Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” is their latest tent pole release this year to way underperform and lose money. Lots of money. Tons of money.

Even the perplexingly horrible idea of a rebooted live action “Little Mermaid” is barely breaking even. Prior live action “princess movie” reboots “Aladdin” (2019) and “Beauty and the Beast” (2017) each grossed over $1 billion. By these two recent indications this latest misguided live action reboot should have done the same.

The Mouse Studio has struck out this year with other established “should’ve made boatloads of money” intellectual properties like Indiana Jones, Marvel (Ant-Man sequel), and Pixar (Elemental). They’ve struggled with Star Wars from the start. With the way things are trending, Disney film products could net a loss of hundreds of millions this year.

And this isn’t a trend started in 2023. Last year’s contrived super-inclusive Lightyear – another established profitable IP – tanked hard and didn’t come close to breaking even. Replacing original beloved Buzz voice actor Tim Allen with over the top political activist Chris Evans didn’t help, but something more must be going on.

The point of making a movie is to make money. Does Disney know this? So what is it? Post pandemic audiences? Streaming services? Bloated budgets? CGI fatigue? Unoriginal rehashes? Just lousy movies?

Or is it something else Disney is doing wrong that’s manifesting as an effective boycott of their movies?

And even an effective boycott of their theme parks.

What could Disney be doing wrong where entertainment consumers aren’t reflexively flocking to Disney like in years past?

Yes, indeed. What could Disney be doing wrong, some might ponder. Indeed.