Originally Posted By DDMAN26 Great now somebody is going to tell me Ode to Joy wasn't the theme to Die Hard
Originally Posted By TheRedhead Name-calling is cool. I knew the William Tell Overture as the You Can't Do That on Television theme song.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Great now somebody is going to tell me Ode to Joy wasn't the theme to Die Hard<< Someone actually tried to tell me that "Once Upon A Dream" wasn't written by Walt Disney. Sacrilege, sez me!
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 True story, when I was stationed in Germany I had someone tell me that Germany made a copy of the Disney castle that was in Disneyland... After arguing for a few minutes that Walt is the one who made the copy, I gave up and conceded because it just wasn't worth it...
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA I had a similar discussion with someone who insisted that there's a basketball court for cast members in the inside top portion of Disneyland's Matterhorn. Boy did I let him have it.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip The results are in... Lone Ranger totally bombed. Disney ought to give up live action... when is the last time they had a non-animated movie that was any good at all?
Originally Posted By leemac <<Is it bad that I'm having so much fun watching Iger's studio system crumble?>> Never. I'm personally enjoying the heck out of it, given what a p*ss poor job he's done in running it.>> Studio Entertainment has been the worst performing segment for the past three fiscal years (except for Interactive) - it still hasn't earned more than $1bn in operating income since 2008 - revenue is also tracking way behind the numbers from '07 and '08. Studio Entertainment also includes the very profitable Disney Theatrical Productions and Home Entertainment. The problem is that it is very difficult to engineer a "four quadrant" movie - the distribution honcho Dave Hollis kept talking about this yesterday - there isn't often much logic about how movie-goers embrace a particular movie. Disney have tried to create new franchises recently like John Carter, Oz and The Lone Ranger and none have worked. Those turkeys have wiped out the success of the MARVEL slate. Studio Entertainment is a big blot on Iger's report card - he has made some poor decision with regards to management like Rich Ross and MT Carney but his overall strategy just doesn't work. You can't hit 1.000 with tentpoles.
Originally Posted By leemac <<The results are in... Lone Ranger totally bombed.>> Looks like a minimum of a $150m loss on that puppy. Could be a lot worse if the international numbers continue to underperform too.
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>The results are in... Lone Ranger totally bombed. Disney ought to give up live action... when is the last time they had a non-animated movie that was any good at all?<<< The last Disney branded movie that was really good was The Muppets. At least I liked that movie a lot. I don't know if it was very successful, but I guess so, since the Muppets are getting a second movie. I also liked John Carter and Tron Legacy, but both were financial failures. But I still hope for a third Tron movie. I think the last Disney branded movie that earned a ton of money was Alice in Wonderland. It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't good either. Without Marvel and Pixar TWDC would have to shut down Studio Entertainment.
Originally Posted By leemac <<The last Disney branded movie that was really good was The Muppets. At least I liked that movie a lot. I don't know if it was very successful, but I guess so, since the Muppets are getting a second movie.>> It really didn't find the audience that it deserved. It did only $89m domestically despite being released at Thanksgiving. The international gross topped it up to $158m. Therefore it didn't made any money on its theatrical release. In this case it wasn't the budget that killed it (they spent only $50m on it) but the marketing and distribution costs that were very high as they marketed it as a tentpole.
Originally Posted By dagobert Just out of interest, where is Disney earning all the money so that the share value is above 60 US Dollars? ABC isn't under the top three networks anymore, the studios produce so many failures which canibalize the Pixar and Marvel successes. Disney Interactive has never made any money. That leaves Cable Networks and ESPN and WD Parks & Resorts.
Originally Posted By oc_dean Seems to me, it's not that these movies are really "tanking" per-se - It's the over-all costs that are off the richter scale ... that create an overwhelming need to be giant blockbusters. Am I wrong?
Originally Posted By leemac <<Just out of interest, where is Disney earning all the money so that the share value is above 60 US Dollars?>> Try over $63! Crazy price. Ultimately that price is determined by ESPN, WDP&R and the impact of MARVEL, Pixar and Lucasfilm. Worth adding that Disney paid Paramount for the distribution rights to the original 4 MARVEL films last week. Now all of the MARVEL existing content is controlled by Disney.
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>Worth adding that Disney paid Paramount for the distribution rights to the original 4 MARVEL films last week. Now all of the MARVEL existing content is controlled by Disney.<<< I read about that last week, but that's not entirely true. The Iron Man movies are still distributed by Concorde Distribution in Germany and Austria. That is annoying, because I was hoping for a complete Marvel Box. What about Marvel and Universal? As far as I know Universal handels Hulk. Hopefully Disney will reach an agreement with Fox for Star Wars. It would be great to have a new complete box when Episode VII will be released on BluRay.
Originally Posted By u k fan <<<I also liked John Carter and Tron Legacy, but both were financial failures. But I still hope for a third Tron movie.>>> They better make a third Tron movie if they're cancelling Tron: Uprising. That decision alone could get me to hand in my Disney loyalty card. I'm not sure why The Muppets didn't make more money. It was very well received by the critics and fans!!!
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>when is the last time they had a non-animated movie that was any good at all?<< I agree with the aforementioned Muppets and Tron:Legacy being pretty good, but failing to find their market. I would guess that 2010's Secretariat was the last film that was generally well recieved and did well at the box office (for its relatively modest budget). While I certainly didn't think it was any good, Alice in Wonderland got pretty good reviews, and blew the box office away. Still, considering it was released in March 2010 there haven't been many (any?) great releases since then. And since Iger's strategy is to only have great releases, it's severely flawed. Yes, some of the issue may be with the head of the Studio, but when this approach is handed down from above, there's only so much they can do with it
Originally Posted By mawnck >>I agree with the aforementioned Muppets and Tron:Legacy being pretty good, but failing to find their market.<< By "their market", you, of course, mean 1983.
Originally Posted By leemac ^^ Haha. I really liked The Muppets - but I had low expectations (I'm not a fan of the Judd Apatow School of Comedy). I'm at a loss as to how anyone could like the clunky Tron:Legacy. Truly awful except for some pretty sanitized visuals. After Oblivion the pretty visual is all Joe Kosinski has going for him as a director.
Originally Posted By u k fan Whilst there was a lot not to like about Tron: Legacy, the visuals were great, the music excellent and I really liked the way they expanded the mythology. Let's be fair the first Tron was pretty weak in the story department, why would anyone expect T:L to be any different?!!!
