Disney is failing. Its stock is currently lower than pandemic levels, and its movies aren’t making the same amount of money anymore. And behind that, the entertainment giant has been embroiled in a political controversy in Florida. Today, I will bring you through all these issues.
Number one, Disney’s biggest money making initiative in a while has been Disney Plus, a long term goal which was expected to make them billions of dollars. However, this is just not the case. Disney has been losing over one billion dollars consistently each quarter, and while Disney+ is a long term initiative, this obviously isn’t good news. Furthermore, the streamer has lost 2.4 million subscribers this quarter, the first dip in any quarter for Disney+.
Second, Disney movies are not making as much cash as they used to. In 2019, right before the pandemic hit the world, Disney released 7 billion dollar films. Coming out of COVID – 19, they have only made one, which was the new Avatar movie, Way of the Water. The Avatar movie made 2 billion dollars, but Disney can’t expect this to be feasible, as the next movie is scheduled to come out in 2 years, and has lost the nostalgia factor that made Way of the Water so successful. On the other hand, Disney hasn’t released a Star Wars movie since 2019, and Marvel is slowly becoming financially impractical, with low profit margins and high budgets. In fact, their new movie, Ant Man 3, might make less than 500 million dollars, and actually lose money! Also, the animated features they have become so famous for are straight up money losers, as no major Disney animated flick last year broke even.
Third, Disney picked a fight with the wrong guy. See, in mid 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis introduced laws that restricted what could be taught in classrooms. While Disney initially wanted to lay low and not get involved in this issue, protestors who did not support the Governor and his bill demanded Disney to do something. Well, Disney caved to the pressure, and now the governor of Florida, ramping up for a Presidential run, has signed a bill to give him control of Disney World, once a private district for Disney.
As you can see, Disney is in a large decline, due to a combination of a bad streaming service model, unprofitable movies, and political disputes. Now, we don’t know how this will play out for sure, but I imagine Disney will take the back seat to other studios like Universal.