Disney’s latest animated feature, ‘Wish,’ faces a disappointing turnout at the box office, representing a recent trend of underperforming releases for the entertainment giant.
Launched during the holiday season, ‘Wish’ failed to attract sizable audiences, adding to Disney’s ongoing struggles on the cinematic front. The film, which features Ariana DeBose and Chris Pine among its voice cast and a host of endearing supporting characters, reaped a meager $31.7 million during the extended holiday weekend.
‘Wish,’ despite its star-studded cast and unique storyline, fell well short of financial expectations. Predictions suggested a five-day gross ranging between $45 and $50 million, creating a significant discrepancy between the expectations and the reality. As of the conclusion of the ‘long weekend,’ the overall domestic box office performance of ‘Wish’ was deemed underwhelming.
The disappointing trend continued in overseas markets with ‘Wish’ underperforming and amassing a relatively low total of $17.3 million abroad. This international underperformance brought the film’s total global earnings to approximately $49 million, well below what Disney typically aims for with their high-profile animated features.
Essentially, ‘Wish’ is positioned as a cinematic failure based on its box office result. To highlight this, the film didn’t even top the box office charts, instead landing in the third spot behind ‘Napoleon’ and the ‘Hunger Games’ prequel, which retained its number one position.
This unfortunate outcome is a cause for concern for Disney, a company that has traditionally experienced notable success during the Thanksgiving season. It used to be that Disney could count on robust box office showings from its original animated features during this period.
The trend seemed to have changed from the previous year when another Disney creation, ‘Strange World,’ faltered financially. These recent underperformances break from Disney’s successes with films launched in the same holiday window, such as ‘Encanto’ and ‘Coco’. Both of which enjoyed hefty profits right from their opening weekends.
What adds to the enigma of this scenario is that ‘Wish’ received positive reviews and was generally well-received by its audience. This discrepancy raises questions about the factors contributing to the film’s financial underperformance. The cause behind such a disconnect between positive reception and box office performance remains a mystery.
Among the potential contributing factors is the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) strike, which may have impeded the film’s promotional efforts. Despite this, the labor strike ended quite a bit of time ahead of the film’s debut, adding further uncertainty to this theory.
Regardless of the reason behind its underperformance, ‘Wish’ represents another disappointment in a string of subpar box office performances for Disney. It follows a succession of lackluster results from other high-profile releases in the same year, including the most recent ‘Indiana Jones’ installment, ‘The Haunted Mansion,’ and ‘The Marvels’.
As a conclusion, Disney has found itself in a challenging situation, given the recent string of disappointing box office results from their new releases. It’s a rough period financially for the entertainment titan that has historically had strong showings in both domestic and international box offices.