Tag: Disney

What Have They Done to Tim Allen?

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I used to enjoy Tim Allen’s show, “Home Improvement” on ABC back in the 1990’s.  Then in the twenty-teens he had another show on ABC called, “Last Man Standing.”  It was a funny show.  He played a conservative guy who lived in Colorado and he railed against his liberal daughter and her hippy-dippy Canadian husband.  But then in 2016 he made a few jokes against Hillary Clinton and for Donald Trump and they cancelled the show.  Eventually, Fox TV decided to bring the show back but it never recovered.

Now Allen is back on ABC with a show called “Shifting Gears.”  He’s the owner of a high-end auto shop with a divorced daughter with two kids.  It’s incredibly bad.  It’s full of stereotypes.  He even has a black paraplegic mechanic who “keeps it real.”  All the dialog is awful and the characters are predictable and inane.  From time-to-time Tim gets off a funny line or bit.  Who knows maybe they’re adlibbed.  You can tell he’s still as funny as he ever was.  They just don’t give him anything at all to work with.

So Hollywood is dead.  There’s just nothing left.  The studios have a racial and sexual quota system for almost every function in the industry.  I can’t even imagine how stupid and programmed the writers must be.  What I saw tonight looked like a parody of what a sit-com would be if woke writers followed the dictates of the DEI mandates.  It was unimaginably bad.

But I’m going to take this as good news.  ABC is owned by Disney.  And Disney has produced a string of bombs over the last couple of years that can’t have escaped the notice of Wall Street.  There will be a reckoning one way or the other.  Either they will course correct and produce entertainment that people want to pay to see or they will lose money and the stock holders will sell and they will lose many billions of dollars in equity and the Board of directors will bounce Bob Iger out on his ear.

Iger was brought out of retirement when the former CEO got in a pissing contest with Ron DeSantis in Florida over the rainbow people that Disney has adopted as their most important constituency.  Since then, they’ve doubled down on gayness and it’s had a very serious negative effect on their business.  It’s made their latest Star Wars television production, “The Acolyte” so unwatchable that they had to pull the plug on it after the first season.  And now their latest live-action remake of the classic cartoons of the 1930’s, “Snow White” is predicted to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

I think 2025 may be the year that Disney has their epiphany.  They destroyed Star Wars.  They chloroformed the, “Indiana Jones” franchise and now even their Marvel movies have been infected with boring woke characters like, “The Marvels” and are losing money.  If they can’t even make a decent princess movie for little girls they’re cooked.  I’ve been following the reviews and the industry gossips and it seems like everyone thinks the reckoning is imminent.  We’ll see.

So, farewell Tim Allen.  “Home Improvement” and “Last Man Standing” were funny and sometimes heartwarming too.  But you’re not going to get anything worth doing at ABC until they really do switch gears at Disney.

Long, Long Ago, In a Franchise Far, Far Away

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In the late 1970s a movie studio green lit a modest science fiction/fantasy film called Star Wars that made so much money that the studio and the creative team that owned the rights to it made billions of dollars from sequels, toys and every other monetizing scheme imaginable.

And why did all this happen?  Well, accidentally or on purpose the makers of that original movie tapped into the primal desire of young men (and it was almost exclusively boys and young men) to watch an exciting updating of the young apprentice’s journey to becoming a hero.  Whether it’s young Arthur pulling the sword from the stone or the Marine recruit proving himself on the battlefield of Iwo Jima or the hot shot pilot in a Top Gun movie, every boy (and man) enjoys the visceral experience of seeing the hero prove himself in combat and if he’s lucky enough win the heart of the princess (or in less monarchical times, some pretty girl in general).

And 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm rode that male archetypal fantasy to fame and fortune for almost forty years.  But in 2015 Lucasfilm (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney) launched the seventh film in the Star Wars franchise, “The Force Awakens” and drove a stake right through the heart of that golden goose.  With Kathleen Kennedy producing and J. J. Abrams directing all of that male-oriented story-telling was jettisoned and replaced with “girl-power.”  Kathleen Kennedy gleefully proclaimed that “The Force is estrogen.”  Well, “The Force Awakens” made billions.  Of course, it would have made billions even if it was just an empty screen for two hours.  That’s how much good will had been built up over the course of decades for the franchise.  But the following two films and the various spin-offs like the recent television series “The Acolyte” have completely dried up those wells of enthusiasm that had been produced previously.  The last couple of movies have lost money, in fact hundreds of millions of dollars.  And now the folks at Disney have cancelled a number of Star Wars productions and they’re trying to figure out how to fix their dying franchise.

