I feel that this is a topic that I, along with many others, have discussed in great detail recently. Disney is the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world, and their exploits are visible for all to see. Complaints about their focus on sequels and nostalgia, remaking all their old animated films while not making a new hand-drawn one in over a decade, and how they’ve created a huge monopoly by buying up so many brands and companies over the years are all valid and consistent. And yet, with the recent string of films and successes out of the company, I feel that something new has set in with my perspective. Disney is at a point where, regardless of their success or failure, they are now locked into making brand-focused movies without any sort of larger artistic risk-taking.
The biggest hits out of Disney over the last year were Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, Moana 2, and the recent Lilo & Stitch remake. All of these were either a sequel, a remake, or focused on nostalgia and characters from an existing franchise. On its own, a film being any of these is perfectly acceptable and can still be exceptional in its own right if the effort is put in. However, aside from Inside Out 2 being pretty good, these movies are simply mediocre or don’t have much to offer aside from reminding people of things from the past. The reason I bring this up is that Disney has made most of its recent focus as of late to follow these templates. Pixar is focused on sequels to Toy Story and The Incredibles. Disney Animation is releasing Zootopia 2 later this year and has two more Frozen films in the works. Marvel is pivoting from their initial plans for the next Avengers films to focus on the old X-Men and bringing back Robert Downey Jr as Dr Doom to get people’s attention back. It’s a sign that the creative direction of the company will skew this way going forward, and it is a concern in terms of artistic potential.
Back in the 90s, then CEO Michael Eisner made a statement that has stuck in my head for a while. To paraphrase, he stated that the Disney company is committed mostly to making money and that they happen to make art while doing so. In short terms, he is correct. Disney’s focus is always on making a profit above all, but it felt that there was still a sense of effort behind their endeavors. The thing with Disney right now and how it operates is that they have so many brands and IPs to play around with that they have no motive to take any sort of risk or experiment at all with their brand. Back in the 90s, Disney took risks with ventures into expanding their theme park brand, building up new talent with their animation division, putting their money into Pixar for the first computer animated films, and many other areas. Now that they have built so much since then and have bought even more on top of that, it feels like Disney is resting on their laurels. Rather than hiring someone who is more artistically independent or someone who has a different sort of artistic approach, they just get someone to follow what the producers want in short order. Marvel has practically made a fortune at this point, mostly getting work-for-hires as opposed to the varied journeymen they used to get early on.
It results in many of their films feeling safe and unambitious since there’s a feeling that the company is more focused on fulfilling the brand expectations rather than making a movie that will last. Wish can be a litmus test for this issue. A movie meant to be the 100th anniversary celebration of the company as a whole became one of the most hated and joked about films they have ever made. It feels like a film less driven by passion and more trying to slot in the base ideas of what makes a Disney film algorithmically successful. Any sort of interesting ideas were tossed out in favor of safer elements. Even the animation, while interesting on paper, feels like a half-baked compromise since Disney wasn’t willing to make another hand-drawn film or completely commit to a new style similar to Spider-verse or other recent works. We instead get this in between area where the designs stay the same as all other recent Disney films (probably for marketing purposes) while altering elements such as textures and framerate that don’t fully work because of their implementation being haphazard and not fully committed to. The songs weren’t written by experienced composers or songwriters, but instead by cheaper pop songwriters with no sort of experience writing musicals, to likely replicate the pop chart success of a few of the previous Disney films. All I have to say is that there’s a reason the songs in Wish have been endlessly mocked. It’s a film that feels more made by a thousand compromises and studio notes as opposed to a consistent and confident artistic vision because Disney wanted to generate something that would be theoretically successful,l forgetting that a lot of their successes in the past were huge risks.
A sadder note, though, is that even when Disney allows a film to be more artistically interesting and distinctive, they don’t put in the effort to make them visible. I’ve noticed that most of the original work out of the company as of late has been treated with apathy and little focus. Films like Luca, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Turning Red were dumped onto Disney+ instead of being pushed back for a proper theatrical release. Strange World, Elemental, and even the upcoming release Elio have been given poor marketing and a lack of general focus by the company compared to the brand films. All of this to say is that Disney has actively devalued their original projects while focusing on familiar brands since they recognize they will automatically make more with the latter, both at the box office and by shoring up their losses. In their eyes, the stable of brands they have is too big to fail, and there is far less incentive to take any sort of risk on a new project. Even Encanto, one of the more popular recent Disney films, was not given any attention until its songs started gaining traction when the film went to Disney+. The fact that one of the most recent original successes out of the company was left to die until an unexpected rise saved it is a bad sign.
The largest issue, though, is that the focus of the brands is not in any new or exciting direction, but one that feels cheap and hollow. The Disney remakes are self-explanatory. Taking films made in animation and xeroxing them with a few arbitrary changes. It’s the film equivalent of copying your homework for a new assignment, and it keeps working. Even with a bomb like the recent Snow White remake, people still will keep turning up for them for one reason or another, given how much the Lilo & Stitch one just made. However, this can also apply to their other brands and franchises. Marvel has focused far less on quality and more on quantity, and while there have been statements that there is a plan to decrease the number of overall projects, the way they are made will still be rushed and not really value individual directorial vision. Deadpool & Wolverine and Spiderman: No Way Home were the two biggest hits for the studio this decade, and both were heavily filled with nostalgia and a flatter, more artificial, and grey approach filmmaking-wise. Directors like Shawn Levy and Jon Watts aren’t bad filmmakers on their own, but they aren’t brought in for their vision; but as workmen. Not even interesting ones like the journeymen directors of the past who could still do interesting things with their filmmaking, but ones who just fill out what the producers want, either in shooting or the rushed post-production.
