Disney thinks they are too big to fail!

Disney may be big but nobody is immune to failure. History taught us that and if Disney is too arrogant, they might fall on their face pretty hard.

[QUOTE=Marvelgirl;4174262] Adam driver thinks episode 9 is their last chance to get it right. How did it come to that? Is it fair to say Disney and their movies live on a different plant?[/QUOTE]

I should have known. Adam Driver didn't say that.

[url]https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/adam-driver-explains-star-wars-episode-ix-last-chance-get-right/[/url]

The first comment got it exactly right. "Adam Driver never said episode 9 was their last chance to get it right. What a click bait title."

What he said was: "In the plays that I’ve done, a six-month run, on the very last day, you finally feel like, “Oh, now I have a better understanding of what it is that I want to do. I wish we could do this all over again.” Working on a play, the questions you can ask yourself are infinite, and that’s what’s torturous about film sometimes – you only have one shot to get it right. And you can do a lot of takes, but we’re not all going to get back together again and do this. But for something you’re doing for six years, you still have a chance to go back and make something a little bit more articulated."

He was basically just saying that you hope each time you play a character, you'll be a little better than you were the last time. He never said anything about Episode 9 being the last chance for Star Wars to succeed or implied it wasn't already good. He didn't say anything even remotely resembling that. Just more anti-TLJ BS with a clickbait title. Just like those youtube videos editing what Mark Hamill said to make it seem he hated this rendition of Luke. Then someone posts the full unedited, unspliced video and you see he was saying nothing of the sort.

[QUOTE=Winx Club Forever;4175334]Disney may be big but nobody is immune to failure. History taught us that and if Disney is too arrogant, they might fall on their face pretty hard.[/QUOTE]

History has also shown us that Disney is pretty darn good at what they do and betting against them is rarely a smart idea.

You know what? Whether you like it or not, Disney IS too big to fail!

Boxofficemojo just summed up the film year of 2018. Here's how the studios did domestically. It does not count box office the 2018 movies made in 2019.

[url]https://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4478&p=.htm[/url]

[B]1. WALT DISNEY - [/B]$3.092B domestically in 2018 from 13 total movies
[B]2. UNIVERSAL -[/B] $1.96B domestically in 2018 from 38 total movies
[B]3. WARNER BROS. -[/B] $1.94B domestically in 2018 from 49 total movies
[B]4. SONY -[/B] $1.28B domestically in 2018 from 28 total movies
[B]5. 20th CENTURY FOX -[/B] $1.08B domestically in 2018 from 17 total movies
[B]6. PARAMOUNT -[/B] $757M domestically in 2018 from 12 total movies

[B][U]2018 WORLDWIDE PERFORMANCE[/U][/B]
1. Disney - $7,325.48m
2. Warner Bros. - $5,560.69m
3. Universal - $4,884.66m
4. Sony - $3,617.72m
5. Fox - $3,472.34m
6. Paramount - $1,735.25m


The point is that Disney is far and away the number one movie studio even though they produced the fewest movies except for the foundering Paramount. Warners cranked out 49 movies to Disney's 13 and was still over a billion behind domestically and almost 2 billion behind in total worldwide.

When the Fox merger is complete, that 3.5 billion gets added to Disney's 7.3 billion, so expect Disney to start delivering $10 billion in box office grosses each year. I would even expect average grosses for X-Men and FF movies to skyrocket when those franchises get Feiged.

I'm definitely not a fan of one entertainment company owning so much IP, but as long as Disney can keep delivering an abundance of crowd pleasers, they can more than survive the few misfires and disgruntled hardcore fans.

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4175211]Daisy Ridley thinks it's doing fine. So what's the point? Neither means anything.

Do Disney and their movies live on a different planet? You mean they don't see how horribly unsuccessful their movies are? Well, when TFA isn't the second biggest movie of modern times and TLJ isn't number 11, there may be a problem. For the moment, I'd suggest those who keep saying the new SW main movies are not beloved by the overwhelming majority are living in a different reality where a movie is a failure because one person, themselves, doesn't like it.[/QUOTE]

Star Wars sells because it's Star Wars. Some people don't have critical faculties, some fans are even too young to think critically

Subjective quality is not measured or defined by statistics. It's about time you learned that.

