Disney’s ‘Strange World’ Plummets 60% In Its Second Weekend
Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Strange World crashed nearly 60% in its second weekend, earning an estimated $4.9 million. It did so while screening in more theaters – 4,174 – than any other film in North American theaters, drawing just $1,178 per screen.
The dismal second weekend follows a disastrous Thanksgiving holiday launch, in which the film failed to reach its already tepid box office projections and ended up with a ‘B’ from the market research film Cinemascore, which is unheard of for a Disney film. Strange World’s total stands at $25.5M, and it is currently on pace to become the lowest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios film since 2011’s Winnie the Pooh, which was the studio’s last hand-drawn animated feature. The difference was that Winnie the Pooh had a budget of around $30M; the budget of Strange World has been reported by Hollywood trades to be anywhere between $135-180M.
What’s clear at this point is that the Don Hall-directed Disney film won’t come anywhere near the top-earning animation films of 2022, including Illumination’s Minions: The Rise of Gru ($369.5M), Pixar’s Lightyear ($118.3M), Dreamworks Animation’s The Bad Guys ($97.2M) and Warner Animation Group’s DC League of Super-Pets ($93.6M). Rather, Strange World will have to work hard to top domestic releases of anime titles like Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero ($38.1M) and Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie ($34.5M), and it will be an uphill grind that becomes even more difficult with the upcoming releases of Avatar: The Way of Water and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
Internationally, Strange World picked up $5.4M from 43 markets in its second frame. That’s $16.8M total from abroad, lifting the worldwide cume to $42.3M. Top foreign plays are U.K., Mexico, Spain, Germany, and Italy, though it has yet to crack $2M in any country outside of the U.S.
While much has been made about the lack of marketing for the film, there are indications that the studio knew months in advance that the film wasn’t testing well. The limited marketing was likely an internal decision so as to not throw good money after bad. And while former Disney CEO Bob Chapek will likely get much of the blame for the film’s failure, Disney Animation head Jennifer Lee had started developing the film while Bob Iger was still running the company the first time around.
The failure of Strange World is uncharted territory for Disney Animation in its modern cg era, so expect the blame game to continue as executives try to distance themselves from the project. There is likely to be fallout of some kind at the upper levels of the studio’s management. Who ends up getting the blame for the film’s performance remains to be seen.
