Disney’s live action studio, which includes Marvel Studios is crumbling – and all because of their insane attempt to push a woke agenda to an audience who just isn’t having it.
I saw a total of one film in theaters in 2022 and it was more than enough to encourage me to give up on the hopes that my childhood nerd would be entertained by a movie ever again. In May of 2022, I ventured out to see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the studio’s attempt to push diversity wasn’t just obvious – it was downright goofy and exhausting.
The lead character of the film was a Hispanic girl named America and could openly cross borders through space and time – as if that messaging wasn’t overt enough for you, she had lesbian mothers. Perhaps Disney executives should have attended the screening I went to, in order to understand where things were headed for them – when the lesbian “mothers” were introduced, the half-filled theater let out a nearly unanimous, audible groan.
People were sick of it then, and they’re sick of it now – and Disney’s stock shows this. In March of 2021, Disney’s stock reached $197 – as of my writing of this piece, it sits at $83, down nearly 58%. In addition to the failing stocks, Disney’s Marvel Studio’s is currently looking down the line at their biggest flop of a film yet, The Marvels, which currently has 72% less presale tickets than their last flop, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
In case you weren’t aware, The Marvels is the sequel to Captain Marvel, which starred one of the most unlikeable feminist preachers in Hollywood, Brie Larson. Aside from rumors of being a wretch of a human to work with – Larson once famously compared being asked for her phone number by a TSA agent to sexual assault. The Captain Marvel character was really the archetype of misandry in Hollywood – the physical embodiment of the eye-rolling lecture on how men are dumb, weak and feeble compared to women who can never be wrong or fallible in any way.
As it turns out, people don’t enjoy being lectured to at the theater – or on streaming platforms – as other attempts at social justice lecturing failed with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law; The Falcon and the Winter Soldier; and Ms. Marvel failed to pull or retain audiences. Seriously, if you want a groan-worthy, preachy, social justice speech – just watch Anthony Mackie’s Falcon really hand it to these rich, white people and try not to roll your eyes.
But Disney’s Marvel Studios aren’t just their only social justice lecture films that are flopping – The Little Mermaid live action film, whose only marketing ploy was that they made her black – barely passed the break-even point for the film’s massive budget, and their next live action production, Snow White, seems to be attempting to completely sink the ship on purpose.
Nothing epitomizes where Disney currently is like taking the very film that revolutionized cartoons and put their animation studio on the map, Snow White and ‘reimagining’ it. Audiences don’t even have to pretend to understand what “reimagining” could mean in this instance – Disney hired a petulant, obnoxious Gen Z actress to tell us all about it.
Rachel Zegler hates the original Snow White source material – and she hasn’t been quiet about it. From the prince to Snow White ever needing help, to basically every element of the award-winning 1937 classic – she seemingly can’t stand it. Disney went the extra mile by originally not hiring dwarf actors in the film and having some sort of gross group of hipsters following her around. This film is nothing short of a woke disaster – and potentially one of the final nails in the coffin of the current studio – but does it even matter to them at this point?
As the walls slowly crumble around the once great Disney Studios – what will ultimately be the deciding factor on their direction?
In addition to Marvel Studios and Disney’s woke live action remakes of cartoons – both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises have been run into the ground with plots based around social justice lectures – their cartoons teach children about CRT, DEI and gender dysphoria – and their theme parks employ men dressed as women to sell clothes to children. What will it take for them to connect the billions they’ve lost to their decision to push the leftist narrative?
Even with shake ups in their executive leadership, they seem to continue steering the box office Titanic directly into the iceberg. Perhaps the messaging to them is ultimately worth more than the money. As a conservative, it’s fun to watch a company “go woke” and “go broke,” but as a lifelong nerd and movie fan, it’s depressing to see a once great empire destroy everything that was once fun to watch.
I don’t want to end on a totally negative note. Glass half full – you can pick up toys from any of the aforementioned properties – as well as Black Panther, Shang-Chi, and many more Disney productions for less than half of their MSRP at your local “fall off the truck” store. Don’t go to a major retailer for your Christmas shopping – go to Ollie’s, Ross, TJ Maxx, etc. and you can get all of the merchandise for pennies on the dollar.