Disney’s first film featuring openly gay main character flops at box office – Marca
Disney’s “Strange World” failed at the box office during Thanksgiving weekend.
With $11.9 million from 4,174 North American cinemas over the weekend and $18.6 million for the five-day holiday period, the animated film drastically underperformed predictions for its North American release.
The film was anticipated to bring in $30 million to $40 million between Wednesday and Sunday, and even those numbers wouldn’t have been particularly impressive to begin with.
“Strange World’s” debut box office numbers now rank as one of Disney’s worst opening weekends in recent memory, coming in slightly behind fellow family films like “Encanto” ($27.2 million over the traditional weekend and $40 million during the extended Thanksgiving holiday stretch) and “Lightyear” ($51 million) and just barely ahead of its pandemic-era release “West Side Story” ($10.5 million).
Sources predict that “Strange World” will lose at least $100 million over its theatrical run unless its business drastically improves in the upcoming weeks.
Why did Strange World flop at the box office?
Strange World received mostly favorable reviews, but the box office results after its November 23 release aren’t looking great.
Given that Strange World appears to be in perfect order on the surface, these statistics may come as a surprise to many spectators. A captivating voice ensemble, including Jake Gyllenhaal, Jack Quaid, Gabrielle Union, Lucy Liu, Jaboukie Young-White, and Alan Tudyk, is featured in Disney’s newest film.
While the story follows the Clades, a family of explorers who travel to many planets, it presents a novel sci-fi/adventure idea. Strange World is a lighthearted, animated film with a sweet message about family at its core, but it isn’t all that different from what Disney often delivers.
Another improvement in Disney portrayal is Strange World. An openly lesbian adolescent, a mixed-race couple, and a dog with only three legs are all included in the animated movie.
Naturally, given these features, the “anti-woke” mob won’t take long to start jeering that the box office flop is Disney’s punishment for diversifying its films.
Disney’s scant marketing support for Strange World was one of the main factors contributing to its failure. Although the reason behind this is unclear, it’s possible that Strange World went overlooked in favor of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and the upcoming Avatar sequel.
Disney has been heavily advertising these two blockbuster films with teasers and trailers, while Strange World received virtually little attention.
It is really odd that Disney wasn’t doing everything it could to draw spectators to the movie given that it was one of the studio’s most expensive computer-animated pictures and released over the long Thanksgiving holiday.