Minions is damn close, however. Freaking billion dollar movies and infinite numbers of the yellow dudes everywhere.

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.

People forget that the movie came out nine years ago and shouldn't pass for "recent years", which the discussion above is about. The movie also primarily sold through hype to kids who grew up with the prequels, which had little to do with the quality. People, including me, still lived in denial back then. It wasn't until the second movie that my friends realized how terrible Star Wars had become and promised to never watch a Disney movie at the cinema again. A reputation Disney seems to have embraced considering the countless discussions of their decline.

Here's the problem with that analysis, how do you attribute revenue to a specific movie? Will people attend the theme parks or spend more at them because of [movie X]? It's the same problem you have with streaming. Will people subscribe or stay subscribed to D+ longer because of [movie X]?

Until you can answer one or both in a repeatable, predictable way, we can wave our hands and say "it makes money later!" or "it doesn't make money later!" and neither is provable.

One other aspect that we CAN prove: streaming kills DVD sales. That's a revenue stream that is gone and won't be coming back so we have yet another deficit to fill.

Until then, Box Office and merchandising are the ONLY numbers that we, analysts, and stockholders can point at where "You put in $X and got out $Y" for their movie business. And as of right now, that puts Disney's 2023 numbers deeply negative.

That would traditionally be the case, but the merchandising is bombing too, and (anecdata time) I can confirm this through personal observation: 80%-off sales of Star Wars merchandise in a local toy store, and my kids and their circle having a keen sense of which IP they like (unsurprising spoiler: it’s the stuff based on good movies, not the stuff based on bad movies).

Live action remakes are the new “safe sequel”.

I think they should be compared to how well a literal rerelease of the original would do.

I think part of the evidence is just how absolutely long lived Frozen 1 has been. Nothing has been able to even come close to unseating that, not even its sequel (they were very smart to keep everything similar enough so that Frozen 2 merchandise can substitute for Frozen 1 in a kid’s eye).

It’s very indicative that people jump to movies that have been out for a decade or more, and probably can’t even name most of the more recent releases.

A movie needs to bring in twice its budget to be profitable[1] is the common rule of thumb. The budget doesn't include things like marketing, and the fact that the box office is shared with the theatre owner.

So in your example, it potentially lost money for Disney. The wikipedia article almost says as much [2]

"Although it underperformed at the box office ..."

[1] https://gizmodo.com/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encanto