Disney Is What Happens When Movie Studios Run Out Of Ideas
The Walt Disney Company became the dominant force in the entertainment industry on creativity, ingenuity and classic family storytelling.
Over time, those values and ideals have diminished, to the point where the current iteration of the company under former and current CEO Bob Iger is almost unrecognizable. Beloved theme park properties are demolished to make way for more branded, intellectual property-heavy attractions that age poorly. For most of the past decade, the film studio has taken to releasing "live action" versions of its animated classics, with disappointing, i.e. "Beauty and the Beast," to abhorrent, i.e. "Aladdin" and "Dumbo," results.
Disney just held its annual fan convention, called "D23," where it announce upcoming projects, both at its theme parks and through the film studio. And the section of the conference where it revealed much of its upcoming movie slate shows perfectly exemplifies what's happened to the modern Disney company: it has run out of new ideas.
Disney CEO Bob Iger recently discussed his hopes for finding a strategic partner for ESPN. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)
Disney's Original Attempts Failed, So It's Back To Sequels
Sequels are nothing new in Hollywood; it's long been the industry's strategy to give audiences more of a successful property. But sequels are created only when there's a new concept to build on.
And it seems like Disney's just…run out of new concepts. Many of its latest attempts to build original franchises and properties have failed, in spectacular fashion. "Strange World" was one of the biggest flops in film history. "Haunted Mansion," based on its beloved theme park ride, was another disastrous bomb. "Elemental" flopped, "Wish" was a train wreck.
Many of the company's latest projects have failed due to the obsessive encroach of progressive ideology into children's movies. And Disney may have learned its lesson that audiences don't want left-wing ideas incorporated into family entertainment. That's great. Except that's been replaced with…more sequels.
"Incredibles 3," "Moana 2," "Toy Story 5," "Zootopia 2," "Freaky Friday 2," "Frozen III."
These are the types of projects that in the past, would have been straight-to-VHS releases. Instead, this is what the company gave its most die-hard fans to get excited about.
That's not to say that all these projects will be bad, or embarrassing. But there's little-to-no creativity required to regurgitate the same concepts and film worlds people have already seen. That seems to be the only thing Disney's capable of these days. Or when the company does try to create something new, it incorporates unpopular messages that doom a film before it's even released.
Just like the upcoming "Snow White" remake.
One of Disney's greatest embarrassments involved the leak of production stills from the film showing a laughable collection of unrecognizable characters representing the seven dwarfs from the original property.
READ: Disney Casts Non-White, Non-Dwarfs To Play Dwarfs In Snow White Film
The film's star, Rachel Zegler, has publicly denounced the original movie, the film that made the Disney company into an animation powerhouse, and stated that this version of the Snow White character would be a "leader." Which is not what the story is about. Then she said there'd be no love interest in it, while creating obvious friction with her co-star Gal Gadot, by tweeting "Free Palestine" when Gadot previously served in the Israeli army.
Disney then replaced the widely-panned human actors in the "Snow White" project with a horrifying collection of hastily thrown together CGI dwarfs. That somehow look even worse. Relatedly, one of the top comments on the trailer page is "I'm rooting for the poison apple."
That's what modern Disney has become. It hires controversial actors on the left, while firing actors like Gina Carano on the right. It has no direction other than more of what it thinks it knows works. There's no creativity, originality, or sense of how to retell classic stories without becoming a "South Park" skit.
Because families are desperate for entertainment and are familiar with "The Incredibles" and "Frozen," those movies will inevitably be successful financially. And they may even be good. But they once again indicate Disney doesn't have much else going for it. And as we've seen with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, eventually, when quality and originality drops, audiences tune out. It may be coming sooner rather than later.