In this post, I will look into Disney, the company that has done Pixar and 20th Century Studios dirty these past couple of years. To even think that the only things keeping 20th Century Studios alive are animated Diary of a Wimpy Kid films releasing on Disney+ and Avatar sequels. Besides that, 20th Century Studios is well known for The Call of the Wild, The New Mutants, and the Empty Man. They were also known as 20th Century Fox and that studio was known for Star Wars, X-Men, and Avatar. More recently, 20th Century Studios is known for Free Guy, The Last Duel, and Ron’s Gone Wrong. Disney is well known for The Lion King, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Avengers: Endgame. More recently, Disney is known for Black Widow, Eternals, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, showing that Disney has been relying heavily on Marvel to make them money not just this year, but for a while now.
The Current Situation of Disney
To deal with COVID, Disney decided to give some of their major films either a hybrid Premier Access/theatrical release or just dump the film on Disney+. This stopped when Free Guy and Shang-Chi released as they showed that films can actually do well exclusively in theaters now. Let’s see how well Disney did in 2021.
2021
Raya and the Last Dragon - The year started with Raya and the Last Dragon, releasing March 5, 2021 in theaters and on Premier Access for $30, the first hybrid release that Disney did. For COVID times, the film was on par with other films like The Croods: A New Age and Tenet. Unfortunately for Raya and the Last Dragon, the film only made $130M on a budget of $100M. However, under normal times and not with a hybrid release, I think Raya and the Last Dragon could’ve made around $300M worldwide. While not as good as recent Walt Disney Animation Studios films, this would’ve at least been a moderate success for Disney.
The Woman in the Window - This was the first 2021 film from 20th Century Studios this year and the last film made by Fox 2000. The Woman in the Window was sold to Netflix. Based on how well the film was received (spoiler: it wasn’t), Disney dodged a bullet here. A normal theatrical release would’ve had the film on par with The Art of Racing in the Rain, another Fox 2000 film, and that film didn’t even profit at the box office. On a budget of $40M, I’m guessing The Woman in the Window would’ve only made about $30M worldwide. It seemed like Fox 2000 died not with a bang, but with a whimper. As for J
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Looking at 2022 releases (not Disney+), a lot of the announced slate seems to be Fox holdovers
- Death on the Nile (Feb 11) - Fox
- Bob's Burgers (May 27) - Fox
- Untitled 20th Century Studios Film (June 10) - ?
- Untitled 20th Century Studios Film (Sep 16) - ?
- Untitled 20th Century Studios Film (Sep 23) - ?
- Untitled David O. Russell Project (Nov 4) - Disney I believe, excited for this
- Avatar 2 (Dec 16) - Fox obviously
- Untitled 20th Century Studios Film (Dec 23) - ?
On the streaming (non-animation) side, 2 fully post-acquisition ones are Boston Strangler and Rosaline, a "comedic and revisionist take of Romeo and Juliet ... seen through the eyes of Juliet's cousin Rosaline" (Kaitlin Dever)
Maybe a lot of the untitled films would be Disney projects, but who knows. I didn't look much into Searchlight Pictures, but I assume a lot of their films might already be Disney since I'm guessing they're smaller budget/quicker to make
I'm interested to see the direction Disney takes the 20th Century division, and based on films like the David O. Russell one and Rosaline, it could be quite good
