Disney continues to attack the box office this year, with its new big-budget theme park adaptation Haunted Mansion raking in just $33.3 million at the worldwide box office, the worst opening of the year for a Disney property. That’s not a typo, $33.3 million is global opening weekend, and it’s a glaring warning sign that Disney needs to seriously reevaluate its strategies, lest more of its upcoming slate succumb to a similar fate.
Jamie Lee Curtis stars in “Haunted Mansion.”
No one expected Haunted Mansion perform well this weekend, but $33 million is shockingly low for a film of this stature and importance to the studio. Which makes certain Disney decisions especially difficult to understand, as they surely contributed to them Haunted Mansion’s pitiful box office of the belly.
[The Boogeyman was produced by 20th Century Studios along with 21 Laps Entertainment and TSG Entertainment, in a development deal that began prior to Disney’s acquisition of Fox and evolved afterward, and the film was completed with plans for a Hulu release before that was changed to a theatrical release. So although The Boogeyman’s $20 million opening weekend was lower than Haunted Mansion’s $33 million bow, I don’t consider it in the same category as fully Disney releases.]
Perhaps the most glaring question mark was Disney’s choice to launch Haunted Mansion in July, rather than the September-October corridor, or even the winter months as a backup, where most high-grossing horror releases tend to hit theaters.
Not that July Horror can’t overwork or explode as counter-programming: jawsfor those who classify it as a horror film (I tend to straddle the fence on this one, but I generally consider it a dramatic thriller) it is the last summer blockbuster and grossed $123 million in 1975 to become the (then) highest grosser. movie of all time.
More recently, Insidious: The Red Door it was released on July 7th of this year and is north of $175 million today, on its way to a final tally of around $185 million worldwide, on a very modest budget of $16 million of dollars and even smaller marketing costs. And historically, there is the famous example of The Blair Witch Project in 1999, which grossed $248 million from a micro-budget in the tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But occasional (but still rare) low-budget examples like counterprogramming are different from blockbuster results, which are what Haunted Mansion needs a lot, in light of its $150 million budget, but it’s very clearly not going to make it.
In this sense, there are far fewer examples to point to as justification Haunted Mansion’s July departure The Conjuration it’s more in the $316.8 million range, but even that isn’t enough to cover costs Haunted Mansion. In fact, outside of release dates around Halloween or sometimes in the winter months, even successful horror films generally don’t bring in big enough numbers to justify $100-150 million budgets .
In addition to the July release date on a Halloween holiday target, the choice to face barbie i Oppenheimer he was less than wise, to put it mildly. barbie i Oppenheimer both enjoyed a massive marketing push, as well as a steady and powerful build-up, including huge public awareness and interest in both films prior to release. When combined with the fact that July isn’t traditionally a very successful month for horror releases, the decision to go head-to-head with two of the summer’s biggest potential hits is a great one. Results: barbie he owns the box office.
Consider how much more problematic it becomes, then, when the nature of the brand’s biggest competitor at the box office also targets the same core target demographic. Then consider that the first Haunted Mansion the 2003 adaptation cost $182 million as of November.
Summer doesn’t feel like much horror for many reasons, from the holiday beacon of Halloween to the seasonal sensibilities of fall and winter, as well as the holidays and other summer recreations that create more fun and joy in the spring and summer months that tend to reflect life and renewal.
Of course, summer these days equals scorching temperatures due to climate change, so perhaps months of massive fires and boiling temperatures and dwindling survival options will make the idea of summer a more conducive one for the horror programming focused on apocalyptic stories in the coming years, so our mileage may soon vary with these thematic associations.
Another undeniable factor is the SAG-AFTRA strike, which prohibits actors from appearing at events and doing interviews to help promote the films. Haunted Mansion there was a lack of cast involvement in promotion and, as the release date approached, the film had been marketed decidedly low-key, perhaps in recognition that it was unlikely to move the needle substantially enough to matter- the front of by barbie box office dominance.
And let’s not get caught up here, this is a direct result of the decisions of the studios that led to the strikes; even those who side with the AMPTP must admit that, at least from a technical point of view, the studios decided whether to continue negotiating and whether to accept the demands of the unions, and that choice, in turn, caused SAG-AFTRA (like the WGA before them) to react by calling a strike. So if you agree with the studio’s choice, that choice was still part of a process and the final decision that led to a strike, and the studios knew that was what was coming if they took these choices (again, whether or not you agree with their choices).
But none of that matters, not really. Summer season breakouts can and do still happen, and facing big brand competition can work if counter-programmed correctly, and viral marketing can often push genre films better than traditional marketing approaches. Similarly, whatever seasonal and holiday advantages exist during the September-to-winter calendar dates, current events and conditions may provide specific contexts, such as climate change, for example, in which films proper horror films can thrive.
The last most important and determining factor, upon which a film’s survival at the box office depends, is simply whether the viewers think the film is good enough or not. It may sound simple, but too much discussion of why movies are flopping all over the place is paying too much attention to everything else except the simple question, “Do people like it or not?”
In the event that Haunted Mansioncritics mostly disliked it and felt it wasn’t funny enough to work as a comedy or scary enough to work as horror, and certainly not good enough to work as an Anti-barbie. The general public was not much more impressed Haunted Mansionawarding the film a B+ grade via Cinemascore.
And this is where the question of “What is good enough?” and other nuances matter. Audience rating A B+ tin is enough to help a film succeed, Yes is an enthusiastic B+, and Yes other factors, i.e. all these other reasons Haunted Mansion acted so badly – work for the film more than against it.
Studios can’t afford to release installments of $150 million budgeted franchises that are based on specific target demographics, and that are in a genre that typically benefits from certain release windows, during atypical windows in against other big brand campaigns, unless they are awesome and able to do it. generating immense audience enthusiasm, word of mouth and repeat business.
If films can also gain critical success or even praise, this is a great help in driving attention and attracting attention to increase public awareness.
With none of these things, though, budget, genre, and release date won’t matter. It has to have a great story told in a great way, as far as the audience is concerned. If it has, and if the audience sees it and agrees with it, then having the right release date and budget and everything else will help.
Haunted house it was a victim of all the other factors: too big a budget for a film released outside the mainstream genre windows and no good marketing while other major IPs dominated the box office and entertainment press, etc. , because she wasn’t good enough. so that the audience doesn’t care about anything else. That’s the unfortunate but honest truth about how most critics and audiences felt (which doesn’t mean that any particular person reading this has to agree, just that it’s ‘a broad statement about how the general public reacted to the film in general). ).
This is Disney’s fifth failure to underperform in 2023, following Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Little Mermaid, elementali Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Guardians of the Galaxy it’s one of the few bright spots in a painful year he still has The wonders i To wish to come from the studio during the most reliable holiday windows.
Seemingly unstoppable forces like Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar’s family fare, and Disney’s live-action remakes of classic animated films fail to appeal to their previously integrated and usually enthusiastic audiences. Hollywood is having an identity crisis, a reflection of our nation’s larger and deeper identity crisis, of course. We are in a moment of great social, political, technological and generational change. Union strikes, fears about AI, the once-revered brilliance—all these things are symptoms of larger movements and changes. That they are sometimes more visible in our pop culture and shared media shouldn’t come as a surprise, and it certainly shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who run the studios.
Be sure to check back here soon, dear readers, for more updates and box office reports, as well as reviews and other movie coverage.
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