We’re at the start of another busy week for Disney.
Haunted Mansion is gearing up for its theatrical debut this Friday, so you expect some promos, clips, and interviews to drop throughout the week. In fact, during Comic-Con this past weekend, the film’s director almost fell into a PR trap when asked a specific question about all those years Haunted Mansion spent in developmental hell, but thanks to some quick thinking on his part, he sidestepped the question with a hilariously accurate response.
Meanwhile, the aftermath of Bob Iger’s bombshell interview last week continues to make waves as players across the entire industry dig into the Mouse House for the decisions it’s made in the last several years, including the decision to reboot classics such as Snow White with a diverse cast and a modern retelling.
And then we have the $100 million blockbuster that won’t stop making money at the box office. As it turns out, Disney isn’t the only studio that decided not to pick up the film.
It turns out two streaming juggernauts joined Disney in saying no to this $100 million blockbuster
Sound of Freedom is absolutely taking the box office by storm. The movie raked in over $100 million almost right off the bat and is well on its way to $200 million. For a film that operated with a $14.5 million budget, that’s a major success, and Disney missed out on it. After acquiring 20th Century Fox in 2019, with whom the movie was previously attached, the Mouse House decided not to proceed with development. Angel Studio eventually picked up the rights, but not before Netflix and Amazon both ignored knocks at their proverbial doors. According to the film’s producer, Eduardo Verástegui, “they just didn’t even answer my phone calls.”
Now, Verástegui didn’t elaborate on why three major studios passed on the film, but it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to assume it has something to do with Jim Caviezel’s affiliation with the far-right conspiracy theory movement QAnon. That’s a PR nightmare virtually no studio wanted to willingly walk into.
Haunted Mansion director treads lightly when asked to comment on what it’s like being in Disney’s developmental hell
Technically, Haunted Mansion was supposed to debut in the early 2010s with Guillermo del Toro as director. Del Toro eventually backed out of the project in July 2013, and between the years 2013 and 2020, the film spent endless hours trying to claw its way out of the pits of developmental hell. When asked at this year’s Comic-Con about this precarious point in time, Haunted Mansion director Justin Simien responded with the most straightforward answer you could imagine: “Disney is paying for me to be here, so I can’t.” You can’t argue with that logic.
Thankfully, Simien didn’t leave it at that, elaborating to such an extent that we can’t help but wonder whether the filmmaker was subtly alluding to a certain Star Wars project he’s been attached to for quite some time.
A WSJ opinion piece drags Disney through the mud thanks to the live-action Snow White
The live-action Snow White has been the talk of the town ever since early set photos revealed a staggeringly diverse cast of dwarves ranging in various genders, heights, and skin colors. The “woke” backlash was immediate and similar to the kind we saw with The Little Mermaid. Now, weeks later, an opinion piece by Allysia Finley from the Wall Street Journal titled “Wokeness Hobbles Disney as It Faces the Streaming Challenge” has dragged the movie back into the spotlight, and Disney through the mud for, in so many words, pandering to a liberal agenda.
Finley accuses Disney of peddling an endless stream of woke messages to “curry favor with the cultural left.” She said the company has “elevated progressive pieties over originality and tradition, which may be alienating its customer base.” She suggested LGBTQ+ romances are to blame for Lightyear and Strange World’s box office failure. She said “There’s nothing wrong with casting a diverse crew,” and then finished that sentence with a “but” which tells you all you need to know: anything that comes after a “but” completely negates the sentiment that came before it.
Indeed, Disney’s decision to reboot Snow White with a modern lens is going to be a conversation that plagues the Mouse House for years to come. Certainly, Rachel Zegler, our new Snow White, could give two cruds what people like Finley have to say. As Zegler said in an interview with Variety back in 2022:
“It’s no longer 1937 and we absolutely wrote a Snow White [that is] not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love; she’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be, and the leader that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave, and true. It’s just a really incredible story for I think young people everyone to see themselves in.”
Phew. On that note, keep your eyes peeled for more news on the Snow White front, and let’s not forget Haunted Mansion, which is lurking right around the corner. Grab your tickets today! We’ll see you back here tomorrow with a heaping helping of fresh news.