Well Bob Iger, I’ve got an idea.  First off fire Kathleen Kennedy and all the people who decided to create the monstrosities that caused all this damage.  In fact, don’t just fire them but publicly abuse them verbally and force them to apologize for their heinous sins.  Then make a short trailer video for the next film.

It will consist of all the most egregious scenes from all of the horrible movies you released since 2015 in short snippets in a nightmare montage.  Then we switch to Han Solo in bed waking up from a nightmare and expressing relief that the whole thing was a bad dream.  He then gets up and joins his son, wife and brother-in-law at breakfast and he tells them some of the details of his nightmare and they all have a big laugh at how ridiculous it all sounds.

Then you get some good writers to reread the Arthurian legends and the pulp science fiction stories from the 1930s and you start making money again.

Disney Doubles Down … Again

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The four-time Emmy winner and “Ms. Marvel” helmer told CNN that “it’s about time” a female filmmaker was behind a “Star Wars” film franchise installment. “Wonder Woman” filmmaker Patty Jenkins was previously attached to direct “Rogue Squadron” when it was announced in 2020; the film was removed from the Lucasfilm production calendar in 2021 and officially shelved in 2023.

“I’m very thrilled about the project because I feel what we’re about to create is something very special,” Obaid-Chinoy said of her upcoming sequel to “The Rise of Skywalker,” adding, “We’re in 2024 now, and it’s about time that we had a woman come forward to shape a story in a galaxy far, far away.”

Well I guess the only fitting comment is from Cartman.

(Not Safe For Work)

Guest Contributor – TomD – 28NOV2023 – Disney Woes

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Tom | Flickr

TomD

 

Just read this in PJ Media (link)

Reports of Disney’s Death Are (Not?) an Exaggeration
Stephen Green | 5:11 PM on November 27, 2023

As Disney’s two-time CEO Bob Iger prepares to host the company’s annual town hall on Tuesday to provide “hints or guidance for what the next phase of ‘building’ will bring after the problem-solving phase,” it’s time to ask if Iger is able “to ‘quiet things down’ after years of culture wars.”

The first quote comes from a Hollywood Reporter item on Monday detailing the company’s Wall Street woes. Traders and managers will be watching Iger on Tuesday for “possible color, body language or even outright updates on various topics,” ranging from the company’s ongoing series of box office flops to troubles at their fabled theme parks.
The second quote is courtesy of Jonathan Turley. His Monday column — almost in time for Adam Smith’s 300th birthday — shows how Smith’s “invisible hand” has undone the company’s woke agenda. Disney is now “negatively associated with activism by a significant number of consumers,” Turley writes, and is “even reporting a decline in licensing revenue from products associated with Star Wars, Frozen, Toy Story and Mickey and Friends — iconic and once-unassailable corporate images.”

“Wish” is Disney’s latest animated effort that isn’t a sequel or reboot and it opened over the long Thanksgiving weekend to middling reviews and worse box office sales. Well, not entirely not a reboot — one of the characters is the glowy Star, as in Pinocchio’s “When You Wish Upon A Star.” “Wish” looks to be another big money-loser in a yearlong series of them, including “Indiana Jones and the Whatever McGuffin,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” the live-action Little Mermaid, and most recently, “The Marvels.”
The Disney+ streaming service is losing money and eyeballs. Impressions — the streaming measure of viewership — is down 14% from last year, the company says.
The worst news is that Disney’s intellectual properties — the company’s seed corn for future growth — are in terrible shape.

The good news is that $7.5 billion in cost-cutting measures have restored some sense to the company’s balance sheet. The bad news is that the maintenance-heavy Disney World and Disney Land are reportedly looking a little worse for wear. Or as Wall Street’s Jamie Lumley warned, “As the business looks to slash costs and make streaming profitable, there are sure to be concerns about cutting too deep and impacting the business going forward.”

But the company can’t cut its way to health. It needs to start selling tickets again to the kinds of movies and theme park experiences people expect when they see the Disney label.

Walt Disney and his brother Roy were jealous guardians of the Disney name and reputation. Given so many more recent changes, this seems like much longer ago than 1983, but I’m reminded of “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” It was considered a Very Big Deal at the time when Disney produced a Ray Bradbury film with such a dark mood and storyline. At the time — Walt had died and Roy was no longer involved in day-to-day operations — Disney was looking to branch out from family fare like the Herbie movies and “Pete’s Dragon.”

