For decades, Disney has wondered the world with countless wonders, but today, Disney’s reputation crumbled due to a series of poor executive decisions that have made many people question Disney’s production trajectory.
Ever since Disney began making films in 1923, it has become the king of the entertainment industry. Nevertheless, last year, 2023, Disney’s magic died; as the company seems to prefer quantity over quality with most of the year’s productions, being qualified as box and critical catastrophes.
“It’s evident that Disney lowered their sales and their things, but it was at a global level, and it has a lot to do with Disney’s platform and its dark decisions… everything depends a lot on how the movies do, (in terms of financial and critical success), so, when the movies are good. We take advantage of that and release produce based on that,” Camilo Nichols, designer at MIC clothes shop, said.
Many causes of such a decline in quality have placed Disney’s reputation at stake: the lack of new creative ideas, high budgeting with mediocre results, and forced inclusion are some of the causes responsible for Disney’s progressive decline. In the end, the expectation to experience new and visually attractive filmography that attracts everyone has put Disney under significant pressure that the House of Mouse does not seem to tolerate.
“Movie after movie has had enough glaring flaws to discourage audiences and critics alike. Never mind the pandemic, superhero fatigue, or the appeal of streaming… If anything connected the inferior quality of these films it was how retrograde they were,” Nicholas Barber, BBC journalist, said.
To take a case in point, Disney’s lack of originality during the last year has heavily affected the company’s reputation and performance during the last year, after all, in 2023, most of their productions were either sequels or re-releases of previous films. Movies such as “The Marvels,” “The Little Mermaid,” or Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” are some examples of this lack of creativity, which is slowly wearing the audience’s attention; although releases such as “Wish” are an exception, Disney still uses the same film-making formula that is periodically getting people bored from the same movies.
“Most of the Disney films stood alone and were a part of a small franchise. For example, the largest franchise that you see is Toy Story with three movies. However, nowadays this is not the case. Disney relies heavily on their existing franchises (Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar)… they don’t bring fresh perspectives, or new universes that allow viewers to explore new stuff. As audiences are getting tired of repetitive content,” Simon Alvarez, 11th-grade student, said.
This “franchise wore out,” added to the controversy of inclusion in films such as “Elemental” and “Lightyear” and the use of poor CGI in recent Star Wars and Marvel films, have resulted in Disney losing credibility in the world of entertainment; sure, the House of Mouse is still the largest mediatic industry, yet regarding 2022 and 2023, other companies like DreamWorks and Illumination have taken the lead in this mediatic war.
Nevertheless, this is not the end for the Mouse, every company must suffer from setbacks now and then to renew their content, besides, as pointed out previously, Disney still is the king of the entertainment industry and will surely overcome this tedious crisis, but until then, only time will tell whether Disney will rise or will another production take their place, an occurrence that is very unlikely to happen considering Disney’s monopoly in entertainment.
