I really didn’t want to have to write more about how bad Disney is, but they keep giving me no choice. And hey, Disney’s been greenlighting a bunch of prolonged unnecessary sequels, they just announced a new Santa Clause, so I think I’m justified in making my own. Back in 2019, I wrote about the encroaching dominance of Disney and why it was concerning for the film industry as a whole. I was optimistic but critical, hoping that the ceiling would be breached within a couple years. But by 2022, that dominance has come -Disney has won Hollywood ubiquity to the point even its’ largest competitor, Warner Bros., is several degrees behind.
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2021 was something of a reckoning; a year when, due to holdovers from 2020, Disney had a plethora of content to drop. Between cinemas and Disney+, there were nine Marvel products, three Star Wars shows, two Disney films allowed a chance in theatres, and a Pixar film restricted from that. Of course these were the things that Disney cared about (except perhaps Luca), they had a whole host of other things to release that they didn’t -mainly movies inherited through their acquisition of Fox. These were adult dramas like The Last Duel, West Side Story, and Nightmare Alley, all of which were marketed to a minimum and dropped within the immediate window of a Marvel movie that could easily drown them out. Disney didn’t need or particularly care about earning money from these, because they couldn’t be exploited for brand synergy the way a Spider-Man or Boba Fett could.
The result is Disney once again boasting a stranglehold over the domestic box office. All four Marvel movies are represented there within the top six, and in the top ten as a whole, the extremely overly-advertized Free Guy even found a place. It may not be quite as lopsided as in other years, but the disparity is noteworthy, with Spider-Man: No Way Home sitting comfortably at a gross more than three hundred million dollars greater than the second-place Shang-Chi.
Really, it’s not surprising given how much excess went into the marketing campaign and Disney’s hype machine, in addition to the fact their contracts with theatre chains stipulate a set number of showtimes and screens allotted as well as the minimum length of weeks it must play for. What chance does any other movie have, especially if it’s not from a studio even a fraction as big? For weeks, the stories have circulated of other movies being kept out of theatres because of Spider-Man’s real estate. Some cinemas have missed out on Nightmare Alley or have lost West Side Story fast (depriving it of the chance to be a Greatest Showman-style sleeper hit) –in my case Licorice Pizza has still yet to release anywhere near enough for me to drive to. Yet more than five weeks after its’ release, I can still see Spider-Man at any multiplex on multiple screens.
Back in the 1930s and 40s there was a concept in the movie industry known as block booking, which was a system that allowed studios to buy up theatre space by selling their movies as a block. If a theatre wanted to show one movie from Paramount, they had to show a dozen others, as well as guarantee space for movies not in production yet. This meant that studios were effectively in control of all three branches of the movie industry: production, distribution, and exhibition -they held the lion’s share of what could be shown to the American public. This practice was also part of what made smaller productions from Poverty Row and non-Hollywood companies (which included a number of movies from marginalized filmmakers) unable to gain a foothold in the cinematic landscape. Eventually block booking was outlawed in 1948 by the Paramount Decrees which found them in violation of U.S. antitrust laws, and one of the biggest benefactors of those Decrees was none other than Walt Disney himself.
Seven decades later though, in 2019, the Paramount Decrees were nullified by the U.S. Department of Justice right as Disney won antitrust approval to buy Fox. It gave licence for Disney to effectively reinstate block booking in all but name for their company exclusively –something they had been essentially doing anyway for years already. They don’t own their own theatres yet, but their power over theatres nonetheless is indisputable. Sure, cinemas can choose not to show Disney movies, but that choice would come with a severe financial hit, given Disney movies make up the bulk of substantial money-earners.
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Why is that though? It’s a common rebuttal of Disney defenders that the company’s monopolizing control of the industry is just smart business, and that they’re only in the position to exercise such power because their movies just happen to be popular with audiences. It’s merely what the public wants –and if you don’t want to see their products you don’t HAVE to. But the problem with this way of thinking is that it doesn’t take into account the ways that Disney’s methods of distribution have chipped away at the opportunities for other movies to be seen at any level of equity, or how they, with the help of Hollywood standardization, have conditioned their audience away from accepting variety. As a great one-time Disney critic once said, ‘if all you give people is one thing then they will demand more of that same thing.’
