Disney Has Lost The Crown. Will Someone Else Seize it?
Disney was the most dominant force in American entertainment up to the beginning of the pandemic. It produced multiple billion-dollar films per year, owned tons of channels, and announced the launching of its own streaming service, Disney+. Less than four years later, its fortunes reversed. With 2023 seeing it’s greatest defeats, it is clear they’ve fallen from the top spot. The question is, will anyone seize the throne?
The details of Disney’s decline have been well-documented and a topic of conversation throughout social media and Youtube. The financials show a company that is in serious trouble. A selloff of assets and cost reductions are required. That alone signifies a company that will have a smaller footprint in 2024. There is also the decline in their stable of powerful brands. Audiences are abandoning Marvel, Star Wars, and even Disney animation. Their last princess film, Wish, flopped. Clearly, their core assets—ones they won’t sell—have lost a lot of value.
So, who will sit on the throne vacated by the Mouse?
The would-be successors include Netflix, Amazon, Universal Studios, Paramount, Lions Gate, and Warner Brothers.
Netflix is the biggest streamer and produces a couple hit shows every year. It also produces a ton of garbage and has a reputation for wasting millions chasing the elusive “modern audience.” It’s commitment to race-swapping has become an internet meme. Having said that, they have Stranger Things, Wednesday, and several other quality shows. As far as movies, Netflix obviously doesn’t benefit from theater receipts. As far as buzzworthy films, it doesn’t have anything big enough to challenge the super-franchises of Disney, Warner and others. There’s no signs 2024 will improve their fortunes on the movie front.
Netflix has their lane, and they will stay in it.
Amazon has moved into the second position among streamers. It spends large sums on its own programming and has a few TV hits. The Boys, Fleabag, Terminal List are three quality ones. Yet, Amazon has also wasted resources chasing the modern audience with mediocre adaptations of Wheel of Time and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Their movies include a lot more flops than successes. As far as strategy, Netflix and Amazon are producers that win through brute force. Just keep throwing out tons of content and see what hits.
Like Netflix, there’s no reason to think Amazon is heading in the right direction as far as content.
Lions Gate enjoyed some success last year with John Wick 4. In the new year, they tout the John Wick spinoff Ballerina, starring Ana de Armas. They also have the video game adaptation Borderlands coming in 2024.
Is that enough to seize the throne? Not likely.
Paramount shit the bed with its Star Trek lineup in 2023 and it will only get worse in 2024. Their streaming service is not competitive and offers little novel programming, unless you can endure another season of Halo. In theaters, they have Mean Girls, Gladiator 2, and Transformers One (animated) on the way. It is difficult to see those three breaking through to big time success. Gladiator is a fantastic film but Ridley Scott has not made many successful films in the past 15 years. Gladiator 2 is also a sequel no one asked for, which is a risky play.
Paramount will try to play the video games with Sonic 3, which could capture some of that childhood video game nostalgia like Super Mario did. Then again, this is the third movie. Whatever lightning it captured, it was in the first movie. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The Sonic franchise is a solid one.
Now we get to the real potential contenders. Let’s start with Warner Brothers. The WB is a titan that has been in second place for a lot of the past decade but has plenty of valuable IPs. In 2024, two standout as potential billion dollar films: Dune Part 2 and Furiosa. Dune Part 1 did not perform particularly well but it inhabits a fairly empty lane in sci-fi, and much of the best material from the book is in the second half of the book. It has an outside chance of being the biggest movie of 2024.
Furiosa follows Mad Max: Fury Road, one of the greatest post-apocalyptic films of all time and a franchise that is careful and slow in its output. George Miller has a good chance to strike gold again.
They do have a rebooted DCEU coming eventually—not in 2024—but superhero fatigue is real and there really doesn’t seem to be much buzz about it, if any. The big exception is Joker 2. While it is difficult to understand why a sequel is needed, this movie could hit a billion like its predecessor.
Given the disappointing trailer that dropped and the weak performance of previous films, Godzilla x Kong: New Empire doesn’t look like it’ll meet expectations. The franchise is in bad shape and got overshadowed by a Japanese film with one-tenth the budget (go see Godzilla Minus One if you haven’t!).
Overall, Warner Brothers appears the strongest positioned in 2024.
The other titan, who had a big 2023, is Universal Studios. In 2024, they have Kung Fu Panda 4, Depicable Me 4, and Twisters as its potentially big releases. It isn’t the most promising lineup so it is likely their box office receipts may not be the biggest this year but they have a lot of momentum and benefit from not having any catastrophic flops in the prior year, unlike Disney and Warner Brothers.
Still, it is hard to see their titles breaking through and being billion dollar films.
Will Warner Brothers seize the throne? Well, their financial situation is not healthy, so this year may be about refilling the coffers and restoring shareholder confidence. It’s unfortunate that all of their biggest films are sequels though. No new IP or original content that could fill the growing audience appetite for something new.
Universal Studios is also lacking in new IP. They are on their fourth movie in many franchises. Super Mario Brothers may convince them and others that video game adaptations are once again, the way to go.
If Warner Brothers can recover from recent losses and superhero fatigue, it is the one best positioned to succeed Disney. Universal Studios is very close but does not appear to have the most exciting 2024 lineup. That could change, of course, with shifting schedules and pleasant surprises. There is also the real risk of releases being moved to 2025.
My prediction is we will see parity. No more will one mega-corporation dominate entertainment the way Disney did in the 2010s. The major studios will be much more competitive and have to fight to develop new IP. It’s probably not on their radar due to their hopeless addiction to sequels, prequels, and reboots, but eventually we will need to get there.
Maybe then, Americans will go back to theaters…