The bottom line? Last Jedi was a success financially, but that means nothing. In the court of public consensus, it is a very divisive film with heaps of problems, and I say that as someone who liked the movie. To deny it's divisiveness in favor of the "bottom line" is arrogant negligence

[QUOTE=WebLurker;4174401]What problems?[/QUOTE]

Does this [I]really [/I]need explaining? Where have you been the last twelve months?

[QUOTE=Comic-Reader Lad;4175785]You know what? Whether you like it or not, Disney IS too big to fail![/QUOTE]

AT&T was too big to fail. Microsoft was too big to fail. Lots of companies are too big to fail until they do. That darn public has this annoying habit of changing habits, moving from PCs to tablets and smartphones for example, and the "big" companies can't pivot fast enough or even innovate that new stuff itself in a lot of cases. Or they get so bad that federal regulators step in and break the company up into little ones because of unfair trade practices (which is different from being a monopoly, btw). The same will happen to Disney. They'll be rolling along with their billion dollar formula, and then the audience will shift to something new (an innovative streaming approach or a new movie trend). Disney will try to adjust their formula to adapt to the new thing, it will be a horrible mishmash that no one likes, and they will flounder around trying to figure out how to get the audience to their movies while other studios are already doing what Disney is too big to be able to shift to doing. Or key people will leave, retire, whatever, and new people will come in and have no understanding at all of what to do with these franchises, and piss off the public.

It could happen sooner rather than later. They have two built-in hits going forward, Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange. They have a good track record, but it won't go on forever.

[QUOTE=Miles To Go;4175813]Star Wars sells because it's Star Wars. Some people don't have critical faculties, some fans are even too young to think critically [/quote]

Yeah like Richard Roeper and the other the 90+% critics approval. Oh no wait. They're all on the take. I forgot.

[quote] Subjective quality is not measured or defined by statistics. It's about time you learned that. [/quote]

And having the ability to make youtube videos or whine on the Internet is not a reflection of the quality of a work either. And, again, although I enjoyed TLJ, I agree with you that it had story issues.

[quote] The bottom line? Last Jedi was a success financially, but that means nothing. In the court of public consensus, it is a very divisive film with heaps of problems, and I say that as someone who liked the movie. To deny it's divisiveness in favor of the "bottom line" is arrogant negligence [/quote]

Here's a thought. What if the Internet didn't exist? What if the only measure we had of a movie's success was tickets sold and maybe a brief spot on the evening news interviewing people coming out of the theater? What if the only way for people to express themselves were fanzines that a few people would read or maybe a letter to the editor of the local paper? Or arguing with your friends? How divisive would a lot of these movies be then? People love them is all anyone would know because you couldn't go on the Internet and complain ten thousand times per person that didn't like it or make endless youtube videos.

I'm betting that among the things that were divisive were the Social Justice Warrior themes that tend to divide along political lines but, then again, when I watch the first video trying to explain why someone doesn't like TLJ and I repeatedly hear, "I hate that fat Asian b***h" literally a dozen times ["But I'm not racist or sexist". No, he didn't really say the latter because he wasn't capable of of comprehending or caring how racist and sexist he was and, frankly, he'd probably forgive everything else if he found her attractive], my tendency is to say that maybe SW does need to go in a new modern direction and leave those people behind since it obviously can make a fortune without them.

Some of the stuff would have been fine had there just been explanations for it. A simple, "The Force has reasserted itself like never before and people are gaining abilities beyond what was ever possible before" would have covered a lot of the problems.