Namely what that thing is is brands. Brands, not movies, are what drives Hollywood in the 2010s and 2020s –original ideas are deemed too much of a risk; to ensure people go out to support movies, they need to belong to a pre-existing intellectual property or corporate collective. Often, these brands are based in nostalgia, and Disney got in on the ground floor of exploiting nostalgia in the 90s. It has proven very lucrative for them –for as bad as those movies are, they have yet to see one of their live-action remakes flop. Disney+ is built almost entirely on nostalgia, a seemingly endless library of mostly tepid stuff millennials might have vague memories of enjoying as children –a platform that caters to adults who would rather not engage with adult media. And of course other studios caught on to this trend and followed Disney’s example, pumping more and more resources into reboots and retreads of movies or series that were popular with kids thirty years ago.
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And the biggest brand of them all, in Disney’s arsenal, is Marvel. Their purchase of Marvel Studios in 2009 remains one of their savviest business decisions, as it was shortly after that its’ shared universe idea proved wildly successful. Numerous competitors tried to mimic the formula, but none worked on as astronomical a level. It was perfect brand integration, a vast film series that demanded you watch every instalment in order to understand and enjoy the product. And I do mean product. The Marvel machine became quickly streamlined, written with an eye on the future of the universe rather than the present, filmmakers in general being given less autonomy over the movies they made, a cheapening of the process for VFX, colour grading, and cinematography in spite of the wealth of money being siphoned into the films. Instead what would be prioritized was TV style story structure, fan service, cameos, references, quippy humour pioneered by Whedon, and the appearance of distinction between movies whilst fundamentally remaining the same. And it’s fine for this. Decent, entertaining popcorn fare. But with the mass-marketing apparatus of Disney behind it, their finely tuned hype machine treating every minor story beat and character as an essential component to the series’ grand scale and a plan intricately plotted from the beginning (in actuality, it’s clear they were making a lot of it up as they went along), Marvel’s influence was allowed to grow and dominate. The overwhelming narrative was that these were the must-see movies, the pop cultural landscape depended on them. Its’ fans were rewarded for their devotion, and by being the largest game in town, it drew in flocks of new fans –all of this coinciding of course with nerd culture in the wider sphere overtaking American pop culture.
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This ever-growing ubiquity of Marvel and its’ franchise copycats as well as additional factors like inflated movie ticket prices and lack of accessibility has in the last several years resulted in Marvel movies becoming some of the only movies general audiences go out to see. If they do see others, they tend to be from like franchises (Star Wars, DC, insert nostalgia series here…) that share similar brand formulas, internal homogeneity, vertical integration, excessive costs, and avid fandoms superficially rewarded by all the rest. To these audiences as well as the hardcore fans, such franchise products provide their vocabulary for movies as a whole. Movies don’t need to do anything more or be anything else, their function is merely to please and entertain in the specific ways laid out by the MCU. It’s why these fans are so defensive about criticism levied at Disney and Marvel, why they are so quick to dismiss alternative works and filmmakers as pretentious or elitist. To a degree, this is also why so many in the movie-sphere of the internet have taken hard-line stances on movie content; that movies have to be logical and only depict what is morally correct, they must be sexless and unchallenging in their approach to the material, and never much longer than two hours, unless it applies to the franchises they like. Because as far as they’re concerned, far from Marvel “not being cinema”, it is in fact the ONLY cinema.
