In the past month, Disney’s “Inside Out 2” has hit over $1.2 billion at the global box office, with over $500 million being domestic. And now “Despicable Me 4” is at about $230 million globally after less than a week ($107 million global and $122 million domestic.) These films are saving the box office. Maybe Hollywood should take note.
The box office has not fared well in the past couple of years. Hollywood can no longer blame the failure on the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, their favorite scapegoats are the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
Personally, I think it’s on poor choices and bad reboots/sequels.
Audiences want good family entertainment.
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It seems audiences are still responding to classic IP when done correctly.
When Pixar made “Lightyear,” they could have won the box office. Still, instead of basing the character on the beloved Buzz Lightyear, people knew they chose to go with a new version that lacked the qualities, voice, and quirkiness of the beloved character. It failed.
Disney tried again with “Wish” and failed, as many felt that the animation wasn’t well done and that the story was bland and corporate.
Films like the Super Mario Bros. Movie, the Barbie Movie, and the Five Nights At Freddy’s Movie did well with audiences. One was animated, and two were live-action, but the stories resonated with people. They gave audiences the characters they expected and good stories.
Winning the box office is not hard; it just has to give customers and fans what they actually want and not what Hollywood wants. Good characters and story over narrative will always win out.
They don’t have to reinvent the wheel but keep it a wheel. The wheel can look different but it still needs to be round and feel like a wheel.
Hopefully, Hollywood will learn from these successes and realize that giving fans what they want isn’t a bad thing, nor does it have to be exclusionary, but it does have to be good.
But this is my opinion.
What do you think?
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