Disney is "Woke" and admitted failure on Marvel and Star Wars

Question

What determines if a company is "woke," and did they really have failures with the Marvel and Star Wars franchises?

Answer 1

I found that all of the articles relating to whether or not Disney is woke were on satirical and tabloid news sites. Many articles were posted around when stock prices were falling dramatically for the company, relating the price plummet to "wokeness." Still, many of the issues caused were by the previous CEO, Bob Chapek. There is no concrete way to determine how woke a company is because it varies depending on where you fall along the political spectrum. Some people may see Disney as too woke, but others may think their policies are perfectly sound.

When it comes to the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, they have failed because the new releases have not brought in the revenue that Disney expected to bring in. Part of that issue comes from the fact that people are sick of seeing superhero movies. Like all other movie genres, superhero action films dominated for many years. Still, recently there has been a noticeable decline in people going to watch them and the quality of these films. In 2022 specifically, superhero movies underperformed, and fewer of them were released. The general reaction to movies and shows released more recently has been that the story is tired, and people are getting bored with the genre.

Disney CEO Bob Iger recently said that they are going to be "better at curating" what they are putting out because they have not seen the responses to these titles that they expected during production. Marvel will be hit harder than Star Wars because more shows and movies are being released under that section of the company. Many of the shows that have finished production and that were expected to release this year are being shelved because Disney thinks they will not be as successful. Star Wars will actually see the opposite reaction, with more titles being released under that section of the company. After a failed attempt to reboot in 2019, Disney is working hard to bring the Star Wars franchise back to life.  

The decline of superhero movies: https://gamerant.com/superhero-movies-reaching-end-of-their-era/

Disney's response to less than stellar numbers: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/marvel-star-wars-tv-shows-movies-slowdown-1235326681/

Answer 2

This is a tricky question, that deals with opinions. When conducting research on the "failures" of Marvel and Star Wars franchises, many of the articles were opinion based, or forums such as Quora and Reddit.  Additionally, when looking at Quora, many fans made speculation with the various choices of the Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy directly for Star Wars struggle. If going outside fan's subjective opinions and entering financial success, according to this New York Times article, "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" took $180 million in North America. Also, according to a USAToday article, Disney originally paid a total of $4 billion for buying Marvel, and by 2019, the Marvel Cinematic Universe made Disney over $18 billion at box office. However, overall success and failure is relative and subjective to viewers. 

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/movies/black-panther-wakanda-forever-box-office.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/movies/avengers-infinity-war-disney-marvel.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/2022/07/28/when-did-disney-buy-marvel/10147483002/

https://www.quora.com/Why-has-Disney-failed-with-Star-Wars-but-succeeded-with-Marvel-and-Pixar