In the 2000s, Disney reigned supreme over other studios with strategies that led the company to the top. For about fifteen years now, many fans of the big-eared company have been wondering why the Walt Disney Company can no longer fill theaters like it used to and what choices made it sink little by little, to the point that the next live-action film Snow White is likely to be a real flop. We therefore look at the 8 worst decisions that have been made by the company so far. today.
#8 The transition to 3D animation
While Pixar studios' talent for 3D animation has been recognized since their very first feature film, Toy Story – co-produced by Disney -, the animation branch of Disney studios has shone for many decades with its mastery of 2D animation. In its great animation classics, Disney took the step into 3D with the unloved Chicken Littlein 2005, after having first tried it with Dinosaur a few years earlier. Then, events accelerated and the last two animated feature films from the studios to use 2D were The Princess and the Frog in 2009 and Winnie the Poohin 2011. Since then, Disney studios have abandoned this mastery of animation that had made their reputation. Even if Frozen or Moana: The Legend of the End of the World were huge successes, It's a shame that we no longer see any Disney princess brought to life with real drawings in 2D animated films. Especially since the company has probably lost a significant number of viewers attached to cartoons. the old one, with this most questionable strategic choice.
#7 Disney+ prices
If the arrival of the Disney+ platform in November 2019 and April 2020 in our beautiful country brought a breath of fresh air to the streaming offers we had until then, with in addition attractive prices of €6.99 per month and €69.99 per year, the sharp increase in these rates in the years that followed, to the point where they now cost €11.99 per month and €119.99 per year for the Premium version of the service in France, has really hurt consumers' wallets. Unfortunately, this is without taking into account the next increase of $2 per month in the United States next October, which should probably also reach us by the beginning of 2025. With a drop in the number of original productions and ever more expensive rates, Disney is playing a game here a very dangerous game.
#6 The dismissal of Johnny Depp
Unfortunately, it was the actor's legal troubles with his ex-wife Amber Heard that got the better of his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean saga, as well as his 20-year collaboration with Disney Studios. A dismissal that was strongly criticized since no judgment had yet been pronounced by the courts; when the latter was rendered, the criticism became even more severe towards the studio with the big ears. The dismissal of Johnny Depp induced new avenues of reflection not necessarily obvious for a Pirates of the Caribbean 6and especially the cancellation of the production of a series on the famous illusionist Harry Houdini, with the star of Edward Scissorhands in the lead role. Choices on the part of Disney that made Depp say that he would not want to play for the studio again for anything in the world. However, it seems that he has reversed his decision to the great delight of the fans of the Black Pearl and especially of its captain.
#5 The dismissal of James Gunn
The director of Guardians of the Galaxywas fired after some particularly provocative and controversial tweets he made long before he was so famous came to light. These outrageous tweets were not viewed favorably by Disney, who fired him after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2; James Gunn was hired by Warner to direct The Suicide Squad. Disney having realized its strategic stupidity, nevertheless managed to bring him back one last time to direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, before the talented James Gunn definitively left for the competition to take the reins of DC Studios. This is a huge loss for Disney, knowing again that all of this director's films have been huge successes.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000#4 The new Pixar films on Disney+
While the ever-increasing prices of Disney+ are causing problems for users of the platform, there is another big problem, and not the least, which is the fact that three of the latest Pixar films have been released on Disney+ rather than in theaters. This “strategic” choice on the part of the big-eared studio, probably in order to reduce distribution costs and promote their streaming platform, is simply catastrophic for the visibility of these animated films. If until now, Pixar's feature films benefited from a first theatrical release, the fact of offering them exclusively on Disney+ is something that has undoubtedly caused many viewers to lose these films. A choice that is all the more questionable, when we see today how all platforms are struggling to be profitable. Furthermore, the release of Soul, Luca and Red Alert on the platform has been criticized by Pixar's management. #3 The closure of Touchstone Pictures
This division has allowed Disney to produce more adult films for decades, among which we can find Who Framed Roger Rabbit?by Robert Zemeckis, Armageddon and Pearl Harbor by Michael Bay, or Lincoln by Steven Spielberg. Unfortunately, by 2016 the studio was in decline, with its last feature film distributed being A Life Between Oceansin collaboration with DreamWorks. The label was then inactive for 3 years, before the parent company with the big ears decided to close it in 2019, following the acquisition of 21st Century Fox and its subsidiary 20th Century Fox. Disney studios then counted on their new division 20th Century Studios to produce what they had produced until now with Touchstone Pictures, but This choice is particularly regrettable when we realize that this studio has allowed great directors to offer films that have now become cult and that this brand that was Touchstone Pictures is therefore lost to never.
#2 The bad choices of Live-action
This point is particularly important to emphasize, because while adapting the firm's animated classics into live-action films could be a good idea, focusing on the works that have had the most success is highly questionable. Instead of adapting the studio's biggest hits, which over the years seems to tire viewers and unsurprisingly has an impact on the box office, Disney should perhaps have looked at animated films that didn't work that well when they were released. Focusing on these adaptations would have allowed them to offer new stories for a large part of the audience and could even rehabilitate the original animated films. If you're wondering which ones would be wise to adapt, there are many examples, but we can already imagine without any worries a live-action of Treasure Planet: A New Universe, which has a simply breathtaking universe and would deserve such an adaptation, or even Atlantis, the lost empire. Without forgetting the latter that we covered recently in a dedicated article.
#1 Rely mainly on its major licenses
This gigantic strategic error was not made only by Disney: Warner also made it with the DCEU which failed to find its own identity, which led to huge failures and the worst ending ever with the film The Flash, not to mention the trilogy of Fantastic Beasts based on the Harry Potter universe, but whose lack of global vision for all the films and the dismissal of Johnny Depp in his role as Gellert Grindelwald ended up derailing the planned sequels. However, Warner has since been able to renew itself with new licenses such as Dune or even Barbie(although let's be honest, the latter may not deserve all the success it has had). Unfortunately, when we see the exploitation of the MCU, we really have the impression that the House of Ideas no longer has that many ideas to renew itself; as for the Star Wars universe, the only works that manage to stand out are the animated series, the live-action ones playing far too often on nostalgia and not offering much originality in many cases. In terms of Disney animated films, it's not much more reassuring with Vaiana 2, Zootopia 2 and Frozen 3 AND 4. We only have sequels here and nothing that really stands out.
Tell us in the comments section what you think of Disney today and don't miss out on discovering this very promising project that unfortunately risks being abandoned by the studios.