ST Will the Fact the Franchise is Now Owned by Disney Hurt it in International Markets?

I am just wondering if the fact that Disney now owns Star Wars will make any dent on ticket sales.

There was a great deal of hostility towards Disney throughout the 1990s in European and Asian markets due to the corporation's perceived arrogance and cultural appropriations.

For instance, see this book:

http://books.google.com.au/books?id...oQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=disney arrogance&f=false


is there still resentment in Europe today over the Euro-Disney fiasco? I know there was also quite a lot of backlash in some parts of the world due to the way Disney adapted (and largely changed) the Hunchback of Notre Dame when it made an animated adaptation of that novel.

Can any Europeans on here chime in with their thoughts? Is there still enough lingering bad taste about the corporation that some people will not go and see the film? I am genuinely curious to learn how Disney is regarded today.

 

Chapter 4 of that book linked above raises deep ethical concerns about the company as well, at least for me.

 

Avengers hitting more than $1.5 BILLION worldwide says that not a lot of people internationally are concerned about it.

 

none of Marvel and Pixar movies have been hurt because of Disney.

 

Yes, I am wondering about in specific markets though, particularly France where Euro Disney is based. I guess gaining such statistics is hard - you'd have to find out if there has been a downturn in sales in that country comparative to other nations and if that trend is long-lasting. You'd also have to interview individuals to determine if they had made the decision not to patronise the film based on Disney's perceived arrogance/image problem.

It is a good that you raised the question of the Marvel films as they tie in with the discussion in Chapter 4 of that book. If you Google around, you will find a number of reputable news sources talking about how the Marvel films were partly sponsored by the US military,as have the recent Superman and Transformer films.

Star Wars has always been a mass of contradictions: Lucas was outside the Hollywood mainstream yet has come to be the very embodiment of mass-market commercial cinema. Likewise, there are moments of subversion in the films: one can point to the Ewoks as a metaphor for the Viet Cong defeating the US military or Anakin's "you are either with me or you are against me" line which sparked some controversy in the United States when it was perceived as echoing a similar statement by that country's former president, George W. Bush. Whilst the subversiveness is generally very subdued in these films, I would hate to see it eliminated entirely and for this saga to become another US propaganda piece.

 

I doubt it. As is the case with the Marvel movies, Star Wars will not be marketed as a "Disney" film, and thus will avoid any Disney hate

 

You are essentially talking about product placement or recruiting dollars as far as the military sponsoring films go. That is not a new trend in the industry. As far as the people in France who are bent over Disney, it is clearly not hurting the box office any.

Check this out.

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=avengers11.htm&sort=todateGross&order=ASC&p=.htm

Avengers did particularly well in France and Asian markets. Almost $1 Billion of the $1.5 Billion gross is international.

I'd say not to worry too much about it.

 

How were they marketed? I have never seen them. Did they avoid the Disney logo? Were they released under a subsidiary like Touchstone?

I guess the thing is that the deal that Disney was the buyer of Lucas' property was very much publicised in the news at the time, so even if the films are marketed in such a way that they avoid the Disney branding everyone knows who bought the product.

 

Thanks very much for that. Thosse are the kind of stats I am interested in.

Would be interested to hear any French fans on this discussion board chime in with anecdotal thoughts about current attitudes towards Disney, too.

I am certainly aware of what product placement is but what do you mean by "recruiting dollars"? Do you mean the US military are using money from their recruitment budgets when they invest in these films in order that they will server as propaganda to encourage Americans to enlist?

 

It used the "Marvel Studios" name. Disney wasn't mentioned at all in any of the titles or anything.

 

Okay, thanks. Interesting.

Even allowing for the fact then, that they may have avoided use of the Disney name, it is interesting that, as per the stats above, the films have still done well in France. I wonder what that says about consumer behaviour? Do people eventually "forgive" a corporation that they have had ethical concerns about? Is it simply good marketing and PR? Did casual consumers not realise it was a Disney film because of the fact that they avoided the name? Is it because, being comic book films, they were mainly aimed at children, the target audience was simply too young to remember what happened in the 1990s? Do people like the product so much (in this case, Avenger films) that they were able to overlook their concerns about the business practices of the company that produced it?

 

I spent a lot of time in France in the 80s and 90s, had a long-term French GF; learnt to speak French etc etc. The French like any nation are an eclectic mix of views and opinions which is why I'm firmly of the opinion that there is no such thing as a typical French person any more than a typical Pom, American, Aussie or whomever.

However, as in all cases, those who like to yell the loudest about their opinions are the ones that most often get heard and the media often pick up on this. I certainly came across French people who absolutely hate Disney and indeed anything to do with the US. Do they go and watch Hollywood movies? I'll bet some do; hypocrisy comes in many flavours. There are enough French people however to whom this doesn't matter a jot. They'll watch the movies in large numbers regardless of whether their voices are heard or not.

 

Did this really need to have its own thread?

 

It's as legitimate of a topic as anything else.

 

Individuals complain, but I've never heard of any mass resentment of Disney.

 

You vastly overestimate people's ability to hold a grudge. It's the same as with the EU /legends discussion. Consumers in general are quick to forgive, it's just a very small and disproportionately vocal number that are slow on the uptake.

 

Flash ahead to the 2000's and nobody seems to notice.

Sure isn't hurting Marvel or Frozen on the international stage.

 

I've always been under the impression that Star Wars has had STRONG support internationally, especially Europe and Asia. I don't see Disney ownership changing that, except maybe stronger marketing? (Not that I thought it was bad before, I just see that as a strength of a massive company like Disney.)

 

The fact that FOX (or better yet, News Corp) was associated with the other 6 movies and it didnt hurt them domestically makes me think that disney owning them will be a non-issue internationally.

 

I've heard individual complaints but these are rarely based on anything more than a misguided idea that "Disney = kid cartoons and princesses". When mentioned that Marvel and for example Miramax are also owned by Disney, these types of complaints usually stop.

It has always been just Marvel here, no one ever even mentions Disney when talking about these superhero movies. No one really cares that much about who owns who, really. People want a good product, they don't really care about internal workings of these big companies.

It basically comes down to this, in my view: If the movie is good, people will congratulate and cheer for Abrams, Kennedy and LucasFilm. If the movie is bad, everyone will whine how it's all Disney's fault.

 

Disney doesn't actually get a lot of hate its just that the minority that hates them screams really loud but clearly people don't hate Disney just look at Frozen which just came out.

 

I doubt this will happen. If Episode VII doesn't do as well as expected I think it will mostly be down to today's crowded landscape of big franchise movies. Star Wars is probably not needed as the "one true event" when even sticking to the Disney umbrella stuff like Avengers and Guardians is pretty huge.

 

I've never even heard of any sort of hostility towards Disney in Europe or Asia - apart from a minor outrage from around the time when they opened their park in Paris, which had no real consequences whatsoever - nor can I think of any movie that did less in international markets because it was a Disney movie. In fact, Disney movies have done very well internationally, and that includes all sort of movies they have made. All the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were Disney movies as well, and they did exceptionally well in international markets, even when they dropped domestically.

 

Who cares.

 

I question the ethics of anyone that doesn't watch Star Wars. Clearly such a person can not be trusted.