Disney Movies in Jeopardy as Fans Cancel Company

As we look ahead to 2024, The Walt Disney Company sits in an interesting position.

Disney saw astounding success with its parks division (now called Disney Experiences), raking in more than $30 billion in revenue at Walt Disney World Resort, Disneyland Resort, and its parks worldwide. Fans continued to make their way down to Orlando in droves, producing crowd sizes that we simply haven’t seen since the pandemic.

Entertainment, on the other hand, has been a bit of a Pandora’s box.

Of course, there were successes in 2023. Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 (2023) was the company’s top film, grossing $845.6 million at the box office. The live-action rendition of The Little Mermaid (2023) also brought in a solid $569.6 million at the box office globally. Outside of those two, though, it was hard to find much success for Disney. Pixar’s Elemental (2023) ended up bringing in $496.2 million after a slow start, but the story in 2023 was much more about the flops.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), The Marvels (2023), Haunted Mansion (2023), and Wish (2023) all either just broke even or flopped enormously on their way to disappointing numbers. And now, as we look ahead to the 2024 box office, there could be more Disney movies in jeopardy.

Variety recently released an in-depth list of the most anticipated movies of 2024. While the list included 42 total films, only three Disney movies made the cut: Inside Out 2 (June 14, 2024), Deadpool 3 (July 26, 2024 and being produced by Marvel Studios), and Mufasa: The Lion King (December 20, 2024). Of course, it should be noted that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (May 24, 2024) and The Bikeriders (June 21, 2024), both of which will be produced by 20th Century Studios, were also on the list.

Though Disney was expecting one more blockbuster for 2024 this upcoming spring in Disney’s Snow White, the company elected to move the film’s release date back a full year, particularly following the backlash that it received. With the Rachel Zegler-led film already on the shelf for 2024 and not a ton of anticipation surrounding many of the films set to be released above, this year could prove to be yet another disappointing box office turnout for the company.

While it seems like a foregone conclusion that Deadpool 3 will bring in major money at the box office, it will be interesting to see what the turnout looks like for Inside Out 2, as the original brought in an impressive $858.8 million at the box office. You can view the latest trailer for the upcoming sequel below:

In addition, Disney has not released much information about Mufasa: The Lion King, which serves as a prequel to The Lion King (2019).

No one can deny that backlash against the company– for a multitude of reasons– has played a role in recent box office failures, and that’s not just going to go away in 2024. With just a few chances to score big this coming year, Disney will need to attract fans back to the theaters to turn around its fortunes at the box office. Only time will tell if the movies listed above are strong enough to do exactly that.

What do you think about the upcoming 2024 slate of Disney movies? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments!