Fallen kingdom: why has Disney had such a terrible year?

A dubious brand strategy and underperforming films like Wish and The Marvels have led the once-golden studio into disarray

For its 100th anniversary this year, Disney received a bucket of ice-cold water to the face. It may sound momentary, but somehow it’s the gift that has been giving all year, from the box office nosedive of Marvel’s Ant-Man sequel, to lower-than-expected international numbers for an expensive Little Mermaid remake, to series-low grosses on Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones sequel. This continued all the way to November, when The Marvels outright flopped and Disney’s 100th-birthday cartoon Wish opened to an underwhelming number. It marks the first year since 2014, pandemic era not included, that the company failed to produce a billion-dollar hit.

Financially speaking, the only bright spots were Elemental and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, both of which held up following surprisingly soft opening weekends. And while Guardians scored good reviews, critics haven’t been wild about this lineup as a whole. Compare this with the last pre-pandemic year, 2019, when the company had seven different billion-dollar hits – and if they didn’t all notch great reviews, more than half of critics not actively loathing The Lion King still seems like a win, especially in retrospect.