had fair-to-middling business on it, which is terrible for a Disney animation movie... considering several of their others are in our top 50 of all time. On this one, we've actually had a few walkouts, including one family with kids.

One guy told me that the movie is "too weird." I'm not sure what he meant by that. A niece of mine who is a pharmacist said there is a segment that takes place "in the immune system, I think" and she wondered whether many people would understand that.

Anyway, the rumored "controversial content" aside, this looks like another big mis-step for Disney animation. So they've had two under-performers in a row this year, with this one performing just over half of the already low expectations. That hasn't happened in a LONG time. I read the review on rogerebert.com and they gave it a fairly favorable review.

Disney will probably blame this flop on movie theaters and use it to justify moving all their content straight to Disney Plus again.

[Jon Dent]

I think Disney really bungled the marketing. The trailers gave no indication what the movie was actually about, and there was almost zero additional marketing anywhere. It was a lot like Lightyear's marketing, and with predictably similar results.

General opinion from our patrons is that it's "okay". It was beating Black Panther for the first few days, but now it looks like it's swinging the other way again so I don't think it'll have any legs for the three weeks we have to carry it for.

[Mike Blakesley]

Our booker told me he's had reports of people asking for refunds, even. We haven't had THAT yet, but I would say we've had about 7 or 8 people walk out. One couple last light, a mom and dad with 2 kids on Saturday, and a couple of teenagers on Thursday or Friday who probably just weren't that into a Disney cartoon.

I do kind of wonder what the departure of Bob Chapek might mean for the animation department. Supposedly the "creatives" have had to take a back seat in the past couple of years, so maybe Bob Iger will restore order to the Force, or whatever. He couldn't possibly make things any worse, but I'm still not sure I trust him when it comes to theatrical. He's pretty much a hawk on streaming, and he'll be all over making that department profitable.

[Steve Guttag]

Direct to streaming isn't/won't be the answer either. You spend all of this money on a movie and then you hope it does what on streaming? Adds subscribers or holds onto existing ones. It is a pretty hard metric to get a handle on and how much one title contributes to that. I think Disney has content creation issues (ideology), period. You have to make what people want to see.

[Leo Enticknap]

Agreed totally. Politically controversial content is a difficult enough sell in a mainstream movie theater for adults, but when it's targeted at children, parents (who make the spending decisions) almost always make the decision to stay away en masse.

[Bobby Henderson]

Strange World suffers from multiple issues. Some involve the movie itself. Some problems are external factors.

I'm not sure what this movie is about, even after seeing trailers for it multiple times. Does the movie take place on another planet? Disney doesn't make even a basic detail like that clear. I guess it's supposed to be some sort of "clever" reveal. The movie doesn't have any stand-out voice actors. No A-list people that young kids would know. Most Disney movies have a specific, personified villain. Not this time. Everything just seems pretty vague.

As to the controversial subject matter, they might be able to get away with that kind of thing in a movie geared to high school age kids. I don't think it works (or is appropriate) in a movie targeting kids who haven't yet hit puberty. When I was 8 years I wasn't interested in dating girls, much less any other adult themes involving marriage, divorce, etc. They didn't bury Star Wars in a bunch of that shit. I get it that many children in real life have to live through parents splitting up or other kinds of complicated stuff. Even with that being the case this is supposed to be an escapist movie -a break from DEPRESSING real life.

Strange World is also a victim of circumstance. Times are hard and money is tight for lots of ordinary people. They can't afford to go see every "big" movie released in theaters. They have to pick and choose, if they go at all. They still gotta budget buying Christmas gifts and brace for the next financial curve ball life throws at us. That possible railroad workers strike could be a real doozy for the economy. I think many customers are just holding off for the Avatar sequel. Even business has dropped off to nothing for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 3 weeks after its release.

And then there is the very real factor of Disney+ sucking the blood out of its theatrical releases. With the marketing being pretty vague on Strange World that made it so much easier for customers to skip its theatrical release and wait to watch it on TV at home, if they bother to do so. With a wait time of a month or less it is extremely easy for anyone to bypass a theatrical release. They watch it at home and save a lot of money in the process.

I do kind of wonder what the departure of Bob Chapek might mean for the animation department. Supposedly the "creatives" have had to take a back seat in the past couple of years, so maybe Bob Iger will restore order to the Force, or whatever. He couldn't possibly make things any worse, but I'm still not sure I trust him when it comes to theatrical. He's pretty much a hawk on streaming, and he'll be all over making that department profitable.

