Do you think Disney needs to make change after so many flops?

[exile001]

The mistake a lot of studios, including Disney, made was focusing on streaming replacing every other revenue stream, when it's more of a replacement for home media.

100% this.

They made a gamble, Disney in particular, that they could run/own the entire distribution and so rake in all the profits for themselves. They tried to build an enclosed infrastructure on the idea that a Disney+ service would be a captive audience and it failed because running a service, producing content for it, keeping a sensible price point, and retaining an ever growing subscription base is impossible for even an entity as large as Disney to pull off.

[ChrisIII]

Godzilla Minus One was great, but it's not going to have the box office of a typical MCU film.

Studio Ghibli films generally won't have the box office of Pixar.

This may highlight a new problem with Disney. There's a shift to people finding narrower and narrower interests, so there are fewer monster hits, in film, television or anything. And Disney was very reliant on those monster hits.

I think Disney isn't really trying to court the anime crowd, they kind of already tried that in the 00s. Netflix, on the other hand.... (although their attempt at Cowboy Bebop was a big miss)

[achilles]

I think Disney isn't really trying to court the anime crowd, they kind of already tried that in the 00s. Netflix, on the other hand.... (although their attempt at Cowboy Bebop was a big miss)

I wonder if they learned their lesson from that and hence One Piece, or was One Piece just a one-off with them? Having the creator involved like that with veto power is a bit unusual for them, from what I understand, but it may have made the difference. But...the casting was perfect for that, and I'm not sure how involved he was with that...

I personally thought that the live action OP was the best and most enjoyable TV show I've seen in years, and worth the NF sub all by itself. Disney should really study that to see what they can learn.

[ChrisIII]

Yeah they kind of cut out Watanabe which was a bad move (They basically tossed his notes and just showed him some clips).

I don't think they even used Kanno that much apart from some of her songs.

Funny thing is, while a lot of Western (Or Eastern-Jackie Chan's City Hunter for example) anime adaptations often tone down the material, I think in this case it was the opposite with all the adult jokes and even some of the violence and gore being more than the actual anime.


That being said, I think the casting of the main group except for Ed was pretty good, although Cho was a bit old for Spike (Who is actually supposed to be in his late 20s, here he seems the same age as Jet). Shakir's voice being pretty much identical to English actor Beau Bisslingea for example. The writing, on the other hand....and especially the adaptation of the Vicious/Julia stuff....yikes....

[Totoro Man]

I think Disney isn't really trying to court the anime crowd, they kind of already tried that in the 00s. Netflix, on the other hand.... (although their attempt at Cowboy Bebop was a big miss)

when I proposed the idea, I was thinking that Disney would own a subsidiary company that would handle anime properties. anime is too diverse and eclectic to have it incorporated directly into the company.

but the use of proxies worked when they bought Pixar. it mostly worked with Studio Ghibli - even though a lot of people at Disney didn't seem to like Ghibli and seemed to actively try to subvert the "competition". even if there was some limited artistic agreement - it seems like on the money-minded side of things people were against it. as soon as Lasseter was gone it seemed like Disney dropped Ghibli like a hot potato. (my memory is a bit unclear on this, though)

the market for anime/manga is huge and undeniable. over a decade ago I believed that it might be a good business move for Disney to find ways to partner up with other companies to distribute popular anime films or even do live-action adaptations. Netflix, and other companies, have obviously taken up that idea instead. honestly, if I had been involved in Disney, I would have seriously considered the possibility of a "One Piece" live action adaptation 20 years ago. of course, 20 years ago half of my comic book collection was manga so... I suppose I may have been unfairly biased in favor of the idea.

having the original creator involved in "One Piece", and producers who were more sympathetic to the source material, appears to have made a big difference... because "Cowboy Bebop" and "One Piece" were both made by the same studio. although OP was in development earlier, and for a longer period of time.

I'm hoping Netflix learned from "Bebop", because that SHOULD have been a more successful show.

[ChrisIII]

Tomino (creator of Gundam and writer/director for most of the series and a few after until the mid 90s) weighed in on Disney recently, although it seems clear he thinks that the animation side has lost it's soul by having it be done mostly on computers and more 'assembly line' (I think some have read more into the article than what it actually says, or a mistranslation).