Emma Stone as Cruella in Disney’s live-action ‘Cruella’
DisneyA Quiet Place part II was the top movie at the domestic box office, but it wasn’t the only big opener on Memorial Day weekend. Walt Disney’s Cruella opened nationwide. The somewhat well-reviewed flick stars Emma Stone as a young Cruella de Vil and Emma Thompson as her fashion mentor and eventual rival. The $100 million flick (most of which is absolutely on the screen) earned $21.3 million over the Fri-Sun frame and $26.5 million over the Fri-Mon holiday weekend.
Is that good? No, but A) it’s concurrently available on Disney+ for $30 and B) Disney plans on a leggy run (Raya and the Last Dragon has earned nearly 6x its $8.7 million debut for a $51 million cume) and C) Cruella may not have broken out even in non-Covid times. Like Tom & Jerry, Mortal Kombat and Spiral: From the Book of Saw, Cruella is a qualified “win” for theaters by performing about as well as it would have had it disappointed in conventional times. Say it with me now, “successful disappointment.”
Presuming Cruella plays like a normal Memorial Day opener, we’re looking at a multiplier between 2x (think X-Men: Days of Future Past, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and X-Men: Apocalypse) and 3x (Aladdin) with 2.5x (Men in Black III) as the “happy medium.” So, Cruella will likely earn between $52 million and $78 million domestic (the latter on par with Alice Through the Looking Glass in 2016). Even in non-Covid times, the campy melodrama, with an emphasis on fashion and music over action and romance, was never going to play like Aladdin or even Maleficent or Cinderella.
It cost around 42% less than Dumbo or The Jungle Book, so a $350 million cume (on par with Dumbo and Mary Poppins Returns) would have been a solid hit. The film earned an A from Cinemascore. So even as you see the online discourse being framed by snarky folks who pirated the film’s prologue so they could point and laugh at something that was supposed to be silly, do note that the folks who bought a ticket in theaters and watched the whole damn movie seemed to rather enjoy it. One thing that should be noted is that far more adults are vaccinated compared to kids.
As such, there may be a theatrical advantage for big movies that skew older (teens and adults) versus those pitched at kids. And no, Cruella isn’t pitched at adults. It’s the softest PG-13 this side of Bill & Ted Face the Music and far less grim/disturbing than the PG-rated Maleficent or the G-rated Hunchback of Notre Dame. Hollywood knows this, which is partially why Disney is keeping its summer biggies (Cruella, Black Widow and Jungle Cruise) available concurrently on Disney+ (for a fee) and why Universal moved The Boss Baby: Family Business to July 2 with a concurrent Peacock release (free for ad-free tier subscribers).
For what it’s worth, this could be the start of a summer where the big Disney flicks get outmatched by the competition. Yes, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow is still probably going to be the summer’s biggest domestic earner and I’m expecting solid business from Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt’s Jungle Cruise, but the likes of A Quiet Place part II, F9, In the Heights and Hotel Transylvania: Transformania will attempt to debunk the notion that Disney maintains absolute control over theatrical pop culture.
As noted yesterday, one cruel irony of the pandemic affecting the 2020 season as it did is that last year was supposed to be the year where the “other” studios challenged Disney’s pop culture theatrical dominance. After all, Warner Bros, Universal, Paramount and Sony had somewhat held back their biggest biggies until after Disney’s fire sale (Avengers 4, Star Wars 9, Frozen 2, Maleficent 2, Toy Story 4, Dumbo, Captain Marvel, Lion King, Aladdin, etc.). The thinking was let Disney have their “going away party” for Bob Iger (who was rumored to be stepping down in 2020), the likes of No Time to Die, Wonder Woman 1984, F9 and A Quiet Place 2 would allow the rest of the industry to assert themselves alongside Disney’s “good but not great” line-up (Mulan, Black Widow, Jungle Cruise, etc.).
Not only did Hollywood’s theatrical plans get scuttled by Covid, but the “if you leave the house you might die” new normal gave a huge advantage to Disney’s new streaming service. We’ll see if what was expected in 2020 (rival studios debunking the notion of Disney’s permanent dominance) comes to pass now that the theatrical studios are on a more even playing ground. A huge part of Disney’s pop culture dominance is the narrative that it maintains an iron grip on what consumers see in theaters and on streaming. An MCU show periodically topping that week’s Nielsen ratings or a movie like Cruella performing “okay for Covid” isn’t going to cut it.
We’ll see if 2021 gives us the skewed Avengers: Endgame finale (“On your left…” in walks James Bond, followed by Neo, Dom Toretto, King Kong, Maverick and LeBron James as a fatigued Chris Nolan sighs in relief while a shocked Bob Iger looks on in horror) we were promised in 2020.