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Right now that does indeed seem the case, given Marvel movies have been the only major earners throughout this pandemic. Due to Spider-Man breaking records even within that context, many Marvel acolytes are proclaiming the franchise as having “saved” movie theatres –exactly what we haters wanted, right? What’s actually been proven though is that Disney and Marvel are a bigger force to many moviegoers than a life-threatening pandemic, and that the survival of cinemas is all the more dependent on them. Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve received a lot of backlash for insisting their movies play exclusively on the big screen, but there was none for Disney and Spider-Man. Blaming the pandemic as the reason so many other movies were doing poorly doesn’t hold water in the aftermath of such a huge runaway success that continues to pack theatres across the continent. It isn’t a matter of folks not wanting to go to the movies in risk of their lives, it is a matter of how a behemoth conglomerate has cultivated a cinematic culture that revolves around their brands to the detriment of all other kinds of movies, even those that are by every measure, greater ‘spectacles’ than the most recent Marvel pictures.
There is no question that primarily through Marvel, Disney has won a very near pop culture omnipotence. Whatever its’ detractors and critics say, there is no taking down the Mouse in the foreseeable future. And yet, underdog mentality is strong, and sometimes those who’ve invested so much interest in their entertainment will tirelessly defend a multi-billion dollar corporation over an art form itself. This happens frequently on social media whenever almost any criticism of Disney or Marvel comes up, exacerbated of course by the general worst communication impulses that these platforms encourage. It’s sad to see such a devaluing of cinema by people who genuinely consider themselves to be movie fans -and it drives home why nerd culture fandom is just in general so terrible. When it’s not belligerent entitlement, it is the exact opposite: unquestioning acceptance and praise over whatever is presented and the machine behind it. If there is a middle ground, it is incredibly thin, and personally I regret ever thinking of belonging to fandom of any kind.
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It is ignorance, stubbornness, and a lack of curiosity that most shows up in these exchanges -an inability to reconcile enjoyable movies with the corroding structure that made them, and so denial of the latter is necessary. It got particularly bad these last few months, as Disney fans went so far as to celebrate the failures of non-Marvel movies. Because any non-Marvel movie, no matter how little a chance it has of overtaking its’ rival at the box office, is an adversary -and one supported by those folks who dislike Marvel, so it needs to be taken down. It’s partisan politics applied to the world of movies, and as in politics it can be cloaked in righteousness. Movies like The Last Duel and Licorice Pizza became targets for problematic content, twisted as films exploiting sexual assault or endorsing predatory relationships -when they do no such thing. Ridley Scott, like Scorsese before him, made a point of his distaste for superhero movie culture, leading to a barrage of hate against him based out of no real familiarity with his work (the director of Alien and Thelma & Louise was labeled a misogynist). Jane Campion received similar push-back, the groundbreaking feminist filmmaker derided as a nobody. And when Eternals was widely panned, heaps of fans who almost certainly hadn’t seen Nomadland or Chloé Zhao’s other films, were quick to call the naysayers racist, sexist, and homophobic, just because this Marvel movie made a shallow pass at diversity (these fans I imagine aren’t likely to seek out non-franchise movies by and about women, people of colour, or LGBTQ individuals). It was pretty insufferable -particularly the insinuation that Disney was some bastion of progressive filmmaking and that movies in the periphery by name filmmakers are archaic and irrelevant, when in fact just the opposite is true: Disney’s progressivism couldn’t be any more safe and calculated, and often it’s the visionary “auteurs” who are making the boldest leaps. The Last Duel has some of the most cogent commentary yet on the culture of sexual assault; The Power of the Dog even more so on the topic of inherited toxic masculinity. The Card Counter lambastes U.S. foreign policy and the lingering trauma of the war in Iraq, Benedetta challenges religion in upfront ways we haven't seen before, Candyman contends with generational racial dis-empowerment, and Titane is one of the most exuberantly queer films in years! Yet those in the Marvel fold prefer the table scraps that Disney would give them.
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The Disney followers are satisfied with the status quo, with that aloof compulsion not to take risks financial or personal on other kinds of movies -and it can be understood. Given the stressful and depressing times we’re living through, what harm is there in the comforting solace of formulaic reliable kids movies? Well, it’s a harm to perspective and one’s understanding of art and life. Movies allow us insights into points of view and ideas we might not otherwise consider -and Disney’s scope of this is very limited. To watch more movies from more diverse artists and visions is to understand our world better. And sometimes it is strange, sometimes uncomfortable, and you don’t always have to like it, but there is so much more to cinema than the narrow field Disney operates in -we should be open to that. There was a time that general audiences were.
