The Walt Disney Company is in the midst of a financial crisis and it‘s impacting its entire production arm. It‘s hard to believe Disney is doing so poorly when it has released so many beloved films in the past year, but the staggering number of losses on these projects might explain it all.
Box office analyst Valliant Renegade is pointing his finger at Disney‘s failed releases, saying the company could have lost as much as $890 million dollars on its last eight studio releases. Those films include Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Thor: Love and Thunder, Ant–man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3. Further, two films were outright bombs — Strange World and Lightyear — and two films are still in theaters, The Little Mermaid and Elemental.
Elemental was Pixar‘s first gender “non–binary“ character in a theatrically released movie and is also doomed to be a huge financial loss. What‘s more, Disney‘s next film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny set to release Friday, is also expected to be a bomb.
Combine all of this with Disney‘s decision to put all of its films on its own streaming service Disney+, and you have a recipe for disaster. Valliant Renegade estimates that Disney could lose a whopping $1 billion in potential revenue due to its limited streaming options for these films.
With Disney stock plummeting 44 percent in 2022 — its worst year in almost five decades — former CEO Bob Chapek was fired and CEO Bob Iger is now attempting to cut $5.5 billion in spending through layoffs and cost–cutting measures.
It appears Disney is making all the wrong decisions, not only creatively, but financially. The company is now debating whether it should embrace woke politics in its entertainment geared toward children. It may be counterintuitive, but that may be one strategy that could help Disney out of its current conundrum.
For now, though, it must wait for the success of the remaining two studio releases — The Little Mermaid and Elemental — and hope that its Disney+ revaluations make up for the huge losses it has already taken.