If Bob Iger tries to sweeten the deal further for Disney+ by speeding up the process theatrical releases hit home TV screens, or just do simultaneous day-and-date releases, it will come at the expense of theaters. Eroding what little window remains for theatrical releases will push many theaters that much closer to the brink of financial failure.

[Steve Guttag]

Yes, but it comes at the expense of Disney too. What they don't make at the theatres is simply lost money and they hit their own foot with a hammer doing it. Do they really think a movie like Strange World (or most other movies) is what is going to catapult subscriptions (that is what is being sold for streaming) or...even less likely...keep people that were going to drop Disney + from dropping it anyway? I'd say no to either and definitely there is no way that you'll get enough EXTRA subscriptions to justify the expense of such a movie. The only way to recoup that kind of money is with a successful theatrical run and you won't get that with a short release window. Disney + will still be there to catch it in a year for those that wanted to "save" money.

[James Wyrembelski]

It honestly feels like Encanto all over again. A film that wasn't well marketed or one that anyone knew what it was about. Although Encanto did nearly double the business here by this time and people left generally liking it.

Most people walk out and give this one a shrug and a "was okay" on the way out.

[Leo Enticknap]

If Bob Iger tries to sweeten the deal further for Disney+ by speeding up the process theatrical releases...

The word on the street is that he is under orders from the board to stop Disney+ from losing money. Under Chapek it grew its subscriber base, but its costs grew faster than its income. I don't know how Iger is going to achieve this: maybe there are inefficiencies that can be driven out of the system, but if doing that isn't enough, then either he'll have to raise the subscription rates or cut the marketing budget. Either of those would potentially impact the ability of a big budget tentpole movie to achieve profitability by relying on the streaming route.

[Steve Guttag]

That quote was from Bobby, not me!

If Disney were to put Song of the South on Disney +, they might get a bump in subscribers (they might lose some too but I suspect that there will be more curious as to what all the fuss was about).

[Leo Enticknap]

Sorry about the misquote.

Bob Iger is on the record as being opposed to putting Song of the South on Disney+: "I’ve felt, for as long as I’ve been CEO, that Song of the South – even with a disclaimer – was just not appropriate in today’s world." So presumably that's not going to happen for as long as his second tenure lasts.

I'm not sure that it would boost subscribers, anyway. Anyone who really wants to find out what all the fuss is about can order a DVD from Japan (where the movie is in the public domain and widely available) and has likely already done so, and the negative publicity that putting it on Disney+ would elicit is the last thing that the company would want right now.

[Steve Guttag]

I think you'd be surprised at how many have not seen it and would not want to order a DVD from Japan. Even if I'm right, it would be a 1-time bump of probably short duration. I like how he thinks today's world is incapable of dealing with what yesterday's world was.

[Jarod Reddig]

I got dragged to this movie on Thanksgiving with a friend who wanted to take his 6 year old. This was the first movie I’ve ever been to where over half of the crowd got up and left. We stayed and wished we had left too lol. Afterwords his kid said she doesn’t ever wanna go to a movie again. Was sad hearing that.

[Mark Lane]

I can't wait to send Strange World back to Disney (four more showings). The attendance has been very small No one has walked out and most people who left the theater talked as if they enjoyed the movie. We did have several showings of Black Panther where people walked out. I personally, did not hate Strange World but can't say I liked it either. There was nothing new in this movie. The controversial content did not need to be in the movie. It did not bring anything to the story and really did not help develop the character. At times it felt forced or that it was brought up again to just to remind people of the agenda.
There was nothing new in this movie.. The plot is pretty much a rip off of Fantastic Voyage from 1966. The controversial content wasn’t much more than what I watch on Star Trek and a child.

I use to count the days till the next Disney movie.. but after Black Panther and Strange World, I have trouble trusting Disney.

[Leo Enticknap]

I like how he thinks today's world is incapable of dealing with what yesterday's world was.

I'm guessing that you meant that ironically. I don't like it, but I fear that he's right in that a significant proportion of today's world is incapable of dealing with the realities of yesterday's. I also suspect that he's figured that because it is possible to get hold of Song of the South if you're prepared to do a little work and wait a couple of weeks for the disc to arrive, he can keep if off Disney+ without being credibly accused of political censorship.

I recently showed my son The Dam Busters, after forewarning him that the dog's name is a totally unutterable word today (ironically, his grandmother had a black cat with the same name and at around the same time!). He didn't really notice the infamous Labrador retriever very much, but the briefing and mess scenes in which pretty much all the characters were smoking constantly made a huge impression: for days afterwards, he was opining as to how gross and disgusting smoking is, and that he couldn't believe how much of it went on in that movie. As someone who is just old enough to have been around when smoking in public places was commonplace, I didn't even notice it that much.