Disney's record-setting year

Yesterday, as Disney announced that Toy Story 3 had become the first animated film to cross the $1 billion mark in global box office, it also trumpeted another significant milestone, becoming the first movie studio to have two films released in the same year gross over $1 billion worldwide.  It's a remarkable achievement, as both Alice in Wonderland and Toy Story 3 have easily surpassed whatever high expectations anyone might have set for them.  When you add in the success of Iron Man 2, which was distributed by Paramount but produced by Disney-owned Marvel Studios, it's been an unprecedented year of success at the box office for Disney.

Well, almost.  After all, there were those two high-profile releases from Disney's resident hit-maker, Jerry Bruckheimer.  First it was Prince of Persia, which kicked off the summer with designs to be the next big Disney franchise in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean.  Next came The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which reunited the director, producer and star of the National Treasure films for another attempt at a new franchise.  Both have been pretty big busts.  With combined budgets of over $350 million, plus marketing and release costs that likely exceed $200 million, the two films together have brought in about $480 million worldwide.  In other words, they've lost a lot of money.  In hindsight, it seems pretty clear that Disney would have been better off continuing the Narnia series instead of trying to build a new fantasy franchise from scratch.  And it seems equally clear that Bruckheimer, Nicolas Cage, and Jon Turteltaub should focus their energies on National Treasure 3.  Then again, what's a loss of a few hundred million dollars when you are raking in over $2 billion?

Looking at the rest of the year, Disney still has two big releases yet to come.  The first is Rapunzel Tangled, the latest animated princess film for the holidays.  The marketers at Disney have no idea what to do with this film and American audiences.  They are so paralyzed by the relatively disappointing performance of The Princess and the Frog that they are completely scared of selling this film for what it is, which is a slightly new twist on a classic fairy tale told in the Disney style.  As a result, audiences are going to have no idea what this movie is and they aren't going to go see it.  Just compare one of the international posters, which still uses the original title, with the domestic poster.  Which one makes more sense and is more appealing?  I'm afraid Disney animation may have another disappointment on their hands.

Finally, there's Tron: Legacy.  In contrast to Tangled, Disney has been marketing this film brilliantly.  if the film is anywhere close to as good as what we've been shown so far, it should be a solid hit for the studio.  Hopefully, when 2010 comes to a close, Disney will still have plenty to cheer about.

Looking for Prince Charming

After the billion-dollar performance of Alice in Wonderland earlier this spring, Disney executives must have been thinking that 2010 would be a record setting year for the studio at the box office. With Toy Story 3 and Tron: Legacy still to come, that may yet be the case. But with Memorial Day weekend now behind us, it’s clear that Disney’s path to box-office glory has hit a speed bump.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was supposed to be the next big Disney franchise. Based on a popular video game, Prince of Persia was an opportunity to launch a new adventure series in the mold of Pirates of the Caribbean that would appeal to audiences of all ages, spawn multiple sequels, sell shelves of merchandise, and maybe even inspire new attractions in the parks. The film had a promising pedigree, with hit-maker Jerry Bruckheimer producing and Harry Potter veteran Mike Newell directing. Leading up to its opening weekend, the marketing was so ubiquitous that clearly no expense was spared. Alas, the film opened in second place for an anemic $37.8 million for the four-day Memorial Day weekend (only $30 million for the Friday to Sunday period). Prince of Persia, which cost an estimated $200 million to make and heaven only knows how much to market, will be lucky to gross even $100 million at the domestic box office, and so this new franchise is already over before it got started.

Ironically, Prince of Persia was conceived, at least in part, as sort of a replacement for another adventure franchise that Disney had chosen to abandon for its perceived poor performance. 2005’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ended up as one of Disney’s biggest all-time hits, with a domestic gross of nearly $300 million and a global gross of over $700 million. With Narnia, Disney had seemingly found its own family-friendly, fantasy-literary series on par with Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings.

