The mouse company, Walt Disney, has become one of the most successful companies today and does not stop growing. Although many believe that there is sort of a conspiracy, if you will, from the film critics to help Disney have greater success and approval among the public. The president of Walt Disney Studios, Alan Horn, has revealed that he believes almost the opposite, and why some of his recent statements to The Hollywood Reporter might lead us to think that he has some doubts about Aladdin and its box office performance.
Something we can not deny is that along with their monstrous successes such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens which made $2.066 billion and Avengers: Infinity War 2 billion we also have seen huge failures. Such as A Wrinkle In Time making $132.7 million and The Nutcracker And The Four Realms $173.8 million.
Horn believes that due to the excessive attention that Disney productions receive, it is always a risk that they will not fair well and receive too many negative comments. A recent example is The Kid Who Would Be King, that with a budget of $60 million only achieved a worldwide collection of 23.8 million.
Although, he says that in his opinion Aladdin, the live-action remake directed by Guy Ritchie, is an incredible movie, he talks about the possibility of it failing just like Han Solo: A Star Wars Story.
“It’s always a challenge because — and I say this with love and respect for media — the thing about these big movies is they get a lot of attention, whether positive or negative. So when they don’t work, like Solo, the media says it’s a failure. I think it was a pretty good movie. It didn’t resonate as much as we’d hoped it would, but the press writes it up in a more negative way than I would. These are very high-profile movies. If Aladdin, which I happen to think is a terrific film, doesn’t work somehow, that’s big news and much bigger news than if a movie somewhere else, like The Kid Who Would Be King [at Fox,] doesn’t work.”
Until now Disney’s live-action remakes have resulted in great hits, just like Beauty And The Beast which for a moment was among the 10 highest grossing films of all time, and movies such as The Lion King and Dumbo appear to be on track to repeat that success, but will Aladdin be a failure like Han Solo: A Star Wars Story?
The love from the fans of the original animated film might be a good reason to have confidence in Aladdin because this audience will show up to movie theaters and spend money to watch it. But, Guy Ritchie comes from having made one of the worst failures in recent years: King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword, which with a budget of $175 million only raised $148.6 million. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
