They presumably won’t be post-World War I (or post-World War II) period pieces about families struggling with the death of a matriarch and/or being exploited by heartless tycoons. The good news is that these things won't be an issue with their live-action remakes of Aladdin, The Lion King or (eventually) Mulan. Is this a lack of self-awareness or intentional self-flagellation? It is beyond interesting that Disney’s big live-action newbies in the shadow of the studio buying Fox have mostly been pro-labor/anti-big-business screeds where a giant corporation either tries to crush the little guy (or buy out the smaller company for valuable IP) or learns that they can make more money by treating their employees better. That’s a simplification, but that’s arguably how it looks from a general audience point-of-view. But the other issue, relatively speaking ( Nutcracker was doomed regardless), is that the Mouse House seems to be taking these properties and reshaping them into virtually the same movie again and again. You can talk about folks getting tired of Walt Disney live-action fairy tale flicks, or the notion that not all these properties are generating equal excitement. MARY POPPINS which takes audiences on an entirely new adventure with the practically perfect nanny and the Banks family. Three of them ( The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Dumbo and Mary Poppins Returns) deal with a family coping with the death of a matriarch.Įmily Blunt is Mary Poppins in Dinsey’s original musica MARY. Two of them ( Dumbo and Christopher Robin) deal implicitly with the struggles of men returning from war. All four of these films ( Christopher Robin, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Mary Poppins Returns and Dumbo) feature struggling or traumatized patriarchs trying to reconnect with their families while concurrently doing their duties as caregivers and providers. Fair or not, this is also the fourth Walt Disney period piece melodrama that’s a sequel or adaptation of a classic Disney kid property since last August. The mere idea of Walt Disney releasing a big-budget, kid-friendly fantasy fairy tale is no longer in itself an event like it arguably was in the days of Alice in Wonderland and Oz: The Great and Powerful.įor the record, Disney is apparently acknowledging this, which is why (for example) their Lady and the Tramp and Sword in the Stone remakes are going straight to Disney+. But Dumbo is a well-liked but not obsessively beloved (especially among folks just older or younger than me) movie. Folks wanted to see Beauty and the Beast, and they’ll probably show up with bells on for The Lion King. As Disney pumps out more and more of these “live-action version of a Disney toon” flicks, they’re going to have to take stock in the fact that not all of these will arrive with equal fanfare and general audience interest. The other issue for Walt Disney’s Dumbo, aside from mixed-negative reviews, was a general lack of excitement around the picture. The period piece production and circus sets aren’t cheap, but this is another movie that, like Burton’s Dark Shadows (which cost $150 million in 2012) or the $155 million-budgeted Blade Runner 2049, will likely register not as a “nobody wanted to see this” flop, but as a “disappointment in relation to cost.” Like Pete’s Dragon (which cost $65 million), Dumbo is a human-scale character drama that just happens to have a single CGI supporting character at the center of its story. All due respect to a film that looks perfectly lovely and appropriately “big,” this is another case of a major studio overspending and creating a miss (or the perception of failure) from what might have been a perfectly okay performance had costs been more reasonable. Whether or not Dumbo legs out or catches fire overseas, the movie’s reception highlights Walt Disney’s current catch 22.įirst, don’t spend Beauty and the Beast money on Dumbo. And, yes, that would be another disappointment for Disney’s sub-genre of “let’s remake or sequelize a Disney classic” sub-genre, especially as the Tim Burton fantasy cost a whopping $170 million (just over/under Beauty and the Beast and The Jungle Book and 79% more than Cinderella) to produce. That would be virtually tied with Mary Poppins Returns, which earned $348.8 million worldwide from a $171 million domestic total.
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