And what do you do when some of the complaints make no sense. Rey's a Mary Sue but apparently a guy born of a virgin with the highest Jedi potential ever who can drive race cars and pilot a fighter plane with no training or experience *at 8 years old* and who is the Chosen One with a prophecy about him isn't a Mary Sue???? Oh, oops, and at 8 years old is building robots. Yeah, no Mary Sue there. Or a guy who's previous experience was crop dusting and now he can fly a fighter spacecraft with no training or experience and can parry blaster bolts during his first lesson while blindfolded isn't at least well on his way to Mary Sue status? The complaints about Rey would be complaints about 99% of action adventure characters.

I wish I still had the quote I once read from John Byrne but it basically said that there was a time when complaining about something amounted to sending in a letter. If the complaint made a good point, they would publish it. If it didn't they either wouldn't publish it or publish it to detail why the complaints were flawed. But now we have the Internet and everybody gets "published" and the mistake writers make is they think they have to listen to it and start changing what they are writing to accomodate it and we end up with crap that is pandering to a vocal minority.

[QUOTE=AJBopp;4175970]AT&T was too big to fail. Microsoft was too big to fail. Lots of companies are too big to fail until they do. That darn public has this annoying habit of changing habits, moving from PCs to tablets and smartphones for example, and the "big" companies can't pivot fast enough or even innovate that new stuff itself in a lot of cases. [/QUOTE]

Uhmmm ATT is one of biggest phone companies and Most computers in the world still use Windows OS. Both of those companies are diverse in where there make money doing other things as well. Disney is not going to "fail".Disney is still multi-billion dollar company without the movie business. Disney is one few companies that has the money to bully its way into successful buinesses for example other streaming services will fail ,Disney can try succeful to make one or just buy up small companies that are working. HBO or Showtime might fail a bunch of comapnies are now in their space and they don't sources to fail back on. Disney does not have that probelm what ever the new trend they will compete they have the money to burn until it works.

Disney is going to always be a player

[QUOTE=Miles To Go;4175813][B]Star Wars sells because it's Star Wars. [/B]Some people don't have critical faculties, some fans are even too young to think critically[/quote]

Tell that to Kanjiklub -- I mean [I]Solo[/I].


[QUOTE=Miles To Go;4175813]Does this [I]really [/I]need explaining? Where have you been the last twelve months?[/QUOTE]

Hanging out on a [I]Star Wars[/I] forum, hanging out on YouTube, listening to sane discussion get buried by a small contingent of butt-hurt fans using insane troll logic to justify why Disney was bad for not pandering to their precious little fan theories, that they're not bigoted for being angry that a woman is the lead character now (and for more diversity in general), that Luke was character-assassinated because they wanted him to be different then what they got, and/or why they can cyberbully people who worked on the movie, and on and on.

Seriously, YouTube is a cesspit when it comes opinions on [I]Star Wars[/I], with sanity out the window. Comicsgate's own Ethan van Sciever's own channel has pretty much suspended anything related to his job or his Comicsgate activities so he can scream "muh [I]Star Wars[/I]" several times a week. Know another user who spends a decent amount of time literally saying: "Eff you, you're not true fans, but lying shills" to anyone who likes/defends anything made under Disney. On and on, making the "give us Legends" people seem really sane by comparison. I can literally count on one hand the number of channels devoted to the subject that are not toxic and discuss things in a rational manner.

So, yeah, I know about the infighting.

[QUOTE=WebLurker;4176239]Tell that to Kanjiklub -- I mean [I]Solo[/I].

Hanging out on a [I]Star Wars[/I] forum, hanging out on YouTube, listening to sane discussion get buried by a small contingent of butt-hurt fans using insane troll logic to justify why Disney was bad for not pandering to their precious little fan theories, that they're not bigoted for being angry that a woman is the lead character now (and for more diversity in general), that Luke was character-assassinated because they wanted him to be different then what they got, and/or why they can cyberbully people who worked on the movie, and on and on.

Seriously, YouTube is a cesspit when it comes opinions on [I]Star Wars[/I], with sanity out the window. Comicsgate's own Ethan van Sciever's own channel has pretty much suspended anything related to his job or his Comicsgate activities so he can scream "muh [I]Star Wars[/I]" several times a week. Know another user who spends a decent amount of time literally saying: "Eff you, you're not true fans, but lying shills" to anyone who likes/defends anything made under Disney. On and on, making the "give us Legends" people seem really sane by comparison. I can literally count on one hand the number of channels devoted to the subject that are not toxic and discuss things in a rational manner.