Of course this does come back to the corporation itself, that has ingratiated its’ audiences to them and only them, so that the average moviegoers cannot be entirely blamed. And Disney remains seemingly unstoppable. Currently, it doesn’t seem to have its’ eye on eating any more studios but it is depressing what the former 20th Century Fox has been reduced to. Deep Water, which seems to be the last movie green-lit prior to the acquisition, an erotic thriller directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas -so deeply at odds with the Disney brand, is being nonchalantly dumped on Hulu later this year. Otherwise, 2022 will see only a handful of family movies and franchise touchstones come out of the former giant, such as another Cheaper by the Dozen remake and a Night at the Museum sequel. Searchlight is still going thankfully, and has picked up Sundance darling Fresh, as well as new Taika Waititi and Yorgos Lanthimos movies. But the former is already scheduled to go to Hulu, now to be the home of any original movie put out by the mouse with an audience demographic older than thirteen. Fox isn’t dead per se, but it is a hollow shell of the company that just prior to the acquisition was releasing films like Pain and Glory, Ford v. Ferrari, and Ad Astra in theatres. Those venues now are to be the space of purely the films Disney has confidence will not just turn a profit, but a major profit.
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This model has resulted in them even harming the subsidiary that at one time arguably saved Disney: Pixar. Turning Red, the upcoming film from Domee Shi, has become the third Pixar movie in a row to be unceremoniously moved from a theatrical release to Disney+. Not coincidentally, it is the third in a row to be an original story as well. They’re not even putting up paywalls for these movies like they did for Mulan, showing just how little the upper management at Disney cares about Pixar right now. But of course that Lightyear movie, a tie-in with an established I.P., won’t likely move from its’ theatrical slot. The animation house that for a few years was the only part of the Disney brand consistently turning out quality films is now the begotten second child of the family, and I worry that after having just got out of the franchise game, it will once again revert to an I.P. farm.
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In the meantime, Disney is far more invested in content related to its two most lucrative properties, and have green-lit more Marvel and Star Wars shows than anyone needs. The former in particular will likely be required viewing for continued enjoyment of the films and so are guaranteed their audiences -regardless of how insensibly they’ll complicate the greater universe. As for Star Wars, we will likely never get a product from Disney as intrepid as The Last Jedi again, the shows all being built into nostalgia-baiting rather than expanding in any meaningful way. They’ve now dropped two shows based essentially in playing with Boba Fett dolls. Whenever they get back to making Star Wars movies, I assume they’ll be coming from a similarly shallow place.
Disney doesn’t honestly put out many movies per year, but it still takes up considerable real estate and expense when they do. Their hype machine is multi-faceted, and one of the reasons for developing so many shows for Disney+ (apart from drawing more people to the relatively shallow platform) is so there can be a constant flow of new content that will ensure Disney is always in the conversation, always there to overshadow anything else. They don’t have to have a presence in cinemas to detract from cinema. And even then, it can usually be depended on that Warner Bros. or Sony will be doing the exact same thing, in the process shutting out from both financial success and pop culture conversation the movies that really matter.
