Disney has had a challenging year of releases at the box office as public opinion has shifted against the once beloved studio. The company is celebrating their 100 year anniversary at a time where the quality of the brand has been slipping and they can no longer count on their tentpole movies to motivate people to close their Disney+ app and head to the theater. Wish, Disney’s latest animated feature, had a dismal opening weekend becoming one of the studios lowest grossing animated films. During the five day long Thanksgiving weekend, the film managed to muster a return of $31.7 million on its $200 million dollar budget. That is a shockingly low number for a movie that has all the trappings of a beloved Disney classic: a likable female lead who gives a strong vocal performance, a sentimental story about achieving your dreams, and of course a lovable and marketable talking animal sidekick. Wish’s box office failure is in addition to poor reviews from critics, panning the movie for feeling corporate and soulless. 

Wish is just another in a series of box office bombs for Disney in 2023. May’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is one of the only Disney produced theatrical releases to not only make a profit, but receive critical praise. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Haunted Mansion, and The Marvels all failed to attract an audience to movies that should’ve been a safe bet, calling into question the leadership at Disney. At this time it is hard to say what is the driving force behind the decline. A look at 2019’s highest grossing films reveals that Disney occupied seven of the top ten movies of that year (eight if you included Marvel and Sony’s Spider-Man: Far From Home). It’s no doubt that Covid-19 has had an impact on these numbers if only because of the relative affordability of Disney+ when compared to theater tickets is causing more people, especially families, to watch these movies from home. Still, a 100 year anniversary film, celebrating the studio’s catalog of animated classics, that was released on a long holiday weekend should have been a blowout. Instead, it trailed behind both Napoleon and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the latter of which is in its second week in theaters.

To its credit, Wish is a perfectly serviceable animated feature, even excelling at and innovating the CG style the Disney has adopted over the last decade or so. The film features beautifully textured backdrops that call back to the golden age of Disney animation where every cell was painstakingly painted by hand. While visually compelling, I couldn’t help but long for a fully 2D animated feature, a problem that persists in the storytelling as well. Wish is jammed packed with easter eggs and callbacks to films released over the last 100 years. Asha, the film’s protagonist, is interviewing to become a sorcerer’s apprentice, a la Mickey in Fantasia, her seven closest friends each represent one of the seven dwarves’ personalities from Snow White, and her new Star companion inspires the creation of “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinochio and more broadly the official theme of Walt Disney Animation. I think these references work when they are subtle and help support Wish’s storytelling, but unfortunately they come across as distracting and flat out pandering at times. I don’t think this would be a problem if the movie was compelling and unique in its own right. However, the story of Wish is by the numbers to a fault, feeling more like a marketing campaign overburdened by nostalgia for older, better, movies. I won’t spoil the ending, but when these references to other Disney films begin to teeter into a shared canon universe territory, that just did not work for me at all. It is cheap and unfulfilling to suggest that Sleeping Beauty and Zootopia exist in the same universe. Nothing about it makes much sense story wise and severely holds Wish back from standing alone as a future beloved classic. I don’t think this one is going to stick with people the way that Cinderella, The Lion King, and Frozen all have.

The soundtrack to Wish is the real star of the show here. I was fortunate enough to first watch it in a Dolby Atmos theater, with many of the songs on repeat every day since. Ariana DeBose as Asha, and Chris Pine as Magnifeco, deliver charming performances; the pair are the most heavily featured vocalists on Wish’s soundtrack. If Wish was not hindered by bad press and low box office returns, I believe that the soundtrack would receive more attention and praise, maybe not “Let It Go” success but success nevertheless. DeBose’s “This Wish” is an instant classic, Pine’s “This Is The Thanks I Get?!” is easily my favorite villain song since Tangled’s “Mother Knows Best”, and the two share a touching ballad, “At All Costs” which explores the central conflict between both of the characters. Grammy nominated singer and songwriter, Julia Michaels, co-wrote every song on the soundtrack and deserves high praise for her efforts. In a year that didn’t have to compete with “I’m Just Ken”, this Academy Award would be a shoo-in for Michaels.

I think we should all be more critical of Disney’s cultural dominance. Having one studio occupy that much space in the top earning movies is akin to a monopoly not only on film but more broadly, the wider culture. Over the last decade, the company has continuously produced high budget theatrical spectacles that appeal to the widest audience possible, favoring marketability over producing quality works of artistic expression. That is a criticism for the executives who view their product as little more than a nostalgia machine, not a takedown of the many talented artists who, often under intense crunch and studio deadlines, are doing the best they can within the parameters. 
At one point, not too long ago, it appeared as though Disney was untouchable. The success of Marvel, Star Wars, and its own animation studio were driven by consumer’s desire for more content, most of which is now available at home, and Disney delivered and then some. I’m doubtful that their decline this year is related to the right wing’s disavowment of the studio or some other cultural rejection of blockbusters by film nerds. It seems more likely than not that there is just too much content for the average viewer and most of it is available for cheap on streaming services mere weeks after theatrical releases. Disney has struggled to make Disney+ profitable which will only complicate things further as they scale back production and increase subscription prices. Wish is simply a byproduct of a studio that no longer is interested in innovating or telling new and exciting stories in favor of safe and sterile business decisions. My wish is that the failure here pushes Disney to take more risks so that future generations can look back at the animated films of their childhood with the same love and nostalgia I have towards my own.