Disney CEO Pushes Back Against Idea Of Superhero Fatigue

They're superheros! Why are they fatigued?!

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

You have to remember that a lot of these movies are extremely front-loaded, simply because many people want to avoid spoilers - this is particularly true of MCU movies, where there are a lot of things (surprise cameos, etc) that will get spoiled very easily in these days of social media.

A big part of the thrill of watching SMNWH on opening day was that you were among the first to know that it featured all 3 of the Spider dudes.

As stated previously, there has been a long-term shift in moviegoer habits that cuts across all moves and genres. The total box-office is NOWHERE near the same levels as before 2020, and a lot of people got used to waiting for most movies to stream.

The production cycle for major big-budget movies is usually of at least 4-5 years. Many of the movies that came out after theaters reopened had been given a green light before the pandemic, and in that business environment it made A LOT of to spend big on the major IP movies because the majority of them easily ended up making near $1b or higher.

As I said earlier, there were about 10 movies in 2019 that made $1b or more. The business will environment is obviously very different now, you only see 1 or 2 movies a year make that kind of money.

And already Hollywood is gambling that a lot of the movies coming out in 2025 and later will be big moneymakers... I see some big budgets for movies now shooting.

Since Disney benefits a lot more than other studios from all the merchandising that accompanies their big IP movies (SW, MCU, Pixar, Disney remakes), they are in an even stronger position than their competitors to release movies that barely break even on theatrical release and still make huge profits from those properties.

I've been a superhero most of my life, and I'll tell you, it's one of the most fatiguing pastimes ever (especially when you don't have any super powers).

...or am I just a vigilante?

It was interesting to me since, a theater near me had an owner who had some "ins" with people in the distribution network for those pre-plague grand opening nights, going back some years. The theater owner obtained some extra-special first generation prints for movies that were actually on film and had big grand opening nights in our theater in Baltimore (searchlights and all that Hollywood stuff, police directing traffic), which seemed quite surprising.

That whole thing ended when something went financially bad, and the owner offended some people who had given him loans, resulting in the theater changing owners. The subsequent owner went to a more conventional distribution network, like most other theaters, but before then, I recall that attention was being paid to this theater because, as a barometer in a mid-sized market (Baltimore), it was considered to be a harbinger of the movie's economics. The first couple days in Baltimore was considered important to the movie's upcoming performance in the main thing that really counts about a movie, which is whether the backers take home a lot of money.

I can't help but think that all of this has gotten more complicated in the streaming universe, and that that nebulous term "box office" means something different. The questions of what's going to score big, whether superheroes need a rest for a while, whether the demographics of the hero score with which population sector, etc, are like reading tea leaves.

If anybody actually had this down to a science, those movies would all make a lot of money.

Are there theaters that serve beer?

It's funny because the restaurant I grew up working in was unique in that it showed movies in the "lounge" (the bar).

You could sit at a table and have dinner or sit at the bar and watch a movie. There was some sacrifice as far as viewing in such a venue: you couldn't rely on quiet as customers would converse, waitresses would take orders and servers would be delivering food. You also often had the shadows of the servers & busboys blocking the picture from the projector at times, so it was more of an oddity than a serious film-viewing experience. (The first movie I saw there long before I worked there was Young Frankenstein!)

As an employee I got to memorize many parts of movies because I'd see the scenes over and over (often times, never actually seeing the entire movie) - we'd get a new movie every week.

At one point, while I worked there, they started to have stand-up comedy nights on Tuesdays (so no movie), and before my time, I heard they'd have live music in the same lounge.

I can only assume you're being facetious. The MCU as a franchise has made nearly $30 billion dollars at the box-office in just over 15 years.

Yes, the pandemic put a small dent on it, but even without a pandemic, they had already said they would wait a few years before making another Avengers movie - they knew it would be a slower cycle until then, even if the pandemic had never happened.

if they deflate the budgets abit from like 1 billion to 250 million they could probably still hammer the box office. Too much bloatation.

How do I upvote a reply 10,000 times?

This brings up a question I had the other night while listening to the radio - a caller was saying the word "woke" doesn't mean now what it meant when commonly used many, many years ago.

But this got me thinking... I really don't recall the word used as a term until just a few years ago. The best I can remember, I think I first started hearing it used as a social term sometime just before the pandemic (so the furthest back I remember first hearing it used was maybe 2019 at the earliest).

And I do remember taking note of it at the time as being new to the parlance because I kind of decided I wouldn't even use the term back then because it just seemed like a fad (as every younger generation likes to refurbish older or common words by giving them new definitions, if you can dig what I'm saying?).

