Credit: Inside the MagicDisney’s leading man is very excited and hopeful for the future.
Related: Disney’s Theme Park Revenue Soars After Intense Backlash Over Price Hikes
While Disney may be best known for its classic animated fairytales and its extensive collection of immersive theme parks, the company is also one of the largest media and entertainment organizations in the world.
The Disney brand can be seen in a wide range of productions, from Marvel and Star Wars to smaller indie films. Thanks to the purchase of 20th Century Fox, Disney also has a rich catalog of properties to dip its toes into, allowing for more irreverent and adult content to make its way onto the company’s streaming platform.
However, it’s mainly Disney’s big tentpole films that help keep the company afloat, both financially and culturally. From Avatar to The Lion King, some of the biggest releases of the last decade came from Disney.
Disney still manages to (mostly) reign supreme at the theater, though some would argue the company has lost its focus over the years.
Disney has struggled in recent years to dominate the box office like it once used to, with recent releases faltering critically and commercially. This is especially true for Disney’s recent live-action Snow White remake, which failed to make an impression among critics and casual moviegoers alike.
Snow White‘s box office performance came in at a surprisingly low $200 million, which is not good news for a film that reportedly cost over $250 million to produce.
However, Disney CEO Bob Iger is confident that the company’s upcoming film slate is its strongest in years.
Disney CEO Bob Iger: Disney’s Next Movies Are Best In Years
Related: Fans Immediately Reject MCU Movie After Name Change: “I’ll Just Wait for Disney+”
Iger’s positive outlook in large part comes from projections for Disney’s next live-action remake, Lilo & Stitch, which by all accounts is poised to dominate the summer box office. While a retelling of a Disney classic just like Snow White, Lilo & Stitch has managed to avoid the same pitfalls and controversy Disney’s original princess did.
A lot of the backlash to Snow White stemmed from the film’s lead herself, Rachel Zegler, an accomplished actress and performer who has starred in films like The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, as well as Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. Zegler made some rather divisive comments in the leadup to the release of Snow White, comments that landed her and the film in hot water.
These comments were all made in jest, but the internet is often deaf to subtlety and irony, prompting waves of people to push back against Zegler and Disney, labeling them “woke.” Some industry insiders also claim Zegler’s pro-Palestine stance caused issues for Snow White, with her co-star Gal Gadot being staunchly pro-Israel, an interesting dynamic given their respective roles in the film.
Iger says the tracking on Lilo & Stitch is “enormous,” going on to state that Disney’s slate of upcoming films is incredibly strong, the strongest it’s been since 2019, despite all of this drama.
Over the next several years, Disney will release a new Toy Story film, a live-action Moana, as well as a feature-length film based on The Mandalorian. While all exciting, 2019 will be a hard year to beat. In 2019, Disney had a total of six movies gross a billion dollars or more, including Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin, Toy Story 4, The Lion King, Frozen 2, and Captain Marvel.
It’s probably a good sign that Disney’s upcoming films are all tied to huge franchises that have already proven to be big moneymakers, though Snow White paints a worrying picture for the future of Disney’s live-action remakes.
In the wake of the film’s lackluster performance, Disney halted production on a planned Tangled live-action film. It’s unknown what other plans may have been shaken up due to Snow White, but it seems Disney, now more than ever, is satisfied sticking to franchises it knows work.
Did you watch Disney’s live-action Snow White?