It must be said that it was nice to spend a Saturday afternoon in a tightly packed movie theater full of people who are enthusiastic to see a movie. That doesn’t happen frequently anymore, shy of hyper-successful films like “Dune: Part II” and “Barbie.” It is rare nowadays to get turned away at the box office because the theater is full, as the guy behind me was; my local theater is still having trouble giving away free “Furiosa” posters.
However, it shouldn’t be surprising that animated films would be the things that break the trend. “Kung Fu Panda 4” grossed $545 million this spring primarily because it was the only animated movie in theaters through three months, and “Despicable Me 4” is currently tracking for an $80 million opening for the July 4 weekend. April’s rerelease of “Shrek 2” grossed more than Pixar’s last three releases combined.
Naturally, the surprise comes in the fact that this opening is for a Disney film — coming from a studio that is facing enormous amounts of burnout and controversy due to its perceived partisan slant, declining quality, and proclivity for anti-creative decision-making, and that doesn’t include this week’s Project Veritas sting. In 2019, Disney produced eight of the 10 most popular blockbusters of the year, and seven of them broke the billion-dollar mark at the box office. In 2023, seven of their eight films were box-office disasters. Disney is an unwieldy unprofitable sinking ship, and the majority of its franchises are battered and exhausted.
An animated family picture like
