There are times when a failure is too big and too important for a studio to continue on in the way it had been. Lightyear has missed to such a level.
There are spoilers in this article regarding Lightyear.
Batman v Superman and its abysmal reception was enough to end the trajectory of all DC movies. Solo: A Star Wars Movie was the first ever bomb for Lucasfilm, and as a result the studio finished its one remaining film in production; years later, there’s still nothing on schedule for cinemas out of Star Wars. John Carter crashed Disney’s best-made plans for a science fiction endeavor. Atlantis essentially killed traditional animation. When the history books look back at this period of time in film, Lightyear will have wiped out Pixar as it is currently constituted.
The situation is unlike anything that Pixar has faced before. Even when they released Cars 2 to critical and audience dismay, the movie still did well enough to make money. When they released The Good Dinosaur, yes it was a signal that things were not going well behind the scenes, but no it was not an existential threat. Onward had the opportunity to claim the pandemic as its cause of failure. Lightyear has no such luxury. Expected originally to make more than one-hundred million dollars in its domestic debut and more than a billion in its full, worldwide release, Lightyear has released to an utter thud. If it manages to cross fifty million in its debut domestic weekend, it will be a miracle. If it doesn’t, we’re already far passed embarrassment. Consider that Disney may be looking at a film that only does something like three-hundred million total worldwide. If that is its final resting place, Lightyear will lose as much as it makes: $300,000,000.
The Walt Disney Company is a huge corporation. But even huge corporations can’t afford to lose those sorts of numbers more than on rare occasion. That means this is untenable going forward. Whatever made Lightyear fail can’t happen again. The problem for Disney and for Pixar is that the failure of this film is squarely on the culture of those who inhabit Pixar. As an example, the same mistakes are on the docket for Strange World, the next theatrical release for Pixar. And the people at the studio are unlikely to accept defeat by pulling the problems out of the movie. That means a fight is brewing, or if Disney is so lucky, a purge. For it was Pixar that used a divisive cultural moment to attempt mutiny against the Disney CEO, Bob Chapek, in order to restore a lesbian kiss to the Lightyear movie. That meant that the film was marketed and discussed in the press as a movie central to the culture war rather than a children’s space ranger flick. Never mind that the movie’s narrative revolves around the lesbian couple who become pregnant and have a family — to the point that Buzz Lightyear becomes the villain for attempting to complete the mission and thereby (somehow) remove the situation in which the couple could come together. Parents were already going to be thrown for a loop when they needed to explain how two mommies can make a baby, the kiss was just Pixar’s coup maximus.
But none of that worked. Disney has become a deeply politicized and divisive company. The people who regularly said “fine, go watch something else” are finally getting their way, then standing in stunned silence as they try to rationalize why an audience didn’t materialize. The mainstream media and the punditry have devolved into putrid stupor, presenting ridiculous reasons as to what has occurred. Why should we listen to them? They didn’t foresee this, so why should they be given credence now?
So a girl kissing a huge dog is ok but kissing another woman is not? pic.twitter.com/g1mphkSVWj
— BoozeHound (@RippingToots) June 15, 2022
Without the commentary class having good answers, people present particularly dumb arguments like the one featured in the tweet above. They can’t tell a Disney animated classic and why it is important from a sexualized parody meant to satisfy perversion.
The real reasons for why Lightyear has failed are simple. You do not need a PhD or an inside source to understand them.
- Disney became political and alienated half their customers.
- Half their customers (or less) came to Lightyear
- This backlash has been largely hidden until now by streaming.
- Disney management has likely seen this trend before the public saw it loud and clear via the box office.
- Stranger Things shows that the American public isn’t a puritan society — there’s a right way to handle sexual orientation issues.
- Putting sexual orientation issues in a children’s movie in such a way that forces parents to have “the talk” isn’t the right way.
- Turning Red already primed the public to be wary. Lightyear went way farther.
Can I also just say that I find it exceedingly funny that they released a movie that centers around a lesbian couple and the bad guy is a man who might accidentally erase their relationship… on Father’s Day Weekend.
Excuses about competition, lower animated film expectations, or streaming influence are silly. Two weeks ago, none of those excuses were out there… the film was being touted as a greater than hundred-million dollar domestic debut. They never tell that in the updates now. Instead, they talk about the $70-90 million they switched to once the presale ticket numbers started coming in and analysts panicked. But it was far worse. And the only reason they didn’t see this coming is because they’re in such a bubble with who they talk to and where they live that they didn’t even know about the thesis we’ve been presenting here at That Park Place for months. They would have rejected it if they had known, but that they didn’t is enough to show you how insular their lives are.
The cleanup for Disney will be hard. The company is overtaken with a California culture that is wholly separate and distinct from the rest of the country and even most of the western world. What do you do when your studio is filled with people who don’t know how to avoid their core beliefs because their core beliefs are at odds with most of the world? It’s a serious societal problem for the United States, but it’s certainly a present financial issue for Disney now. The one good thing for Disney and its attempts to moderate the company: the next time CEO Bob Chapek makes a demand of Pixar, the studio has absolutely no leverage to stand up against him. The strategy and the vision Pixar and others in the company held just as recently as one week ago are now an utter failure, totally repudiated, and done so in full public display.
The pendulum has shifted. The near future isn’t with Disney. That means we’ll deal with the shrieks of true believers (i.e. the creatives within the company), but the case is closed. Star Wars is hobbled. Marvel is moving downward. Pixar is pummeled. And all of it is a result of believing the world was willing to go along with them.
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