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Re:Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games by chrismcb on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @09:45PM (#39297289)
Frozen came out ten years ago and frozen 2 came out five years ago. I think that qualifies as a few years. Granted life has been tough on the movies since some odd event in 2020
Re:Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games by nirvdrum on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @10:48PM (#39297810)
If you take "for years" to literally mean "more than one year", sure. I think it's colloquially understood to be far longer than that. "Encanto" came out in 2021 and I'd consider that a hit. The soundtrack saw wide play, everyone I know who's seen it loves it, and they're merchandising the hell out of it.

To be fair, I saw "Wish" with my family and we all enjoyed it, but it obviously didn't come close to "Frozen 2" numbers. They're not all hits. With animated film taking years to produce, those perhaps aren't the metric to use. It'll be another few years before the next major animated film by Disney is released.

The Marvel movies release more frequently and seem to print money. "Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3" came out last year and has done $845MM¹.

¹ -- https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl2977202945/

Re:Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games by bombcar on Thursday February 08, 2024 @07:35AM (#39301189)
Encanto was fun but it didn’t merchandise the way Frozen did (nothing before or after has, to be fair).

Keep an eye on the clearance aisles for a feel on how merchandising is going; wish is doing exceptionally bad.

Re:Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games by nirvdrum on Thursday February 08, 2024 @09:32AM (#39302323)
I guess I don't know what we mean by "hit" then. I tried to address it from cultural impact, box office earnings, and movie quality. On any one of those criteria I don't think it's been that long since Disney has had a hit. If a film needs to push "Frozen" numbers to be a hit, then I'll concede they haven't had one in years.
Re:Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games by bombcar on Thursday February 08, 2024 @02:06PM (#39306110)
I think generally people consider a movie to be a hit if it 1. is profitable (they immediately talk about a sequel) and 2. if it does better than expected.

The second part is the problem - if Pixar releases a movie that is good, more than recoups costs, and otherwise is a fine addition to Dreamworks lineup, it could still be considered a complete flop by most everyone.

E.g., "The Good Dinosaur" which (apparently) eventually made enough that it was "worthwhile" - didn't break any records and didn't really make money, so it's a flop (Onward even more so).

It's complicated even more by a movie being able to be a flop, cult classic, and widely loved at the same time.

Re:Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games by Benjamin_Dobell on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @09:55PM (#39297388)
It's relative. No-one else has produced a media franchise that earns as much or more than Disney any more recently.

Disney has also produced some of the most recent highest grossing box office films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films. Again, this is relative. We've just had a pandemic followed by writers and actors guild strikes.

Re:Disney to take $1.5B stake in Epic Games by bombcar on Thursday February 08, 2024 @07:34AM (#39301179)
Minions is damn close, however. Freaking billion dollar movies and infinite numbers of the yellow dudes everywhere.