Results were mixed at best, and I’m being overly generous.
It took a 1984 hostile takeover attempt and a long-term recovery plan courtesy of incoming CEO Michael Eisner to restore Disney’s luster. Eisner understood Disney’s creative strength — and it wasn’t in jumping on the Star Wars bandwagon with “The Black Hole,” or another cheesy Love Bug movie.

It was in getting back to classic animation with “The Little Mermaid,” and in recognizing similar strength in the fledgling Pixar Animation Studios.

Iger can cut costs but, in the end, what he needs to do is remember what the Disney brand means — and work as furiously to restore it as Eisner did, and as Walt and Roy used to work to protect it.

Unless we see evidence of that in Tuesday’s town hall, Disney shares might be up a bit on Wall Street’s hopes but I ain’t buying.

Disney Has Some ‘Splainin’ to Do. To Their Shareholders.

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This is an incredibly boring document written in corporate double-speak.  But in PART I, ITEM 1A.;
Risk Factors, it says

“We face risks relating to misalignment with public and consumer tastes and preferences for entertainment, travel and consumer products, which impact demand for our entertainment offerings and products and the profitability of any of our businesses.”

And further down in this section they state:
“Further, consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.”
“Misalignment with public and consumer taste.”  Hmm.  “Achieve certain of our environmental and social goals.”  Well, well.
So when five or six of your movies are duds and you lose a billion or a billion and half dollars, it turns out your shareholders start to notice.  Imagine that!  How judgmental!  How crassly materialistic!  So uncool!
Well, I guess they’ll have to figure out how they can align with these philistine parents who don’t want their kids groomed.  They must strive to prevent perceptions of their efforts to achieve certain of their environmental and social goals from presenting risks their reputation and brands.
So on one side you have all this blah-blah couching what they do in double-speak.
And then you have South Park cutting to the chase and making it perfectly clear.
I think for the sake of transparency it would be reasonable for Disney to include the South Park Panderverse episode as part of their annual report.  After all the public’s opinion is much closer to the South Park opinion than it is to the double-speak version.
Or maybe losing a couple more billion dollars is the preferred route.  Time will tell.

South Park is Making Disney Lose Billions of Dollars

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Anyone who has kids or grandkids is aware that Disney has been on a jihad to “diversify” their movies and tv shows.  This entails replacing characters who in earlier stories were male or white or sexually normal with women and specifically non-white women and very specifically non-white, queer women.  This was very noticeable in the Star Wars franchise where all the heroes are now women and all the men are either lame or evil.

But that was only the beginning.  Next comes the princess movies.  Apparently the irony of a character named Snow White who isn’t white was too complex for Disney.  And diversity has become the marching orders going forward in the Marvel Comic Universe (MCU).  So the old white male heroes like Iron Man and Captain America have been either killed off or put out to pasture and a new generation has been introduced.  So we’ll be getting Black Captain America and Black Spider Man.  But the most egregious example of DEI awfulness is the female Marvel superheroes.  And now that innovation has born fruit, poisonous fruit.  Whereas previously they produced Captain Marvel, we now have “The Marvels.”  That’s blonde haired Captain Marvel joined by two diverse and empowered female heroes who battle against a female super-villain and “don’t need no men to get in their way.”

The reviews of this movie have been scathing.  Apparently when you make message fiction it’s not necessary to have a coherent plot or likeable characters or even a recognizable beginning, middle and end.  You just stop when the special effects guys run out of stuff.

Well, there is no need to complain about this movie.  Making the Marvels was its own punishment.  Based on its opening box office, the movie is already predicted to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.  And all this pandering to diversity has inspired the South Park guys, Trey Parker and Matt Stone to create an episode that mocks Disney’s endless crusade to artificially diversify their movies.  In this episode Cartman finds himself both transformed into a diverse woman and also assuming the place of Disney’s diversifier in chief; producer Kathleen Kennedy.  In this guise Cartman endlessly orders the showrunners for his movies to “put a chick in it and make it lame and gay.”  Here’s the “not safe for work version.”

And now both Kathleen Kennedy and Bob Iger of Disney have made public statements complaining about what’s going on.  Kennedy has stated that South Park is causing Disney fans to think poorly of Disney’s movies and that is causing the poor box office.  She hints that legal action is forthcoming.

