There’s no denying that Disney is an entertainment titan. Disney has been making unforgettable productions that have defined the childhoods of millions across multiple different generations, for as long as anyone can remember. In the 2010s, Disney seemed unstoppable, with acquisitions of multi-billion dollar companies such as Marvel and 20th Century Fox. However, Disney’s momentum has slowed to a halt. With recent box office flops like The Marvels and Wish, disillusioned viewers are left with one question: What happened?
For ages, Disney has been a revered entertainment company. With instant classics such as The Lion King, Aladdin, Toy Story and many more, as well as theme parks across the globe, each dubbed “the happiest place on Earth”, Disney was on top of the world. Unfortunately, Disney has lost the plot, with rapidly degrading quality and no end in sight.
Despite Disney’s recent shortcomings, the peak of their success is still in recent memory. In 2019, Disney had 8 of the 10 highest grossing movies for the year and had achieved its best fiscal year on record. Along with this, Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame became the highest grossing film of all time. However, in the following year, the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19 slowed business down. To combat this, Disney released any planned films and put more emphasis on its streaming service, Disney+, which launched in November of 2019. The emphasis on streaming or just the release of Disney+ in general is blamed by some for Disney’s current downward spiral.
“I think [Disney’s downfall] started around when [Avengers] Endgame finished. I think when Disney+ came out, there was enough content to satiate people, so they started putting out lower quality content,” junior Julian Patterson commented.
However, it’s not just Disney+ that should be put to blame. Bad management, poor leadership, and oversaturation seem to be the main causes for Disney’s downfall.
“[Disney valuing] quantity over quality and putting out more movies rather than better ones has caused [their recent failures],” senior Atharv Nadkarni stated.
Disney has evidently oversaturated all of their most successful properties. In 2021, they announced 11 new Star Wars spinoff shows. Their overreliance on already existing work, through spinoff shows and remakes, as well as their reluctance to try new ideas has become their undoing. Disney’s theatrical releases don’t seem to be doing very well either. Wish, Disney’s latest animated movie, was a critical and commercial flop, underperforming opening weekend expectations by over $15 million, and receiving a Rotten Tomatoes critic score of 48%, their lowest in almost ten years. Along with Wish, November 2023’s The Marvels became the lowest grossing film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s history, along with the biggest box office bomb of 2023.
With Disney’s recent failures, its future in entertainment is uncertain. Will it continue its trend of oversaturation and losing money, or will it attempt something new with its creative direction?
“I think Disney will either stay the same or dip in quality if they keep doing what they’re doing [right now]. Peoples’ trust in Disney has kind of fallen off. People are less likely to go and see a Disney movie in theaters,” Patterson said.
Disney’s fall from grace does not seem to be getting any better. With their financial failures, disastrous leadership, degrading quality and worsening reputation, only time will tell what Disney has in store to prevent their floundering in the upcoming years.