So, yeah, I know about the infighting.[/QUOTE]

You put it even more bluntly than I did.

Not to say the movie doesn't deserve any criticism because what movie doesn't? But good night.

Luke can't possibly have changed in 30 years and be any different than how we remember him because he always saw the best in everybody and wouldn't give up on anybody. BS! He hated Vader's guts until he found out Vader was his father and his goal was to save his father. It's not like he was stopping and looking at every Imperial officer and every storm trooper and the Emperor himself and taking time to feel if they were redeemable. It was one person because that one person was his father.

The whole point thematically was that everybody, the characters in the movie, were expecting a legend, a myth, named Luke Skywalker to show up. Instead they got the real person who had faults and got irritated with people and had moments of weakness among them when he almost gave into hate and almost killed his father knowing he was his father. Kind of like what he *almost* did with Kylo Ryn
when he sensed not even the rudimentary good he still sensed in Vader. Thematically, it showed he still was the same person in essence with the same weaknesses when he forgot himself and who he was. Ironically, some of the audience were just like the characters in the story. Even though the audience saw the three movies, they still paint Luke Skywalker as a myth who they pretend didn't do the very things in the original trilogy that were paralleled in the new movies.

Before I forget, that's why most of the critics gave the movie such high ratings. It's not this ridiculous "shill critics" conspiracy theory nonsense. It's because they are judging the movie on it's own merits- does it do a good job of presenting the themes it presents and a good job of telling the story it's trying to tell- not on some butt-hurt because it didn't go in the direction they wanted it to go.

Or Rey being a Mary Sue because she can do the things Anakin could do and almost all action/ adventure heroes can do but they aren't Mary Sue's for some unfathomable reason.

And, yes, diversity is great until it's really diversity.

And the same things happened, within the limits of the Social Media that existed at the time, with the prequels and even with the Special Editions of the original trilogy.

I'm sorry to say it but, thanks to the easy access to social media, we are currently in an era when every butt-hurt crybaby who didn't get exactly what he wanted gets to declare that a movie is the worst movie ever made and the franchise is obviously dead and, of course, if it's a youtube video, most of the responses will be from people who agree and not from people who don't want to get dog-piled
and who probably won't bother to even watch all of the endlessly repetitive videos from people yelling their way through the videos and screaming, "F you! F you! F you!" and crying about Liberal (aka decent) social messages.

There are problems with one side movie: "Solo". Even that may reflect when it was released and what it's competition was or just that it wasn't Harrison Ford or just not the best possible casting choice. The weird part is it didn't do well but it's not getting much hatred comparatively while TLJ is getting all this youtube video hatred but did fantastic.

And "divisive" is a strange term. Yes MoS and B v S were divisive but those were common opinions. With the new SW stuff, when dealing with people who don't live on youtube or the Net, I get a blank look and confusion as to how an overwhelmingly successful and great movie is "divisive".

As to "Not muh..." and "Only people who agree with me are real fans...", every sorry net troll who has one vision of Superman or Star Trek or Star Wars or anything else does that.

Disney's diversification means that while they could hypothetically fail, it would require just a disaster on almost all fronts.

Take what happened with Solo then apply it to
Marvel
Pixar
Disney's In House Properties
And now their newly acquired Fox Properties.

All at the same time.

Even then Disney has others ways to make money. So while they could hypothetically fail it would need just massive incompetence on all fronts (likely for several years) for it to happen.

Edit: It says a lot that I completely forgot Star Wars. They have a billion dollar franchis that could fail, and they could still walk it off if the others are doing well.

Going back to my post above saying that Disney really IS too big to fail, we shouldn't forget that Disney movies are just a small part of The Walt Disney Company corporate empire -- and of its four major operating segments, it's NOT the biggest at all.