Iger is a little more grounded in reality.  He admits that a portion of Disney’s audience really is consciously unhappy with what he calls Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion program.  And he states quite openly that his solution to this situation will be to “double down” on more diversity, equity and inclusion.

You’ve got to respect his honesty.  Okay.  In the face of a string of movies and tv shows that because of the emphasis on unentertaining social messaging have bombed at the box office Disney is going to give us an even stronger dose of social messaging.  The beatings will continue until moral improves.

This is pretty great.  Disney is a corporate behemoth.  They’ve had a built in cash machine tied to the American family for generations.  And now they’re committing public suicide just to prove they can do it.  Well, how stupid do their competition have to be.  They should jump at the chance to provide these families with exactly what they used to get from Disney.  Hire some decent writers who don’t hate normal people.  Pay the special effects people to animate it and get rich.  Give them knock-offs of all the Disney and Star Wars and Marvel stuff but without “putting a chick in it and making it lame and gay.”

There. That’s not so hard to figure out, is it?

A No-Review Review of the Little Mermaid Remake

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Matt Walsh gives an amusing review of Disney’s remake of A Little Mermaid by comparing it to Burger King.  Personally I think he’s unfair to Burger King in this comparison.  But I did enjoy his rant.  It was well ranted.

Disney Reviving Firefly? Possible? Preferable?

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I stumbled across this video about whether Disney was planning to revive the Science Fiction series Firefly with the original cast.  Even after watching this discussion I wondered if this thing is just clickbait.

Sure, there are millions of Firefly fans who would love to see the show resurrected.  But how could it be done.  From what I’ve read Joss Whedon has been #MeToo’ed out of Hollywood or something and it’s been twenty years since the show went off the air and the lead is involved in a successful tv series.

But put that aside.  Suppose that  it could be done.  Suppose Nathan Fillion and the rest of the cast and Joss Whedon and his creative team from the original series could be reunited.  There remains the question of whether it should be done.  And by that I mean could Disney be trusted not to sabotage the whole thing by doing what they’ve done to Star Wars, The Avengers and every other intellectual property they buy?

I’ve got to be honest.  I think they’d ruin it.  Someway, somehow they’d corrupt the whole thing with the poison that they seem compulsively driven to inject in all their products.  They’d have Malcolm Reynolds discovering that he was a victim of whiteness and Zoe would have to become captain to atone for his sins.  And Jayne would end up transgendered and River would become a social justice warrior and Kaylee would have to go lesbian just to make the math work.

No, Disney should never try to bring Firefly back.  If Whedon were able to buy the intellectual property back and do it without interference there might be a chance of it turning out decent.  He could write some interesting stories for his world.  But Disney would murder it.  And that shouldn’t be done.  Let that special place exist in the past.  We can visit anytime we want with our dvds or streamed or on some network that loves good stories.  But don’t give it to the soulless hacks at Disney.  It deserves better than that.

 

Woke Disney Kids’ Movie with Gay Teen Love Interest Crashes and Burns on the Runway

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I think I know why Disney brought Iger back.  They just launched a movie that cost more than $180 million and will be lucky if it makes twenty percent of that back.  Listen:

““Strange World,” is bombing, grossing a disappointing $4.2 million on Wednesday as it eyes a five-day haul of under $24 million. That’s a terrible result for the $180 million-budgeted animated adventure. For comparison sake, “Encanto,” another recent Disney animated offering, earned $40.3 million over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2021 — and that was considered to be a soft result for the family film.”

 

Here’s why.  This is one of the plot lines in this “kid’s movie.”:

“Ethan Clade, Searcher’s 16-year-old gay son longs for adventure beyond his father’s farm while also navigating a school crush.  One year later, Ethan is in a relationship with Diazo.”

What mother or father of eight- to twelve-year-olds doesn’t want to explain to his kids why two boys on the screen are acting like girls and gushing over each other.  Why would that make parents stay away in droves?  Disney warned us this is what they wanted to do.  But most of us assumed they were just talking.  No one thought they could be this stupid.  We were wrong.

 

So, I went over to Rotten Tomatoes to see what people were saying.  The professional reviews said it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.  But the customer reviews were full of things like this:

“jonathon b:  Stop bringing homosexual things into kids movies. Kids these days have it hard enough and do not need that influence in their lives.

firedup33:  We walked out of the movie! Disney is trying to indoctrinate children with this evil movie! Do not spend one penny on anything Disney. Boycott them! It should not be rated PG should be rated as Highway to Hell!

