When Disney goes woke, it goes broke. When it remembers its audience, however, it succeeds.
It has been a good few weeks for the Walt Disney Company. Its two most recent films are history-setting box office successes, and the company that has spent years hemorrhaging money may be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel if it takes the right lessons away from its success.
Last week, Disney announced that its recently released animated film “Inside Out 2” had overtaken “Frozen 2” as the highest-grossing animated film in history, globally grossing $1.46 billion since its premiere on June 14.
On Sunday, July 28, the most recent Marvel Cinematic Universe entry, “Deadpool and Wolverine,” became the sixth highest-grossing opening weekend of all time, grossing $438 million worldwide in three days. It has also been well received, with a 96 percent positive audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
This is good news for a company that has suffered a challenging few years. The company ousted its CEO Bob Chapek in November 2022 and replaced him with Bob Iger, who quickly announced a slate of sequels, layoffs, and cost-cutting endeavors. The company was subsequently beset by a poor year of box office returns. Seven of Disney’s major 2023 releases, including “Wish,” “Elemental,” “The Little Mermaid,” “The Haunted Mansion,” “Indiana Jones 5,” “The Marvels,” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” underperformed at the box office.
Overall, this year has shown good signs for the Disney corporation and indications that it may be willing