Star Wars has also fallen into this cycle. There hasn’t been a new Star Wars film in almost 6 years, and the next one will be a Mandalorian film. A show that once felt like a breath of fresh air in how it approached new areas of the franchise, only to fall into nostalgia and choose to bring back side characters constantly. The new film seems to be a continuation of that since characters from Clone Wars and Rebels will be major parts. The element of work-for-hire also applies here since the only other film with concrete momentum is Star Wars: Starfighter by Shawn Levy, which seems to be a reworked version of Rogue Squadron, which was supposed to be directed by Patty Jenkins. Even when the new line of films started, the fact that episode 7 relied so much on the original trilogy for its identity rather than taking a new sort of direction both shows the inability for Disney to truly allow a new risk here and said choice crippled the long-term direction of the Sequel Trilogy given how much of a mess it ended up. A project like Andor is an anomaly given the mentality of nostalgia and recognizability that Star Wars is stuck in. Rian Johnson said that new risks were what would be necessary to keep the franchise alive going forward, but Disney seems content to go the opposite direction to detrimental results.
Even in simpler areas of Disney’s film output, this applies. Remember when Guillermo Del Toro was supposed to make a Haunted Mansion movie? Well, that never got off the ground, and Disney instead fast-tracked a comedic film that didn’t really take full advantage of the potential of what a Haunted Mansion film could be and only felt like a marginal improvement over the Eddie Murphy one. Tron Ares will be the first Tron film in over a decade after Legacy. However, instead of getting Joseph Kosinski back after he made Top Gun: Maverick, which made vault-loads of money while also being an extremely well-crafted film, they instead got Joachim Ronning, whose experience has been Pirates 5 and Maleficent 2. Trading in an experienced craftsman for a basic Disney work-for-hire. Not only that, but having the film mostly be set in the real world as opposed to the computer one and having it be led by Jared Leto makes the whole affair feel like an approach that isn’t interested in exploring the franchise in a new way, but just bringing it back because.
Even outside of their films, the focus on branded and cheap experiences has even poured into the theme parks and resorts. So many of the recent hotels embrace a modernist look that is far less compelling and detailed than the resorts of the past, and feel done for cost-cutting measures. The overall operations and quality of life at the parks have declined as well, alongside massive price increases and a huge paid system for line reservations that has mucked up the environment of wait times. Even the rides being built have mostly been IP-focused and not always in a concise way. Removing Muppet Vision to put a Monsters Inc land despite there being plenty of unused space otherwise. Taking out the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island at the Magic Kingdom to put in a new Cars ride. Even in foreign parks, this is an issue where half of Hong Kong Disneyland’s Tomorrowland was turned into Marvel, and the Paris Space Mountain, once tastefully themed to the classic From the Earth to the Moon film, has been stuck in a cheap Star Wars re-theme. Disney parks used to value a sense of artistry behind their development and construction, but it feels like it has been neglected in favor of increasing guest intake and pushing branded attractions in ways that feel cheap. The best example I can mention is that they slapped the Pixar characters on Paradise Pier, and it ironically feels cheaper than the original version that was designed to emulate the basic boardwalk carnivals.
In short, Disney has pivoted their focus onto brands in an aggressive manner because it gives them a better short-term gain, gives no support to their new original projects, and mostly hires yes-men directors to focus on nostalgia or quick-paced productions. Disney is simultaneously not willing to take many risks on new projects and will dump any new venture onto streaming or not give them the attention they need anyway. What’s more concerning is that there isn’t any sign that this is stopping soon. After Lightyear, a Toy Story spinoff, flopped, Pixar CEO Pete Doctor stated that the studio would be pivoting to making films with broader appeal as opposed to individual stories and experiences. Naturally, people got angry over this since it implied that the studio would move to make more generic sequels and films that don’t take any risks, which is sad given how the division started as a trailblazer in its medium. Not only that, but the recent films by the studio that focused on individual perspectives were not given the proper support since they were thrown onto streaming or not marketed, while Lightyear, an odd spinoff with not much audience investment, got a full release and flopped hard. It implies that they will keep throwing branded stuff at the wall even when it’s apparent it isn’t working.
Films like The Lion King, Toy Story, and even the original Snow White were all massive risks that nearly everyone doubted, but they ended up becoming huge cultural forces because of the confidence of the artists and the willingness to deliver on a vision. I understand that the state of entertainment is a chaotic oil fire right now, given how streaming is a costly anchor and that people aren’t going to the theaters anymore. However, Disney feels less focused on actually solving their issues and is more content to kick the can down the road. They aren’t thinking about how they can create new ideas or what they’re going to do once they run out of things to remake, make sequels to, or reboot. Disney has always had peaks and valleys of sorts, and I know the company will make classic and artistically driven films again. I just don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon, given that Moana 2, a few episodes of a scrapped streaming show tied together, made a billion, and that they’re doing a Moana remake. Yes, remaking that. Not even ten years after the original film’s release.
