Disney's dominance dwindles: Marvel leads 2023's biggest flops

The Disney studio is experiencing its most challenging period in decades. Last year, four of the top five movie flops were productions from the renowned studio. Topping this notorious list is the movie "Marvels," which incurred losses of up to $237 million.

In recent years, Disney has spent billions of dollars to acquire studios such as Pixar (computer animations), Marvel (comic book adaptations), and 20th Century Fox ("Avatar"), thereby becoming unrivaled in the film market. Almost exclusively, Disney titles repeatedly found themselves at the top of the season's biggest hits. However, its absolute dominance is now a thing of the past. In 2023, only one Disney title made it into the Top 5 global box office hits – "Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3" (4th position).

Yet, we can find many more titles from the famous studio – as many as four – in the TOP 5 biggest box office flops of 2023. Market analysts have noted for some time that Disney acquires competing studios and initially squeezes everything it can out of them but fails to set a developmental path. Pixar animations used to be major events worthy of an Oscar, every Marvel movie was a big hit, and every Fox film maintained a high standard. Now, everything is cooked in the same pot and tastes bland.

The biggest flop of 2023 turned out to be "Marvels". For many years, Marvel comic book adaptations enjoyed record viewership in theaters. Sure, there were occasional missteps, but never has a production from this studio sold poorly or incurred losses. However, "Marvel" suffered a failure that cost Disney Studios as much as $237 million in losses. According to the "Deadline" website, the film's revenues from distribution in theaters, on television, and online streaming amounted to just $218 million. Meanwhile, the costs associated with producing and promoting the film reached $455 million.

"The studio is looking for someone to blame for the dismal results. Everyone is now ashamed of the film. Meanwhile, it has been known for months that such a disaster would happen sooner or later. It came sooner. The audience has signaled that they are no longer enjoying this entertainment. Marvel Studios’ cinematic movies used to be exclusive productions, now they have become one of the episodes of the comic serial, which can be watched daily on the Disney+ platform," wrote a critic from Decider.

The only film not produced by Disney to "succeed" in making it into the Top 5 biggest movie flops of 2023 is "The Flash." The Warner Bros. production resulted in losses amounting to $155 million, which is very large but still significantly less than in the case of "Marvels." It is worth noting that the biggest disasters were comic book adaptations, which until now were quite reliable in cinemas.

The adaptation of the DC Comics comic book in total received quite good reviews (and certainly much better than "Marvels"), but in its case, the mess was made by the lead actor Ezra Miller, whose escapades led to the studio receiving petitions from fans to remove him from the movie's cast. There were also calls for boycotting him and the entire film. The heads of Warner Bros. studios were terrified. Such turmoil around the production always had a devastating impact on the popularity of the title in cinemas. And it was confirmed.

Third place on the list of flops for 2023 went to "Indiana Jones and the Artifact of Destiny". The film suffered losses amounting to $143 million. This was not how Harrison Ford's farewell to the iconic character was supposed to look. The superproduction's problems started right after the grand premiere, which took place at the Cannes Festival. During the film screening, everything still looked good. An emotional Harrison Ford was awarded the Honorary Golden Palm and received several minutes of standing ovation. However, journalists at the screening did not share the audience's enthusiasm.

Harrison Ford's character turned out to be too old and too archaic for contemporary audiences (film market analysts in the States pointed out quite rare statistics: 45 percent of the audience was over 45 years old, and 23 percent was over 55 years old). There was regret that Steven Spielberg did not decide to direct the last part of Indiana Jones. Perhaps the film would have been better, but would that have saved it from financial failure?

Fourth place on the list of flops for 2023 is the animation "Wish" – losing $131 million. The production, created for the 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company, turned out to be perhaps ambitious in concept but proved to be a thin film, completely ignored by viewers. Maybe it would have been better to go with the first Pixar movie that, although purchased by Disney, is also starting to produce weaker movies but still maintains a decent level.

Rounding out the top five flops of 2023 is "Haunted Mansion" – incurring losses of $177 million. 20 years after the movie's release starring Eddie Murphy under the same name, the Disney studio deemed it appropriate to create a new version of this horror for young audiences. The first version was considered weak, boring, and tedious. The second one left reviewers speechless.