How much exactly did Disney fork out of their seemingly bottomless pockets to buy both Marvel and George Lucas’ Star Wars Universe? It’s extremely likely that by simply owning these lucrative brands they’ll make their money back very quickly not to mention how much they’ll make from churning out sequels in the next few years but it hasn’t always been so easy for the house that Walt built.
In fact, back in the day several cinematic releases very near left the company in ruins and poor old Mickey living rough on the mean streets of Toon Town. Here, What Culture brings you the 10 Disney movies that almost ruined them financially. We’re pretty certain that many of the titles involved will surprise you – read on.
10. Dumbo
We’ve seen a shoe fly. We’ve seen a house fly. Thanks to Disney we’ve seen a bloody elephant fly! But ironically it was the contents of Walt’s own man purse that was doing the flying (out of the window) when Dumbo hit the big screen back in 1941.
Want to write about the stuff you're passionate about and have your work read by an audience of over 10 million a month? Click here to become a contributor.
3 Comments
Didn’t write a lot, did you?
And …. ?
Labeling an article the 10 biggest Disney flops already signals that you probably haven’t done your research. When it comes to animation (which is clearly what you’ve focused on), Disney doesn’t make flops. They’ve been uncannily good at using marketing and merchandise integration to ensure that every movie from Snow White to today make a crap-ton of money.
Really, it seems like you’re backing awkwardly into your thesis about Disney taking over Star Wars by trying to pick 10 less performing movies that would be blockbusters for any other company.
For instance, Fantasia (1940), in your opinion the biggest flop of Disney’s resume happened to win 2 academy awards as well as many top 10 lists the year it was released.
Yes, it started slowly, but films were not defined by their first 48 hours like today. The film cost $2.28 million, but generated $83 million in un-adjusted dollars. Nearly a flop? Slow starter? Yes and yes.
A flop? Not at all. The other selections are just as bad. If you want to find Disney flops stay out of the animated films and go looking in their other libraries.
And … write more for each. :)