Another woke special from Disney has bombed.
Just before Thanksgiving Day, the Walt Disney Co. released “Strange World,” a $180 million animated film that critics raved about because it featured a gay relationship between two teenage boys.
“This [relationship] is an inherent part of the storyline,” the website Deadline noted in a review.
Yet audiences apparently did not want that story.
The Hollywood Reporter noted on Sunday that the movie “bombed with a five-day opening of $18.6 million after receiving a mediocre B CinemaScore.”
“That’s the worst opening for a Disney Animation Thanksgiving title in modern times after getting pummeled by poor word-of-mouth, and the first of the studio’s to earn anything less than an A- grade from CinemaScore,” the Reporter added.
This is the second big-ticket, prominently LGBTQ-themed film that has flopped for Disney this year.
Back in June, the company released “Lightyear,” offered as the backstory for a key character in its popular “Toy Story” franchise. The story featured a lesbian kiss scene.
It made $51 million in its opening, or $20 million less than Disney projected. All told from its global run, “Lightyear” barely recouped the $200 million Disney spent to produce it.
Disney has continued to push a woke agenda, even as its stock has plummeted by 40% this year, during which it also battled Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over the state’s Parental Rights in Education law, which bans classroom teachers and school districts from implementing lesson plans based on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K-3. Disney has called for repealing the law.
But it did appear Disney learned a lesson in one way.
After more than a dozen predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East banned “Lightyear,” Disney apparently removed the offending scene when it released the movie on Disney+ in those nations, and also altered its “Baymax” streaming show, based on the movie “Big Hero 6,” which depicted a transgender man who menstruates.
With “Strange World,” Disney just opted to not release the movie in nations where the storyline was sure to offend the locals in nations that frown, or even legally punish, the LGBTQ community.
Deadline noted that included all of the Middle East, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Vietnam, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Russia.
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