Credit: Disney+Disney+ killed one of the Mouse’s most promising potential franchises, and the paperwork proves it. New financial documents reveal that Disenchanted (2022) cost Disney a staggering $127.1 million while generating no box office revenue. Like, literally zero.
Disenchanted was the sequel to Enchanted (2007), a beloved modern-day Disney live-action fantasy film starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel, Susan Sarandon, and Disney Legend Julie Andrews. The film was a self-aware tribute to classic Disney movies like Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959), combining traditional animation with live-action sequences.
Enchanted was a surprise hit for Disney, grossing $340 million worldwide. However, the Mouse failed to capitalize on what could have been a potentially very lucrative franchise of comedic fantasy films and took over a decade to get Disenchanted into production.
Related: Idina Menzel’s Cut ‘Enchanted’ Song FINALLY LEAKED!
Disenchanted starred a returning cast of Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, and Idina Menzel and a new group of stars, including Maya Rudolph, Yvette Nicole Brown, Jayma Mays, and Griffin Newman. It was directed by Adam Shankman (taking over from the original’s Kevin Lima) and written by Brigitte Hales from a story by Richard LaGravenese and the team of J. David Stem and David N. Weiss.
Since 2007, streaming media has become the shiny new toy for entertainment executives to chase, and Disney has been no exception. Disney+ was launched in 2019 and was predicted to be one of the main challengers to Netflix’s streaming marketplace dominance. That hasn’t worked out; in fact, Disney+ has lost billions trying to make it a thing, much to the chagrin of CEO Bob Iger.
However, it is not all the Mouse’s fault. The launch of Disney+ occurred almost exactly at the same time as the emergence of the COVID-19 virus, which eventually locked down much of the world’s economy and utterly devastated the theater industry.
Disenchanted was released on November 24, 2022, squarely in the middle of COVID-19, which means that it received almost no play in theaters, aside from its global premiere. Instead, it was relegated to being one of Disney’s experiments with a streaming-only premiere; as such, it made no money at the box office and was entirely supported by subscription fees for the service, which are difficult to isolate to a single movie or series.
Related: “Not Sustainable, Not Acceptable”: CEO Bob Iger Gives Up on Disney+
According to a new report in Forbes, Disenchanted went over budget due to COVID-19 reshoots, eventually ballooning to a cost of $127.1 million. While that may not be much compared to the astronomical costs of your average Marvel or Lucasfilm project these days, it also has to be balanced by the fact that it made no worldwide grosses at all.
Disney, via its U.K. production company Memory Tree Productions, has finally released the required financial disclosures for Disenchanted and squarely blamed it on the pandemic, saying the “cost was over the production budget due to the COVID-19 impact leading to reshoots.”
However, maybe it could have just released a sequel to a well-liked film before 15 years had passed. That could have helped save a franchise.
Do you think Enchanted is a dead series?