It’s that time again, folks: time for another Disney news roundup filled with drama, dazzle, and… financial woes? We all know Disneyland is the happiest place on Earth, but even the House of Mouse has bad days — and today was a doozy. Yesterday, we spoke about two highly anticipated projects, The Muppets Mayhem and The Little Mermaid, both of which are already being praised by viewers and icons like the original Ariel herself, Jodie Benson. Along with rave reviews of the newest installment of Guardians of the Galaxy, Disney’s doing its best with critics in recent memory, but unfortunately, after today, it’s also doing its worst in the stock market.
Along with the whole DeSantis debacle, it seems like Disney just can’t catch a break, but hopefully, all the bad is making way for some gains in the near future. With The Little Mermaid coming to theaters in just about two weeks, as well as a promising sci-fi film hitting Disney Plus tomorrow, I hope better days are coming for the Mouse.
Disney stock drops 9%, making today the worst stock day since Bob Iger’s return
After Disney released its most recent quarterly report, the company’s stock dropped drastically despite an initial 23 percent rise when CEO Bob Iger returned to his post back in November. The 9 percent drop from yesterday has less to do with DeSantis and more to do with a staggeringly large amount of Disney Plus subscribers jumping ship. In the quarterly report, Disney disclosed it lost four million subscribers and that the streaming service reported a loss of $659 million during those few months. While all streaming services are seeing subscribers flee as early signs of a recession loom over households, Disney’s losses were exacerbated by an exodus of Disney Plus Hotstar subscribers. Disney Plus Hotstar is Disney’s streaming service based in the Indian market, and after losing the rights to stream Indian Premier League cricket matches, millions of subscribers left the service in droves. According to a report from the Guardian, the majority of losses were Disney Plus Hotstar subscribers, but a subscription price increase last December led to around 300,000 U.S. and Canada subscribers fleeing as well.
While the numbers seem bad — and they’re obviously not great — the $659 million loss is actually an improvement for the streaming site; just a year ago, Disney Plus was reporting a $1.1 billion loss in profits. Disney did meet its profit estimate despite their streaming woes, and the combined profit of parks and Disney products was $1.1 billion during the quarter.
Bob Iger has words with Florida Governor Rob DeSantis
Speaking of parks, CEO Bob Iger used that same Q2 report to give his two cents on the feud between the Florida Governor and the Mouse House. Iger firmly stated he believed DeSantis was retaliating against the company for expressing its opposition against the problematic “Don’t Say Gay” bill and debunked a few claims DeSantis has made about Disney and its Disney World theme park. According to Iger, Disney is just one of 2,000 special districts in the state of Florida, and if DeSantis truly wanted to impose restrictions on special districts, he would ensure they applied to the other districts as well.
First of all, the case that we filed last month made our position and the facts very clear. This is about one thing and one thing only, and that’s retaliating against us for taking a position about pending legislation. And we believe that in us taking that position, we are merely exercising our right to free speech. Also, this is not about special privileges, or a level playing field, or Disney in any way using its leverage around the state of Florida.
Iger added that Disney invests in Florida by employing “over 75,000 people” and paying them “substantially above the minimum wage dictated by the state of Florida.” Any talk that Disney didn’t pay its fair share of taxes is blatantly false according to the CEO, who stated the business paid over $1 billion in state and local taxes just last year. Disney plans to invest another $17 billion in Florida over the next decade, though it’s implied that investment is up in the air due to DeSantis’ baffling feud. “Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people and pay more taxes, or not?” It’s obvious that Florida benefits from the success of Walt Disney World, and it truly feels DeSantis’ folding to the Mouse is an inevitability rather than a possibility.
Despite the stock troubles, Disney’s latest offerings are getting all sorts of praise, and the promising Crater looks to continue that trend
After a string of mostly disappointing MCU films, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is getting praised for revitalizing the superhero genre by telling an emotional, character-led story and beating the audience’s “superhero fatigue.” While it’s still too soon to tell if the final Guardians film will help save Phase Five, I remain cautiously hopeful. Meanwhile, The Muppets Mayhem came out just yesterday and is also getting rave reviews, even with the absence of two of the Muppets’ biggest stars. Early reviews for the live-action The Little Mermaid (which swims to theaters May 26) are overwhelmingly positive, making it appear that Disney is turning things around when it comes to their recent creative output.
If the trailer is any indication, the new Disney Plus film Crater will help bring more critical adoration Disney’s way. The coming-of-age sci-fi series is written by Kyle Patrick Alvarez (best known for the 2015 film The Stanford Prison Experiment) and has Stranger Things producers Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen attached, which bodes well for the film’s quality. The film follows a boy named Caleb who lives on the moon as part of a lunar mining colony; when his father (played by Kid Cudi) dies in the line of duty, Caleb is informed he’ll be sent to a faraway colony as part of the “death benefits” afforded to him after his father’s passing. Before he leaves, he hatches a plan to realize his father’s dream of exploring a mysterious crater with his three best friends and a new kid who just moved from Earth. Although I love Disney Channel offerings, Disney Plus is overdue for a coming-of-age project with a more serious tone, and Crater seems to fit the bill. If Disney continues to put out great content, it’s my belief its stocks will reflect that quality sooner than later.