[B][U]Here's where Disney's revenue came from in fiscal 2018:[/U][/B]
[B](1) MEDIA NETWORKS -[/B] $24.5 billion
[B](2) PARKS & RESORTS -[/B] $20.3 billion
[COLOR="#FF0000"][B](3) STUDIO ENTERTAINMENT - $9.99 billion[/B][/COLOR] - here's where the movies are included.
[B](4) CONSUMER PRODUCTS & INTERACTIVE MEDIA - [/B]$4.65 billion


In other words, Disney is almost a $60 billion dollar company in terms of Revenue. Its Net Income (i.e. profit) is $12.6 billion. This is all BEFORE Fox gets added to the mix.

Once again, Disney IS too big to fail, and the movies are at most 1/6 of the whole picture.

[QUOTE=Comic-Reader Lad;4177048]In other words, Disney is almost a $60 billion dollar company in terms of Revenue. Its Net Income (i.e. profit) is $12.6 billion. This is all BEFORE Fox gets added to the mix.[/QUOTE]

After FOX gets added to the mix, it's value goes down quite a bit in the short term, given what they paid for FOX. They are playing the long game, and it's yet to be determined whether it will work in their favor. History is not on their side, but it's not out of the question.

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4176815]You put it even more bluntly than I did.[/quote]

Yeah, it's a sore point with me.

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4176815]Not to say the movie doesn't deserve any criticism because what movie doesn't? But good night.[/quote]

Sure. I mean I would personally rank it as one of the best in the series to date, but there were some things I think could've been fine-tuned.

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4176815]Luke can't possibly have changed in 30 years and be any different than how we remember him because he always saw the best in everybody and wouldn't give up on anybody. BS! He hated Vader's guts until he found out Vader was his father and his goal was to save his father. It's not like he was stopping and looking at every Imperial officer and every storm trooper and the Emperor himself and taking time to feel if they were redeemable. It was one person because that one person was his father.

The whole point thematically was that everybody, the characters in the movie, were expecting a legend, a myth, named Luke Skywalker to show up. Instead they got the real person who had faults and got irritated with people and had moments of weakness among them when he almost gave into hate and almost killed his father knowing he was his father. Kind of like what he *almost* did with Kylo Ryn
when he sensed not even the rudimentary good he still sensed in Vader. Thematically, it showed he still was the same person in essence with the same weaknesses when he forgot himself and who he was. Ironically, some of the audience were just like the characters in the story. Even though the audience saw the three movies, they still paint Luke Skywalker as a myth who they pretend didn't do the very things in the original trilogy that were paralleled in the new movies.[/quote]

The "argument" seems to come down to the idea that he'd learned his lessons already and had regressed. While I wouldn't say that everyone who wanted a more "heroic" is wrong for that opinion (I have respect for people who are civil when disagreeing and discussing stuff), I personally thought it made him a more interesting character seeing him have to pick himself up, and, in some ways, become the legend build around him in the process. (In any event, I will die on the hill that it was Mark Hamill's best performance in the series to date.)

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4176815]Before I forget, that's why most of the critics gave the movie such high ratings. It's not this ridiculous "shill critics" conspiracy theory nonsense. It's because they are judging the movie on it's own merits- does it do a good job of presenting the themes it presents and a good job of telling the story it's trying to tell- not on some butt-hurt because it didn't go in the direction they wanted it to go.[/quote]

Yeah, I have seen a few conspiracy theories that the critics were bought off or something like that. I've got no time for nonsense like that myself. That is a good point though; how much of the chatter and disagreement is on the actual craftsmanship and how much is people wanting their wants validated?

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4176815]Or Rey being a Mary Sue because she can do the things Anakin could do and almost all action/ adventure heroes can do but they aren't Mary Sue's for some unfathomable reason.[/quote]

I find that if you look at the [I]Star Wars[/I] canon as a whole and the rules of the Force, Rey is actually pretty darn typical for an above-average Force-user (and is far from the most Mary Sue-like character we've ever had, if we must use that term). While I have seen some legitimate criticism raised about the character (stuff I would disagree with but from people who seem to be arguing in good faith), most of it seems to come from a place of sexism, when you look at the actual arguments.

