Disney has struggled with the quality of its movies for years now, with its most recent hit released in 2021, but the studio didn’t learn the most important lesson from it, and its latest animated movie was a failure. Disney established itself as the powerhouse studio in the world of animation and family-friendly movies, a spot that it has defended for decades. While Disney continues to be the biggest animation studio and the one whose content is often guaranteed to be top-quality, the Mouse House has dealt with various failures in recent years.
While Disney has had underwhelming and underperforming movies before, the studio’s failures have been more recurrent in recent years. This can be attributed to different factors, such as more competition in the genre of animation and younger generations being interested in topics and stories different from the ones Disney had been relying on. However, Disney seems to be ignoring its biggest problem, no matter how many times the audience expresses their complaints about it and how much its recent failures prove the point: Disney’s lack of original stories, which was fixed in 2021, but the studio didn’t really learn from it.
Encanto Proved Audiences Want More Original Disney Movies
Encanto Was Disney’s Biggest Hit In 2021
Disney released two animated movies in 2021 – Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto, and while both were praised by critics, only Encanto was a true success. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Encanto had an unusual release with a 30-day theatrical run immediately followed by its release on Disney+, where it found its audience. Encanto ended up being nominated for different awards, taking home the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and becoming one of the best movies of 2021.
Unlike many other Disney animated movies, Encanto wasn’t an adaptation and was a fully original story. Encanto took viewers to Colombia to meet the Madrigal family, led by Alma a.k.a. Abuela, who received a miracle that allowed her to create Casita (a sentient house) and which had granted each of her descendants a magical “gift”… except for Mirablel, who, for some reason, didn’t get one. Encanto followed Mirabel’s journey as she uncovered a family mystery and tried to find her place in the family, while also carrying a lot of generational trauma. Encanto’s success is the best proof there can be that Disney’s audiences want more original stories and that this doesn’t mean that the studio has to sacrifice its touch of magic.
Disney Has Spent Years Focusing On Sequels & Adaptations
Despite Their Failures, Disney Won’t Stop Making Sequels, Adaptations, & Remakes
While Encanto is the biggest proof there has been in recent years that viewers want original content from Disney, it definitely hasn’t been the only one. The biggest complaint directly linked to the lack of original stories is how Disney has spent years focusing on sequels, adaptations of other works, and live-action remakes of its animated classics. While not all of these have been failures, such as Frozen and Aladdin, the truth is that the Mouse House has focused too much on these despite their many failures, instead of working on original stories that appeal to new, younger generations and older ones as well, like Encanto.
It’s more concerning that Disney is aware of the amount of sequels it has worked on in recent years, yet doesn’t seem to see (or simply won’t admit) how this has affected the brand. Disney CEO Bob Iger recently admitted they have made too many sequels, but doesn’t “want to apologize” for it as some of them have done “extraordinarily well”. However, Iger added that “there has to be a reason to make it, beyond commerce” and they have to have a good story, but even though they have made too many sequels, they’re not going to stop making them.
Why Wish Couldn’t Succeed As An Original Story
Wish Repeated Disney’s Old & Overused Formula
Encanto was followed by another original story, Strange World, in 2022, which even though did well with critics, became one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time, and Disney’s latest original story is Wish. Directed by Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn, Wish takes viewers to the Kingdom of Rosas to meet Asha, who, with the help of a magical star, does her best to save the kingdom from King Magnifico.
Although Wish is an original story, Disney focused on adding too many references to its animated classics as Wish is part of the studio’s celebration of 100 years, thus making it boring and predictable, as it repeated the studio’s old and overused formula. This made Wish not feel like an original story and instead like a mix of random elements from past Disney movies, which isn’t what the audience wants. Surely, Disney can still learn from Encanto’s success and change its approach, but after Iger’s statement, it seems unlikely.
