FT Edit presents: Disney struggles to revive the magic

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For the next few weeks, we will be bringing you some of our most popular articles from the FT Edit app.

Elemental, the new movie from Pixar studios, recently disappointed at the box office.

On this episode, Chris Grimes, the FT’s Los Angeles correspondent, takes us inside Disney, the owner of Pixar, and asks whether it can regain its creative crown after a few years of concentrating on lucrative sequels to its existing franchises and on its streaming business, Disney+. It has been a long time since Toy Story, and critics are fretting that Pixar has lost its touch. Even Marvel, which was reliably turning out annual blockbusters, has stumbled recently with the likes of Ant-Man. Chris wrote this article shortly after the release of Elemental.

You can also find this story in FT Edit, an iPhone app that gives you a taste of the very best of FT journalism. After a month’s free trial, it is 99p or 99 cents a month for the next six months. Try it out if you want the best global politics, analysis and opinion pieces.

Learn more about FT Edit.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, I'm Malcolm Moore. I'm the editor of FT Edit. This is a special episode bringing you one of our most popular articles from the FT Edit app.
0:11.2	It was written by Chris Grimes, the FT's Los Angeles correspondent, shortly after Elemental, the new movie from Pixar Studios disappointed at the box office.
0:23.5	Chris takes us inside Disney, the owner of Pixar, and asks whether it can regain its creative crown. It spent the last few
0:29.7	years just churning out lucrative sequels and concentrating on its streaming business,
0:34.7	Disney Plus. It's been a long time since Toy Story, and critics are fretting that Pixar has lost its touch.
0:42.9	Even Marvel, another Disney studio, which was reliably turning out annual blockbusters, has stumbled
0:48.5	recently with the likes of Ant Man.
0:50.5	If you enjoy his analysis of Disney's travails, you can find more of this type of article on FD Edit,
0:56.5	an iPhone app that gives you a taste of the very best of FT journalism.
1:00.7	After a month's free trial, it's 99p or 99 cents a month for the next six months.
1:07.2	Try it out if you want the best global politics, analysis, and opinion pieces.
1:12.2	Now, enjoy the story.
1:16.1	Pixar flop shows Walt Disney struggling to revive the magic.
1:21.0	Written by Christopher Grimes and narrated by NOAA, News Over Audio.
1:25.4	Listen to more audio articles on the NOAA app. In 2019, Walt Disney released
1:31.2	seven films that each grossed more than $1 billion at the global box office, a remarkable feat
1:37.5	built on Bob Eiger's string of studio acquisitions during his first 15-year tenure as chief
1:42.5	executive. Disney's film studios were on fire,
1:46.8	said Jessica Reeve Ehrlich, an analyst at Bank of America. Bob came up with a branded film strategy,
1:52.6	and for 10 years or longer, no other studio could compete with them. Now, however, Iger must deal
1:59.9	with questions about whether the creative spark is starting to flicker at Disney Studios,
2:04.6	including the box office powerhouses, Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Forhecz Topher, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Forhecz Topher and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.