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4176815]And, yes, diversity is great until it's really diversity.[/quote]

Racism is still alive and well, sad to say.

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4176815]And the same things happened, within the limits of the Social Media that existed at the time, with the prequels and even with the Special Editions of the original trilogy.[/quote]

Yeah, there have been reports of pretty unseemly things from back then. While it seems like there's less civility now and bigots are more open about their bigotry, it is sad to see how similar now and then really are.

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4176815]I'm sorry to say it but, thanks to the easy access to social media, we are currently in an era when every butt-hurt crybaby who didn't get exactly what he wanted gets to declare that a movie is the worst movie ever made and the franchise is obviously dead and, of course, if it's a youtube video, most of the responses will be from people who agree and not from people who don't want to get dog-piled
and who probably won't bother to even watch all of the endlessly repetitive videos from people yelling their way through the videos and screaming, "F you! F you! F you!" and crying about Liberal (aka decent) social messages.[/quote]

Yeah, I have been a voice of dissent on some of those comments often on and you either get ignored or attacked. In any event, with those YouTubers (and others like them), they're not interested in a conversation, but in being validated.

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4176815]There are problems with one side movie: "Solo". Even that may reflect when it was released and what it's competition was or just that it wasn't Harrison Ford or just not the best possible casting choice. The weird part is it didn't do well but it's not getting much hatred comparatively while TLJ is getting all this youtube video hatred but did fantastic.[/quote]

I think [I]Solo[/I] is a less "offensive" movie, hence the more muted response; it didn't really challenge anyone's perceptions, so people who just wanted nostalgia-heavy comfort food couldn't complain that it was ruining the franchise, it was less diverse, meaning the bigots had less to be triggered over, and that sort of thing. From what I've seen personally, the only attention haters give it is out of general hated for Disney [I]Star Wars[/I] in general and to use it's low numbers to "prove" that fans hate the other movies Disney made and are turning away from the brand (a bad argument, but whatever). I also think it being a non-Saga movie may also have muted its status in the franchise overall; [I]Rogue One[/I] was a success on all accounts but it's rarely discussed in the broader scope of the franchise in these conversations, either to attack or defend Disney.

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4176815]And "divisive" is a strange term. Yes MoS and B v S were divisive but those were common opinions. With the new SW stuff, when dealing with people who don't live on youtube or the Net, I get a blank look and confusion as to how an overwhelmingly successful and great movie is "divisive".[/quote]

I think both the haters and the lovers are making the mistake of believing that the Internet represents the overall audience and that Rotten Tomatoes scores are accurate ways to poll a movie's success.

[QUOTE=Powerboy;4176815]As to "Not muh..." and "Only people who agree with me are real fans...", every sorry net troll who has one vision of Superman or Star Trek or Star Wars or anything else does that.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, fan entitlement is everywhere.

Because of Disney there is nobody that listens to rotten tomatoes anymore. Disney can pay for a lot of things, they can't do it on merit.


[QUOTE=Miles To Go;4175813]Star Wars sells because it's Star Wars. Some people don't have critical faculties, some fans are even too young to think critically

Subjective quality is not measured or defined by statistics. It's about time you learned that.

The bottom line? Last Jedi was a success financially, but that means nothing. In the court of public consensus, it is a very divisive film with heaps of problems, and I say that as someone who liked the movie. To deny it's divisiveness in favor of the "bottom line" is arrogant negligence



Does this [I]really [/I]need explaining? Where have you been the last twelve months?[/QUOTE]

But Solo was a flop. Last Jedi did not have legs at the box office. Disney is on life support when it comes to star wars. It was easier for Disney to get away with how they treated marvel. the marvel characters they had were d-listers. molding them to anything they wanted was ignorance working at its best. Star Wars was Star Wars, obviously Disney were never going to get away with how they treated star wars like one of their other cooperate pets as they did with Marvel.