Thoughts on Disney

Can we talk about something that’s pretty fascinating? The major movie release schedule for Disney next year is insane. They are starting the year with captain marvel the first solo female lead marvel movie. Just from that alone it stands to hit a box office number that has not been hit by many. This being just the first of their major releases is what has my mind blown. The follow up will be the untitled avengers 4 which is the sequel to infinity war, a movie that had a $1.16 billion worldwide box office and in May of 2018 help put Disney passed the $3 billion dollars mark. Now let’s just take that as a sample. Black panther and infinity war were the 2 earlier releases of 2018 and the 2 earliest releases for 2019 that I mentioned have the potential to do the same thing. It wouldn’t be outrageous to think that these 2 releases will achieve at the very least another $3 billion to start and Disney then has 8 more major films before the end of 2019. The next pair up after avengers 4 are dumbo and Aladdin 2 live action remakes and with these comes a little more uncertainty. The lowest grossing of these recent films I believe is Pete’s Dragon it made only $140 million worldwide, yet on the other side of this there’s beauty and the beast which grossed nearly $1.3 billion dollars. I’m no box office expert just a Disney fan that’s curious of how things are going to play out. So let’s say these 2 movies fall into the mid-range of live action remake box office numbers, more like Cinderella (2015) this racked in $543 million worldwide this is nothing to sneeze at and if you’re following that 4 movies with the possibility of totaling just over $4 billion. Yes kids, that’s billions with a “B” followed by an “illion” and we still have 6 more releases to go so buckle up. The years 5th movie is a definite juggernaut because it’s toy story 4 but it is an sequel about 9 years removed from the last installment so let’s see what kind of affect it’ll have on it’s earnings. Well, toy story 3 is a part of the billion dollar club with a $1.067 billion worldwide box office but as I said let’s take into account sequels that come much later. For that we’ll look at incredibles 2 a 14 year later sequel so I’d say it’s a good example to use, oh and what do we find another billion dollar big boy with a $1.2 billion worldwide number. So it’s fair assume toy story 4 can bring in another billion dollars, I’m estimating half way through the year with these 5 movies making $5.1 billion worldwide and there is 1 sure fire titan of a film that’ll end the year. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves we’ve got a king to talk about first, a lion king to be exact. That’s right we’ve got another remake to talk about, not exactly a live-action remake technically but it’s as close as we’re going to get. But let’s talk about it’s money making potential, I know there’s been this $1.9 billion dollar estimate being tossed around and that’s for experts that know more to iron out exactly. But the way I see it lion king being so beloved I do think it’ll be on the higher side of the live action remake box office so at the least it can do the same numbers as the jungle book 2016 which was a little over $900 million so with that 6th movie release brings us to a pretty even $6 billion dollars. After that we dive into some unknown waters with Artemis Fowl based on a hugely popular children’s fantasy series of books the only recent comparison is A Wrinkle in Time which only garnered $132 million that was a huge disappointment for Disney but when you’re earning like they will be and are these kinds of experiments are easy for them to do. On the other hand Kenneth Branagh is a producer and the director his done both Thor and Cinderella for Disney the with a total box office taking of $992 million. So if this movie ends up going down as a failed experiment there’s I’ll estimate on the lower side at least at $300 million. Speaking of experiments and gambles there’s Disney jungle cruise the movie the last movie new based on a ride was tomorrowland which only hit $200 million but this movie does have Dwayne “the rock” Johnson. Who does bring in an audience the last few movies he’s lead were skyscraper($300 million) rampage($425 million) and Jumanji($960 million) which is closer to the family friendly feel that jungle cruise will have when we look at it that way this film can at least do pirates of the Caribbean level numbers so let’s say it does as well as the first pirates worldwide release at $600 million. That’s $6.9 billion with two more movies left to be released and these movies are not small indies or gambles in the least. Frozen 2 and star wars episode 9 these films will be massive. Frozen made $1.2 billion dollars in 2013 there’s no reason to expect any less from the sequel if not more. But the Star Wars numbers are a little more of an interesting story episode 7 cleared $2 billion yet last Jedi clears just over $1.3 billion so depending on what the fans of the franchise decide to do Disney stands to make $9.4 billion-$10 billion by the end of 2019. Possibly $10 BILLION DOLLARS WORLDWIDE box office! That’s a ridiculous amount of money on top of which there’s the merchandising for these films and all in the same year Disney will possibly be releasing their streaming service.  I am fairly confident there won’t be any money left in any of our pockets because Disney will have taken it all.