So my question is: is it just me (and my limited exposure to the rest of the world at large) or does "woke" as a term describing a form of social consciousness & "progressive" values go back much further?

I say the term “woke” goes back to at least 2010 or so. I think I started hearing the term around 2014ish? It was used to describe a friend of mine by someone else, in a positive way. This was, I guess, before it started being used as a perjorative. Now it’s just low hanging fruit when someone is angry over social issues, as Crumbs has already pointed out.

It's a curious term. It seems to imply that there's a clear path to what previously might have been called politically correct, but adds a layer of disapproval to the individual who is not "Woke", by adding the idea that anybody who doesn't share that view is some sort of somnambulist or walking dead. Once you "wake up", you will see the truth that the Woke already knew.

Yeah. In the Baltimore area, there are several. We also have a requirement for any business that sells anything with alcohol to have a liquor license that is subject to a bunch of qualifications, hearings, political considerations, etc. The result is that restaurants, stores and, in this case movie theaters that have a liquor license also seem to have a license to print money. The ones I've been in don't have servers. You have to go back to the "popcorn" area or go to a vending machine. I haven't actually seen all that many people going out for booze after the movie starts.

The term means, quite simply, one who is aware of and acknowledges racial and social injustices.
But this is getting too political, so let’s drop it before Yoda drops the ban hammer haha

I don't remember hearing about the term as far back as Wyldeside, but it was initially a positive term, championed by those who believed in furthering the acceptance and visibility of racial minorities, gays, trans people and the disabled. The kind of thing that if you had a problem with, maybe you were kinda an *******.


But like anything in the age of social media, the messaging got taken over by the dumbest and most reactionary and usually least informed idiots on the internet, and it inevitably caused a backlash against the term. Because they did it badly. Very badly.



Now, do I have a problem with people pushing back against some of the discourse the supposed modern 'woke' employ? Not really, because there is a lot of obnoxious crap out there in service of what is essentially a good cause. But it's been appearing to be that over the last number of years that this isn't what a lot of anti woke individuals are screaming about. Their resentments are less about how badly the left has screwed up their messaging, or how horribly backwards a lot of their tactics are at shaming those who aren't supposedly exactly as woke as they are, and it now seems they are targeting the actual causes of acceptance and representation.


And when it comes to people who can't deal with acceptance and representation of people who deserve these things exactly as much as anybody else, if this is what your screaming about because it bothers you when you see too many black or asian people in a movie where there used to be none, or if you can't possibly deal with a trans person asking you to accept them for who they are which is about the absolute least you can do for a fellow human being.....maybe these people should look in the mirror and try and consider why these things bother them so much.

Suffice to say, like a lot of new words, it gets turned to the goals of the user. It has become a term of accusation of the "non-Woke" and has lost its value as a word, become a self-parody. I just wish that Yoda could drop the hammer on the word Woke in the rest of the world.

Yeah, I think it should be obvious that the term never means the same thing to any two people, and there's always some motte-and-bailey stuff going on with anything like this; politically charged terms almost always carry an implication of policy or action which goes beyond their rote definition. Even when words do have clear and consistent definitions, they are never just those definitions: they are always laden with connotations, which is why many people avoid using them even if they generally agree.

But yes, we're easily past the normal lines of demarcation here, so let's call it there. And frankly I'm going to have to come in a lot earlier next time, because this topic seems to invariably get to this point any time anyone even so much as glancingly mentions it.

Forgoing all the recent conversation stuff, I'm commenting on the original title of this thread:
Disney CEO Pushes Back Against Idea Of Superhero Fatigue

The clear answer there (at least to me) is the CEO is just covering his ass and why wouldn't he?That's his job. That's all I got to say as I don't watch superhero movies so don't know a thing about them.

Superhero movies stopped being events.

After watching Dune part 2 and Oppenheimer, CBM look dull.

I don't think you can blame a studio exec for being the empty shell of a human a studio exec always is. They aren't going to come out and criticize their own product, even if everyone seems to know it deserves criticizing.


What's genuinely frustrating is the feeling you get from these guys that, even with it seeming that the trend for these types of films is dying, and people are possibly looking for something else (finally), they are still acting like there is only one road forward for them creatively. To keep cranking out the same shit until people decide they like it again.



It's almost like the top brass at movie studios don't have a creative cell in their body. It's almost like, regardless of the enormous success they've had in the past, they actually don't have a clue what they are doing when they don't have a clear, unalterable roadmap towards what people want. They'll just keep forcefeeding you the same thing for ever if you dare suggest you're full up on their superficial additives. It's almost like they have forgotten to do anything but stuff as much money they can still find laying around from past endeavors into their pockets.