“Both are profitable. What a bunch of nonsense”: Disney Fans Defend Halle Bailey’s The Little Mermaid and Elemental from Being Called ‘Bombs’
Fans look forward to Disney movies that are known to brighten up people’s summers with their highly entertaining productions. In fact, Disney is quite inescapable since it owns the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Avatar, live-action remakes, and whatnot.
Unfortunately, this summer hasn’t been nearly as bright for Disney. Whether it’s because people are done with watching superheroes fly from one end of the big screen to another or the fact that they are willing to wait for the movies to be available on a streaming service is yet to be known.
Disney Fans Refuse to Acknowledge That the Company is Struggling
Disney began seeing a downward trend in box-office collection when Marvel released Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania which was released in the latter half of February 2023. Although the company is clearly struggling with having movies make profits like before, its fans defend the company saying that it’s doing fine.
The struggle has come to a point where even the highly anticipated live-action remake couldn’t touch the $1 billion mark, not to mention Pixar’s Elemental. In response to ScreenRant‘s recent analysis of this issue and iteration of the fact that both these movies didn’t do well, a fan said: “The Little Mermaid and Elemental are NOT failures let alone “huge box office failures”. Both are profitable. What a bunch of nonsense.”
The Little Mermaid and Elemental are NOT failures let alone “huge box office failures”. Both are profitable. What a bunch of nonsense. https://t.co/zdwIK3SMHc
— EmpireCity Box Office (@EmpireCityBO) August 1, 2023
Hardly box office failures!!!
The Little Mermaid is the 6th biggest film of the year, Elemental 12th (and climbing) & Indiana Jones 13th— PopTvFilm (@PopTvFilm) August 1, 2023
Elemental is literally the highest grossing movie not belonging to a preexisting IP since the pandemic started. https://t.co/sCGfggr0Al
— Nicholas Moore says ACAB (@NicholasMoore16) August 1, 2023
1. As experts have pointed out, Little Mermaid is, by definition, not a failure, especially with many factors.
2. Elemental had a bad start, but it is currently the highest grossing movie not belonging to a preexisting IP since the pandemic started. https://t.co/W9onQFyw3M
— The-Autistic-Artist ☀️❤️ (Support WGA and SAG) (@TheAutisticArt) August 2, 2023
Last I check, Elemental is actually doing well! https://t.co/8xVPcUt0k4
— DisFanA113 #FireZaslav #WGAStrong (@disfana113) August 1, 2023
People defending Disney is a natural reaction as generation after generation of people has grown up watching movies produced by this company. However, the marketing costs and production budgets combined together and put against the box-office collection don’t suggest too much of a profit for these films.
Read More: Disney’s Haunted Mansion Ends Up a Catastrophic Flop With Just $33M Box Office Debut
The Little Mermaid Barely Made Any Profits
So far, Halle Bailey starrer The Little Mermaid has grossed $564.2 million against a production budget of $250 million and an estimated marketing budget of $140 million. While a profit of $174.2 million cannot be taken for granted, it is certainly not enough for a company as big as Disney.
Pixar’s Elemental was released on June 10, 2023, with a production budget of $200 million excluding the marketing costs, and has managed to touch the mark with a worldwide gross of $396.5 million so it remains in the safe zone.
Read More: Elemental Now Has the Honor of Lowest Box Office Opening for a Pixar Movie
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, however, did not have any such luck as it had a budget of $295 million for production alone. Estimates suggested that the movie has to earn at least twice its making cost just to break even. The movie bombed as it has only been able to gross $356.8 million as of the last day of July.
Source: Twitter