Things are looking bleak for the future of cinema, in large part due to Disney and their reverberations across culture. But there are a few beacons of hope, however faint, worth clinging on to. The first is that critical reception to Disney in light of all this has been lukewarm at best -and it’s easy to say that critics don’t matter, but clearly they do matter to the folks at Disney. Think back to Scorsese’s comments in 2019, and how a ton of the people working for Disney, from executives to directors to actors, took it personally -still take it personally. They’re desperate for clout of an artistic kind, just look at how pathetically Kevin Feige and the Marvel stans are seeking validation through Oscar campaigns. Feige REALLY wants Marvel movies to be Oscar frontrunners (forgetting that Black Panther WAS one just a few years ago). It clearly hurts him that the vast majority of the awards circuit won’t recognize Marvel movies as great works of cinema, regardless of the gargantuan box office receipts. Perhaps he understands that for as successful and relevant as they are now, against the grand scheme of cinematic history they aren’t individually likely to amount to much -and he believes awards recognition will change that. Aside from it being nice that this is the one thing Marvel can’t get its’ hands on it, it is comforting at least that critics organizations, Academy members, unions, journalists, and by extent general people who work in the Hollywood industry aren’t swayed by Marvel’s prevalence, and still largely prefer other kinds of movies -even if sometimes those movies aren’t so great either.
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Another sign of hope may well be the genuinely unexpected success of Dune, currently the eleventh highest grossing movie of 2021, and the highest grossing movie from an American studio not part of an established franchise. Sure it is based on a highly influential book, but not one really top of mind in any universal sense. Yet people still went out to see it in big numbers, it was talked about extensively online, it was a hit! Which shows that there is an appetite for new stories told on a grand scale if marketed and hyped right. Of course, the double-edged sword is that these then become franchises of their own, and while Dune was always going to be two parts, there are now talks of expanding beyond that.
And then, though your mileage of belief in it may vary, there is fatigue. It’s human nature to evolve and for tastes to evolve, and I do think the Disney model of entertainment, with its’ strictures and formulas, will bottom out eventually. Yes, folks have been talking about superhero fatigue for a decade now and it hasn’t manifested at all, but I feel I can see Marvel starting to flatline. Especially with all the new shows that will have to be kept up with, let alone a multiverse that is on the horizon, Marvel is about to get way more convoluted and less accessible to newcomers, and I wonder if they might not be biting off more than they can chew. There is precedent after all for a Hollywood bubble bursting.
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From the 1950s to the early 70s, the trend of roadshow movies, an expensive spectacle model of filmmaking meant to counter the emergence of television with hype-driven gradual roll-outs and elaborate anamorphic shooting styles, was the dominant focus of a lot of the major studios. Historical epics, musicals, and westerns were the favourite genres of the roadshow picture and it sustained the industry for a few decades. But a series of major failures like Dr. Doolittle and Hello Dolly -or Cleopatra, which simultaneously was the highest grossing movie and biggest flop of 1963, nearly bankrupting Fox- brought about their end. And out of the ashes came the New Hollywood movement and figures like Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, Hal Ashby, Terrence Malick, David Lynch, and of course the brat pack of Coppola, Scorsese, De Palma, Lucas, and Spielberg. I would love to see a new New Hollywood movement in the coming years.
The thing is, Disney can’t really fail the way those studios could: it would take a lot of under-performing products for them to take a hit. They can’t be brought down in any easy way and the chances are low too of them letting go of any of their acquisitions willingly. Still they may be forced to evolve if more and more audiences catch on to their tricks and other kinds of movies start to find a mainstream footing. The prevalence of more vocal criticism these last few years in the film community and the online sphere is worth being optimistic about, if only temperately so.
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Hollywood is not meant to be this way. It’s not right that one company controls so much of the media landscape, and by that can dictate what art gets made, what art we see. Disney is not a force for good in this world -as it is, it stifles creativity, or else assimilates it into its’ own branded confines. It is hurting the art of film and its’ limitless expression by marginalizing it, by devaluing it as mere content for the machine of profit (maybe capitalism’s the real problem?). And Disney relies on its’ audience sharing that indifferent cynicism, in not asking for more or finding value in movies outside the structure it has created; in staying content with the work they produce and like that classic Disney hero, never growing up. With competitive non-franchise movies set up to fail, and fewer and fewer of them allowed a chance to play in theatres at all, it’s more important than ever that we hold the big studios’ feet to the fire and support those movies that dare to exist on their own terms and challenge the precepts of the dominant model. I guarantee that they will be more rewarding in the long term as well. Fear the mouse, but resist him as well.
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