But unlike the Harry Potter franchise, which has released nearly all of its films on a compressed 12 or 18-month schedule, there was a gap of two and a half years between Lion and its sequel, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.*  In addition, Prince Caspian was pushed from the holiday release date that had served its predecessor so well and was released in May 2005, the start of the summer movie season, right between the much buzzed-about Iron Man and the intensely anticipated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. To make matters even worse, the film was marketed badly . Instead of building on the goodwill held toward the first film and the returning characters, Disney pushed Prince Caspian as a dark and intense action movie and tried to position the new title character as a teen heartthrob.

With the long gap between films, the unfavorable competition and an ill-suited marketing effort, Prince Caspian unsurprisingly debuted to a soft $55 million on its way to a total domestic box office take of $141 million and a total global box office haul of $419 million.**  Given that this was far below the performance of the first Narnia film, Disney re-considered its commitment to the franchise. The decision was complicated by the fact that Disney shared the costs and profits for the Narnia films with Walden Media, which actually controls the rights to the books. Walden Media had already begun pre-production on the third Narnia film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was originally slated to be released in May 2010. After haggling with Walden over budget costs, release dates and other issues, Disney walked away from the partnership and Walden will now release Dawn Treader in December with 20th Century Fox.  Prince of Persia was then fast-tracked by Disney to fill the May 2010 slot and here we are.

In hindsight, Disney would have been much better off sticking with the Narnia franchise instead of trying to build a new franchise from scratch. While both Prince of Persia and Prince Caspian cost north of $200 million to produce, Walden had agreed to scale back the budget for Dawn Treader to something in the range of $140 million. Furthermore, Disney would have only been on the hook for half of that because it shared the financial risk (and reward) for Narnia with Walden Media, limiting its exposure in the event of failure. With Prince of Persia, Disney shoulders all of the loss on its own but would have probably been obligated to make significant payouts to Bruckheimer had the film been a success.  With regard to marketing costs, it’s always easier to sell an existing brand then to introduce something new and unknown to the masses.

Finally, the fact the Narnia is already an established brand with at least one well-regarded and popular film to serve as an anchor makes it easier to profit from subsequent films, regardless of how successful they are at the box office.***  The release of a new franchise film inevitably reinvigorates interest in the older films resulting in new sales of DVDs and other merchandise. Simply the ability to bundle the films together as a new box set of the "Narnia Trilogy" could provide new revenue. And because of Narnia’s literary roots, it has a much higher likelihood of enduring as an “evergreen” property that can sustain ventures long after the movies are done, such as theme park attractions.****

In this tale of two princes, Disney simply chose the wrong prince.  Had Dawn Treader been released by Disney in place of Prince of Persia, it is very plausible that it would have out-performed Prince Caspian or at the least done no worse than Prince of Persia.  But Disney would have spent less money overall and had more opportunity for ancillary revenue.  Nonetheless, I have a feeling that a certain cowboy and space ranger will still provide a fairy tale ending for Disney’s summer.



* The tight release schedule serves three purposes: 1) it maintains public interest in the franchise, particularly among fickle younger movie goers; 2) it achieves some efficiency in production costs; and 3) it ensures that the young actors don’t age beyond their characters in between films.
** Although Prince of Persia has debuted to a decent start in international markets and could still prove to be a success in that regard, its opening weekend abroad was 17% lower than the foreign debut of Prince Caspian.
*** It's worth noting that among fans of Narnia, Dawn Treader is widely considered to be the most popular book in the series, while Prince Caspian is generally one of the least popular. 
 **** Disney created a temporary walk-through attraction the Narnia films at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando.  Rumors of a permanent Narnia-themed attraction have percolated on Disney fan message boards for years.

