# Disney's going to OWN the Box Office this year, aren't they? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 13, 2019, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disneys-going-to-own-the-box-office-this-year-arent-they/829473 "2019-02-13T16:51:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2019, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disneys-going-to-own-the-box-office-this-year-arent-they/829473/21 "2019-02-14T03:05:48Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > A24, my friend. That’s where the good original stuff is these days. > > Ex Machina > The Lobster > The incredibly snubbed at the Oscars Eighth Grade > Under the Skin > Spring Breakers > Locke > Room > The Witch > Swiss Army Man > Moonlight > The Florida Project > Lady Bird > The Disaster Artist > Hereditary > > And that’s just some. A24 is banking some real quality original movies these days. Note that A24 didn’t start producing films until 2016, so some of the films on this list were ones they found and distributed. Still, they have a fucking terrific eye for movies. They are what Relativity Media wanted to be, A great identifier of niche, cheaply produced films, but RM didn’t have the brains or the soul. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2019, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disneys-going-to-own-the-box-office-this-year-arent-they/829473/22 "2019-02-14T03:21:14Z")
Fair enough. Still, there’s some award hardware on that list. You’re right, they have a great eye for quality, original films. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2019, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disneys-going-to-own-the-box-office-this-year-arent-they/829473/23 "2019-02-14T04:31:42Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Frozen and Frozener Frozen 2 - The Bath of Sven ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2019, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disneys-going-to-own-the-box-office-this-year-arent-they/829473/24 "2019-02-14T15:04:20Z")
Great. It looks like Robert Lopez might get another Oscar. You already have two original scote Oscars. Isn’t that enough? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2019, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disneys-going-to-own-the-box-office-this-year-arent-they/829473/25 "2019-02-17T21:58:31Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > More money! Less creativity! Ugh. > > We need someone with the wealth and resources to step in there and break up the Disney/Hollywood cartel and introduce some serious new innovative filmmaking in there. Unfortunately nobody with the billions of bucks necessary has the mojo to do that. That would be HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Starz (can’t believe I just typed that), and a bunch more. Let’s face it: The visual entertainment world has flipped. Now, if you want serious, thoughtful programming you turn on your TV. If you want to eat popcorn and watch things blow up, you go to the movies. I think this is a permanent change. Movies are too expensive to make to appeal to niche audiences. Movies today are made for global audiences, and that means they can’t be too nuanced. But everyone likes a good action film, so long as it’s light on plot and characterization and has lots of great Fx scenes. So that’s what you are going to get. Well, that or remakes. If yoh are going to spend a half a billion dollars making and marketing a movie, the suits are always going to want to minimize risk by going back the well of what worked before. Movies are almost dead to me now. I’m tired of paying $15 for a ticket so that I can buy a $12 bag of popcorn and an $8 drink, then watch a half hour of commercials before being allowed to watch the thing I actually paid for. TV is where it’s at now. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2019, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disneys-going-to-own-the-box-office-this-year-arent-they/829473/26 "2019-02-17T23:45:07Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Boy, if a billion dollars in profit on one movie is a mild success, sign me up for some mild successes. Correction: those numbers are grosses, not profits. The rule of thumb in Hollywood is that a film has to double its budget to break even. So if you can track down the budgets (sometimes listed at IMDb or Box Office Mojo) you can get a rough idea of the profits. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disneys-going-to-own-the-box-office-this-year-arent-they/829473/27 "2019-02-18T00:25:24Z")
That’s just box office, though. With anything by Disney you have to factor in merchandising, too. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disneys-going-to-own-the-box-office-this-year-arent-they/829473/28 "2019-02-18T00:29:46Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > That’s just box office, though. With anything by Disney you have to factor in merchandising, too. Totally so. At a certain level, for them, one might view it that making movies is simply a necessary loss leader for their core business of marketing toys, video games, comic books, clothing, theme parks, etc. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disneys-going-to-own-the-box-office-this-year-arent-they/829473/29 "2019-02-18T01:23:37Z")
I’m one of the few people that think Hollywood didn’t need the studio system broken up…… reformed greatly yes broken up no ……especially the part when they owned the theaters on the complaint of Hollywood being creative … its never really needed to be in the old “golden era” days people would go to see the series like boston blackie every 6-8 weeks which ran for 20 years or blondie which ran so long the kids literatly grew up during the series granted a lot of the “serials” like those above would probably be a tv series in this day and age If you can still find a copy get a late 90s version of maltins “movie and dvd guide” theres pages of series that only died when the studio system did , [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disneys-going-to-own-the-box-office-this-year-arent-they/829473.md?page=1)