‘Pinocchio’ represents a key test case for Disney+

No, Robert Zemeckis Pinocchio Is not very good. As much as any of Walt Disney’s little remakes over the past decade, it alternates between a redundant reworking of the 1940 animated feature and an unnecessarily watered down adaptation of it. I could joke about a drinking game based on every time Tom Hanks’ Geppetto shouts ‘Pinocchio’, but Hanks doesn’t phone it and delivers as many ‘act against nothing’ performances as he managed Zemeckis’ Castaway. Additionally, Zemeckis clearly took interest in the visuals of the film, with nearly every central character existing as a visual effect. I would say that the film offers moments of deserved glare. Keegan-Michael Key (as Honest John the Fox) proves unable to deliver a dull or inauthentic performance no matter what is going on around him (see also: Prom).

In the void, Pinocchio is less of an abomination than an unmistakably expensive and sometimes visually captivating “thing”. It exists primarily to tick a box. Disney is tapping its animated movies for live-action content from Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland. I would say the end game was creating the definitive live-action version of these respective oft-told tales to accompany their already classic anime adaptations. Pinocchio again commits the cardinal sin of “fixing” alleged flaws found in the initial films, as in this case (for example), making our protagonist less tempted by the perils of Pleasure Island. While a few of them (Pete’s Dragon, The Jungle Book, Cinderella and i would say Maleficent: mistress of evil) function as standalone motion picture entertainment, they only exist in relation to their animated predecessor. That makes them less valuable on Disney+, where they sit alongside the animated classic, than in theaters.

I’m not saying that Pinocchio should have played in theaters. It would have been lucky to draw revenue on par with that of Tim Burton Dumbo (another of these which, as Pinocchiotakes some pretty explicit shots in their cast studio), which grossed $115 million domestically and $353 million worldwide on a budget of $170 million at the start of 2019. In a non-Covid world, when theaters weren’t product starved, a smaller scale, lower tier remake like Pinocchio would belong alongside the Lady and the Tramp like the one that (despite the value of the production) does not belong to the theaters. As reported in 2019, as the public flocked to Batman doesn’t mean they wanted a big budget version of The shadow. Similarly, whether the public has come to the theaters for Aladdin doesn’t mean they would do it for Dumbo. However, in a world where streaming is now dominated by top tier IP and cinematic movies, Pinocchio benefited from a theatrical release?

The Nielsens just dropped for the week of August 8-14, and Light year won 700 million minutes. That’s a steep drop from last week’s 1.3 billion-minute premiere, suggesting that most people who waited to catch the whiff of Pixar did so over the weekend. ‘opening. the excellent Prey did well in its first week, earning 480 million minutes (-18%) on Hulu compared to its “opening weekend” of 585 million minutes. Meanwhile, perhaps proving my point about theatrical releases in favor of streaming performance, Sony Unexplored was the best movie of the week, with 1.1 billion minutes after a first movie of 1.014 billion minutes. That’s after $400 million in worldwide revenue. Most Netflix biggies (originals or otherwise) rise slightly in the first full week before crashing after the tenth day. It makes leggy underdogs like purple hearts (229 million hours worldwide in 28 days after a start of 48 million hours) even more impressive.

UnexploredNetflix’s strength is proof that the lucrative first-window pay-TV deal Sony has signed with Netflix will be mutually beneficial. Netflix gets high-end third-party movies while Sony gets cushion and financial incentive to take a chance on the next one Where the Crawdads sing or the next baby driver. Morbius dropped yesterday, and yes, it’s already their most-watched movie in America. As we’ve seen, anything remotely theatrical or mainstream tends to do well on initial intake. This caused a kerfuffle (mostly online) when Ugly (an Oscar-winning and Best Picture nominated film that grossed $169 million in 2011) became Netflix’s most-watched film during a time of intense civil protest against arguably inappropriate (and racially-motivated) police brutality. ). Ugly still plays like a blunt “don’t be racist, asshole” melodrama, at least more than, I don’t know, Hillbilly Elegy. But I digress.

Return to Pinocchio and Light year. I argued last week that Light yearDisney+’s terrific opening weekend was proof that a box office bombshell would work better on a streaming platform than a streaming-only original. Think, casually, the (justly) Emmy winner Tic and Tac: Rescue Rangers movie from last May. The argument I’ve been making for the past two years is that a theatrical movie, in terms of production value, budget, and big-screen pizzazz, always means it’s more interesting than a streaming-only movie. . That’s not always true, especially for the prolific Netflix and especially not for Netflix’s usual year-end award contenders. Prey is the best Predator movie from the first Predator movie, and flippant The more they fall may be the best mainstream western since Open range. However, there is a clear difference between Mulane and turn red and the Lady and the Tramp and Pinocchio.

The awareness, promotion and media coverage created by an admittedly expensive theatrical marketing campaign can make the difference. Movie titles regularly dominate the VOD charts. Most non-Netflix platforms get more viewership from movie titles than streaming-centric originals. Disney+ is dominated by MCU TV shows (whose success was built on the theatrical popularity of Marvel movies), Marvel theatrical movies (Thor: Love and Thunder debuted today), star wars Disney/Pixar animated shows and movies. Box Pinocchio pull the number of viewers on par with a title that was supposed to be in theaters like turn red or a title was in theaters like Light year? If so, that’s an important feather in the Disney cap. If not, well, reviews notwithstanding, then maybe Disney should start considering theatrical releases for movies like (say) Hocus Pocus 2 and Disillusioned just for glory streaming. It’s too late for them, but it’s worth considering for the future.

Marketing a movie to theaters is expensive, which is a key reason why studios are less inclined to distribute more mid-budget, less than four-quadrant titles to theaters. It might not be worth spending tens of millions of dollars on a movie like Pinocchio to bombard theaters (with bad press and tisk-tisking from pundits like me) to increase its streaming potential. The theatrical release creates additional notoriety for the title. It cements it as a Tier A streaming offering. However, I don’t know if there is an equation for “losing X dollars in theaters for Y gains in streaming viewership”. As for Pinocchio, it’s a disappointment, of course. My whole family gave him ten thumbs down. However, it’s also a way for Zemeckis to satisfy his decades-long interest in pushing technical boundaries now that Hollywood can no longer afford to spend $100 million on movies like Contact and Castaway.