Dark Phoenixdirectly led to Disney’s massive third quarter profit loss. The finalX-Meninstallment under the Fox umbrella was pretty much doomed from the start, but it still ended up performing under expectations, which has a lot to do with its hefty $200 million production cost (not including promotion). As of this writing,Dark Phoenixis at $252.3 million globally with the digital and Blu-ray release on the way in September. With such a large production cost, it was always going to be hard to make a profit. In response, Disney will now be “refocusing” their attention on its Fox properties.
DisneyCEO Bob Iger revealed thatDark Phoenixwas mainly to blame for their third quarter loss of up to $170 million in operating costs during the company’s quarterly call with investors. The studio has already been going through and closing parts of Fox’s movie division and it looks like that will continue, resulting in more lost jobs. Iger had this to say about being blindsided by their quarter 3 losses.
“One of the biggest issues we faced in the quarter was the performance of theFox film business. It was well below what it had been and well below what we thought it would be when we did the acquisition.”
Disney is getting rid of the majority of the existing Fox big screen development slate and refocusing output. As previously revealed,Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige will be taking on the X-Men and Fantastic Fourproperties, along with others. The studio has faith in what Feige has been doing with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially afterAvengers: Endgamejust became the highest grossing movie of all time.
With the Marvel Studios side flourishing and about to get bigger with the addition of the Fox properties, Disney should have no problem seeing their profits soar once again. As far as the other Fox properties moving forward, Bob Iger mentionedFord v. Ferrari,James Cameron’s upcoming Avatar sequels, and morePlanet of the Apesinstallments. This should come as no surprise since the acquisition looked risky from the start in terms of Fox properties that were going to end up at the top of the box office.StuberandThe Kid Who Would Be Kingalso underperformed, adding to the third quarter losses.
Bob Iger also talked about reboots ofHome Alone,Night at the Museum, andDiary of a Wimpy Kidfor the upcoming Disney+ streaming service. When all is said and done, Disney will come out of this just fine, but it still has to clear out some of the cobwebs, which will unfortunately result in more jobs being lost on the Fox side of things. However, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time now.Varietywas the first to report on the massive quarter three losses for Disney.