Mission 2 Mars

No, I'm not referring to this Disney dud from 2000.  Last week, Disney announced a release date for Mars Needs Moms, based on the children's book by Berkeley Breathed, creator of the classic 80s comic strip Bloom County.  The movie will open on March 11, 2011, occupying the slot successfully used this year by Alice in Wonderland.  To be honest, I had completely lost track of this project.  I remember reading a long time ago that Disney was developing it, which delighted me given that I'm a huge fan of Breathed.  The movie will be another film produced by Robert Zemeckis using his 3-D motion capture technique (The Polar Express and Disney's A Christmas Carol) and will star Seth Green and Joan Cusack.  I'm hoping that instead of creating "dead eye" replicas of the actors involved, the motion capture technology will be used to bring Breathed's distinct illustrations to life intact.

Ironically, Disney also announced last week that it was shutting down Zemeckis' motion capture studio facility, effective January 2011.  The new ImageMovers Digital studio was originally supposed to be the start of a long and fruitful partnership with the Academy Award-winning director that put Disney on the cutting edge of mo-cap special effects.  But given the high costs and disappointing returns associated with A Christmas Carol, Disney has apparently decided to cut its losses.  I assume that waiting to close the facility next January will give Zemeckis time to complete both Mars Needs Moms and Yellow Submarine.

Meanwhile, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland opened to a record breaking $116 million last weekend which, I'm sad to point out, already surpasses the lifetime box office of The Princess and the Frog.  By the end of this weekend, it will likely cross the $200 million mark, and could potentially be on its way to becoming one of Disney's all-time highest grossing live-action films (not taking into account the inflated ticket prices for 3-D and IMAX shows).

Also last weekend, Pixar's Up took home two Oscars, one for Best Animated Feature and another for Best Original Score.  The second Oscar was a nice little surprise and a much deserved recognition for composer Michael Giacchino.  Giacchino is a Disney regular, having also composed the music for The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and tv's Lost.  He will next perform scoring duties for Disney on John Carter of Mars, currently in production.

Finally, if you haven't seen this yet, do yourself a favor.  It just about blew my socks off.

Cracked Windows

Last month, I criticized Warner Bros. for its wrong-headed move to delay the distribution of new releases to Netflix.  Last week, they reached a similar deal with discount rental company Redbox.  Again, the studio wants an exclusive 28-day window to sell their new releases on DVD before they are made available more cheaply for consumers to rent.  But in reality, this move will do very little to boost up DVD sales and will only encourage piracy by making it more difficult for consumers to conveniently and affordably access the content that they want.  According to Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, they need the separate home viewing windows to maximize "the best economics for the studio."

It is at least a little ironic, then, that while one studio defends its prerogative to space out home viewing windows, another studio strikes a new blow against the theatrical window for motion pictures.  In 2009, blockbusters like Avatar, The Blind Side, Up, and The Hangover demonstrated that long, successful runs at the local theater are still both possible and profitable.  And when a film establishes itself as a huge hit in theaters, it generally carries that success over into the home video market.  The Hangover has already become the best selling comedy DVD of all time.  But Disney has decided to go the other direction and actually shrink the theatrical window for the upcoming U.K. release of Alice in Wonderland. 

This is counterintuitive for at least a couple of reasons.  First, Disney has hinged a huge component of the marketing for Alice on the fact that it is 3D, creating the impression that the film is the kind of event that has to be seen on the big screen to be fully appreciated.  This perception is undermined when the company is rushing to get the DVD out into stores.  Second, Alice in Wonderland is an "evergreen" property for Disney.  For most people, Disney's 1951 animated classic is the definitive reference point for this story, and Disney has been able to leverage that association over the years into its consumer products and theme park divisions.  Tim Burton's new take is a way for Disney to keep the property fresh so that it has new opportunities to profit from it in the future.  Thus, it is in their best interest for the 2010 film to be a big event that establishes a new touchstone for today's audiences.  That result won't happen if the film is pushed out of theaters too soon, leaving only a fleeting impression on popular culture.

If studios want to fully reap the benefits of their movies, they have to take the long view, which necessitates an understanding that the theatrical exhibition of movies is not only irreplaceable, it is the foundation upon which future success is built.