Disney does not know how to make movies, but earns billions - the paradox of recyclable pop culture.
If you read the titles of business news about last year's results, you will find information that Disney is the first record company in the same year that four films whose revenues exceeded one billion dollars (not at once and each separately) is an amazing record and information that sets the new limit for a film studio. At the same time, it shows a very interesting way that Disney went through.
In the second decade of the 21st century (in other words, starting from 2010), Disney has repeatedly attempted to produce and release a high-budget adventure film that would earn on itself like the debut of the previous decade - ”Pirates of the Caribbean” or the ”National Treasure”. These efforts in recent years have given a series of one of the biggest disappointments (in terms of the box office and critics opinions) in recent years. ”The Lone Ranger”, ”John Carter”, ”The Socerers Apprentice”, ”Prince of Persia”, ”Tomorrowland”, ”Oz: The Great and Powerful” - these are just a few of the titles that had a more or less similar story. Unleashed marketing, big promises, a lot of good names in the cast, the biggest names among producers and creators. And then there was such an awkward silence when it turned out that the film unfortunately does not arouse special interest of the audience or critics ask themselves what actually happened. Of course, there will always be those for whom ”Tron: Legacy” is a good movie, but let's not hide - the only thing that has really achieved this is the jubilee re-edition of the ”Tron”.
However, not all attempts - regarding feature films - proved to be unsuccessful. Disney found an excellent source of profits, which are films referring to the animation created for the needs of the studio - no matter if they are less (Maleficent) or more faithful (Cinderella), or almost re-animated (Jungle Book) bring profits and are even recognized by critics. Besides, Disney realised ”Beauty and the Beast” which was a big success, ”Dumbo” and ”Aladdin” didn't arouse such delight but we all knew that the ”Lion King” will bring to the cinema's high audiences. Next in plan to screen are ”Mulan” and ”Pinocchio”. Disney apparently has not the slightest intention of stepping back when got into the vein of gold, which is transferring stories known from animations to acting movies - usually with a slight twist to justify why it comes back to the same material again. At the same time, it is not difficult to see that if a film is too far from what viewers know (a good example is the second Alice that had nothing to do with anything), it may turn out that they went to the cinema with less enthusiasm.
Does it result from something that should interest us? On the one hand - I guess you do not have to hide anything on what Disney earns - after incorporating Marvel's studio into movie empire and buying Lucasfilm and Fox, there's actually no reason for Disney not to dominate our imagination. Let's add some animated films - which are very popular in the world and it's no wonder the studio buys more records. Anyway, looking at the previous record - set by Universal in turn, it is clear that it is impossible to achieve such brilliant financial results without having at least one animated film in the portfolio (in the case of Uniwersal they were ”Minions”). In other words - we can safely predict that in some time this Disney record will be broken - mainly by other movies released by the same studio. Though the analyst's emotions are the most intense, the Disney officers officially admitted that ”Rogue One” did not have to hit the box office records (which clearly depended on everyone at the ”Force Awakening”) - it was enough to prove to the producers that it is worth investing in films from the world of Star Wars (outside the main cycle).
At the same time, when we put together facts, we get a very interesting paradox. Disney knows how to make big money and at the same time - it has no idea. If they do not play their own stories or do not use the opportunities offered by Marvel or Star Wars, they are not too many. A good example is ”Tomorrowland”. The movie I watched just a few days ago is incredibly bad. Seriously, nothing happens for the first hour and then it starts to happen and it is even worse. The whole plot is simply unimpressively boring and not very exciting though theoretical should have potential. The film has good actors (George Clooney and Hugh Laurie), you can see that a lot of money was put in special effects. The final result, was that at some point Disney stopped properly promoting the film to reduce losses. Anyway, everyone probably remember what defeat ”Lone Ranger” turned out to be. The movie was meant to be Disney's second ”Pirates of the Caribbean”. Actually, everything was in line - a bit forgotten genre, characters a bit known and the same team of writers, director, producer and main actor. How it turned out - we all know. This is perhaps one of the few films whose most interesting part is the LEGO set inspired by it.
This Disney paradox - a film company that beats records again not being able to make a good movie (I do not count productions such as ”Saving Mr. Banks” or ”In to the Woods” - because it's "side" Disney projects and not big hit) shows us what a big problem for popular culture is what we can call "recyclable pop culture". Disney last time really introduced something new and large (except animations) to film pop culture - when ”Pirates of the Caribbean” achieved success. But that was 15 years ago. Since then, actually everything that Disney produces is more or less a transformation of something that has already happened. The three pillars (again outside of animations) are the mentioned: re-creating animated films for actors, Star Wars and subsequent editions of super heroic films. Theoretically, we can recognize super heroic films for a new quality, but the pace of new titles and the fact that we're dealing with the next approaches to the same heroes (a perfect example is the third approach to Spider-Man) make us think that soon they will be recycled. One can argue whether they are at all original considering the number of times previously approached super heroic films (sometimes with horrible results).
Is it just Disney's fault and their failed scenarios and overestimated film budgets? On the one hand, it would be easy to dump everything on the producers. But you have to admit that they regularly try to interest us with something new. The audience is quite resistant. And now the question - are we just more critical of film worlds we do not know well, or Disney does not know how to create something like Star Wars. I think it's worth coming back to the great discussion about ”John Carter”. The film did not earn so much that it became the symbol of the great Hollywood flap. At the same time - I know it is an unpopular opinion - it is not such a bad movie. All the time I wonder if - a similar story took place in a somewhat better known to the wide viewer world (the world of John Carter it is not so popular) whether the film would not be successful. At the same time I do not defend Disney - it is still a big, quite nasty corpo that does not seem to understand that the rights to cultural works are not to collect them, and a good film can not arise in the atmosphere of bureaucracy and sacrifice of the director's vision for something which theoretically or potentially will sell well. However, this does not change the fact that the success of the studio should be treated as a rather disturbing symptom of the times. Because if you can conquer the world at this point without showing anything new, the question about the future seems alarming. Because today is not a problem - it is enough to fine-tune something from twenty or thirty years ago and has millions in cinemas. The question is what people will watch in the future? For sure the remake of ”Pirates of the Caribbean”, a question for what else.
