Disney Set to Lose A Billion Due to These Four Flops

When Disney CEO, Bob Iger, returned to his role in November 2022, he had a warning for investors. The Walt Disney Company must reduce their costs on every product creation. Even though Disney may take pride in their highly-produced projects, Iger expressed that it would reach a point where it will be exceedingly costly. His forecast has proved true as Disney has lost $965 million on these four high-profile cinematic flops.

The budgets for film projects are usually kept private amongst studios as they include the cost of them in their overall expenditures. This allows them the ability to not have to keep track of how much they spend on each one. However, UK productions must establish separate companies for each project, which permits up to a 25% repayment of the money spent in the country.

Each studio that films in this country must produce financial statements that highlight their spending. Since Disney has made the UK one of their main home bases for filming multiple movie projects, the company’s tab was made public and here are the movies that left the House of Mouse with a hefty bill.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Money was no object for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Five opener. It was revealed that Disney spent over $193 million on pre-production and filming alone. The third installment in the Ant-Man franchise went on to receive lackluster reviews for its overreliance on CGI and lack of character development.

It earned $476 million at the box office which was the lowest of the three films. Since almost half of that goes back to the studio while the rest go to theaters, Ant-man churned out only a $81 million profit. This does not even include the price of post-production.

The Little Mermaid

This live-action reimaging generated a lot of buzz before its release, but its popularity dwindled until it was “dead in the water.” The film received negative reviews after being considered “woke,” but it was also slammed for its overuse of CGI as well.

Disney spent over $265 million, which tallied a large expense due to having one of the largest crews with 252 workers on the production’s payroll. The company received $70 million in overall profits from its $282 million gross, but this does not count the amount to market the film or pay post-production.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Expectations were high for this fifth sequel as the acclaimed director, James Mangold (Walk the Line, Logan), helmed the movie with superstar Harrison Ford as Indy. However, it was announced by UK media that Disney invested over $294 million on development, physical production and a month’s worth of post-production. As costs kept piling, it was estimated that Disney would need Indy 5 to clear $477 million just to breakeven. The movie only made $357 million as the bill keeps increasing for them.

Secret Invasion

This TV show was inspired by the celebrated Marvel series about radicalized shape-shifting aliens, known as Skrulls, that plot to take over the world. Samuel L. Jackson reprised his role as retired spy, Nick Fury, to star in the A-list ensemble epic. Even with its stellar cast, it could not generate enough fanfare as a prevalent “Marvel fatigue” has set in more and more with many viewers.

The six-part espionage thriller would end up being Marvel’s lowest rated and watched series with a current 7% on Rotten Tomatoes. While it is difficult to calculate an exact cost with streaming service projects, it was released that the series had a pricey $212 million budget.

There should be one obvious takeaway from this cinematic blunders. These setbacks are symptoms of a larger problem that cannot be fixed by just readjusting expenses. The company needs to improve the quality of their intellectual properties, as they should feature more compelling world-building and storytelling. Also, just because Disney’s live-action remakes were profitable before COVID, audiences have changed and it will take more than retelling already existing projects to improve audience attendance.

What do you think of these flops? Are they misunderstood masterpieces? What should Disney do next?