Sana W:  Awful!!! Walked out of it with my kids! I will never watch another Disney movie!

Xander C:  Lets put it this way. My little boys asked me to walk out of the theater. They said the movie was weird, and asked me why the “boy” in the movie was acting kind of girly. I should have learned my lesson after the lightyear movie. Disney, my family is DONE with you.

Anonymous:  Do not take young kids to this. I had no idea how woke this movie was. Unless you want to explain homosexuality to a your young children, avoid at all costs. My child asked me in the movie “why are the boys acting that way?” I am DONE with Disney in all forms.

Gerrixx O:  I want my money back… I’m not sure if it was bad or just boring. I’m tired of being preached at and I’m a minority many times over. JUST MAKE GOOD MOVIES… we don’t need to see a salad, we have imaginations unlike the people at Disney.

Stephanie A:  Absolutely terrible, if I want to teach my children about sex and or sexual preferences at 7 and 8 I would do it in my home. I don’t need a Disney movie to help me out with it. STOP making everything sexual, its unbelievable. Nothing in the trailer would lead you to believe that this is in the movie. I will no longer take my children to a Disney movie without reading reviews. Nothing is safe anymore, school, movies, internet (not that, that was ever safe), etc.. So disappointing!!!!

Anonymous:  I wish I would have read the reviews before wasting mine and my daughters time on this movie. It’s my choice as a parent to decide if I want my children to know about same sex relationships. Even with this world evolving I never expected Disney to shove it at my children during a kids movie. I’m very disappointed that Disney feels like they have to evolve with this world. Stand out use your voice and don’t try to be like all the rest. Stick to the the wholesome family friendly movies….Walt Disney would be ashamed.

Linda:  I went along with my daughter and two young grandchildren to see this movie. After seeing this movie, we will never take them to see another Disney movie again. Disney was trying so hard to be politically correct, they failed miserably to create a good family, classic movie as so many in past years. Don’t waste your money on this one, it is destined to be a Disney flop!!!

Adrian P:  Haven’t seen the movie yet but I’m violently homophobic

Kelly:  Last Disney movie I will waste my money on. As a parent I would like to be the one to talk to my child about same sex relationships. Way out of line for a childrens movie.

Jessie M:  Easily the worst Disney animated movie. I liked 1 character hense the half star. But it’s like Disney went out of their way to make every single scene a cringy woke competition from the last.

Olga:  So disappointed with Disney. I love Disney movies but not this one. The story line and plot was terrible. Lots of messages being sent that are confusing and not good for young children. Half the auditorium left the movie. Poor Disney. They can do better than this.”

This is so great.  There’s nothing like a nine-digit financial loss to really catch a corporate board’s attention.  They booted that dullard Bob Chapek out so fast that he’s probably still bouncing down the road.  Now Bob Iger, who is probably twice as woke, has to figure out a way to reverse the disastrous path he launched the company on without triggering the LGBTQ gestapo to denounce him.

This is so great.  Instead of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” it’ll bring new meaning to “Don’t Say Gay.”  Maybe they can persuade Ron DeSantis to give them some pointers on how to effectively say no to the gay mafia.  After this movie debacle Disney is going to have to have a string of successes just to catch up.

I’ve heard that G-rated kids movies have been known to make money.  Hey maybe they could make some of those.  If they need a template there used to be a company that made such hits as Snow White, Dumbo, Old Yeller, Swiss Family Robinson, Mary Poppins, Cinderella and on and on and on.

Oh, I forgot.  Disney isn’t allowed to make movies like those anymore.  They don’t reflect diversity, equity and inclusion.  They’re not who we are.  Too bad.  Well, good luck selling deviant sex to the parents of young children.  While you’re at it you might as well include puberty blockers and genital amputation to the plot lines and cover all the bases.

Well, this is good news.  Disney put their money where their mouth is and most parents have reacted the way they should.  They’ve put their kids’ well-being in front of virtue-signaling.  Even better news is that because traditional societies like China and most of the third world absolutely abhor this kind of stuff the world-wide box office isn’t going to save this turkey.  Disney isn’t even releasing this film in China or other areas of the world.  Europe and North America will have to suffice and we already see how that’s going.  What a great way for Disney to start off a recession, with a catastrophic box-office disaster.

M-I-C- (see ya later)

K-E-Y  (why, because we’re awful)

M-O-U-S-E.

Walt would be so proud!