Elio looking shocked while holding a colorful drink in Elio
Disney's newest movie is targeting an audience they have struggled to reach, and that could be an issue for the popular studio. D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event occurred this past weekend, where the studio provided updates on projects including Ice Age 6, Hoppers, and many more.
Some of the most exciting moments to come from D23 concern the announcements of new films. Disney's upcoming movie slate tends to receive several updates at this event, and last year the exposition saw the announcement of Incredibles 3, That animated sequel is expected to be one of Disney's biggest films when it releases in 2028. Amidst all of these updates, Disney Animation provided the first movie details for a major new release that the studio will be putting in theatres in 2026. While Disney has a strong slate for 2026 already, with releases like The Mandalorian and Grogu and Avengers: Doomsday, there is some reason to be concerned about this new animated release. Hexed Is A New Disney Movie About A Young Teen Boy And His Mother Disney Animation announced its next big animated film, Hexed, and it sounds like a fun one. While no footage is available, the film's plot was described as centering around the relationship between an awkward teenage boy and his mother. In struggling to fit in, the boy discovers that he has powers, which leads him into a strange, magical world. Capitalizing on the recent success of projects like Wicked, the witchcraft-inspired new animated film has lined up a November 2026 release date. This period has proven to be profitable for Disney, which last year released Moana 2 in November to earnings of over $1 billion. Zootopia 2 hopes to find similar success there later this year. Disney's upcoming animated movies will have to confront a very real issue that the studio has had at the recent box office. While sequels have generally been performing quite well, including Inside Out 2 and the aforementioned Moana 2, their original efforts have struggled. Wish was a box office flop, and other recent originals, like Elio and Strange World, have been enormous disappointments for Disney across all of its various brands. Disney continues to have a slew of sequels planned, coming from Disney Animation, Pixar, and Fox, but they must also have successful originals in order to build new franchises in the future. Hexed could be a big hit for the studio. The timing is great, and Disney Animation has tended to put together high-quality movies. However, the box office has been a much more fickle beast in recent years, and there is unfortunately a significant trend that could spell doom for the upcoming film. Disney Movies For And About Girls Have Been Huge, But The Ones For Boys Have Struggled Hexed is about a young teenage boy, and animated movies about boys have not been successful for Disney in recent years. Across the studio's various films, it has attempted to center some of its stories around these types as the central protagonist, and the bulk of these have failed to break even. The most recent of these came from Pixar with the box office disappointment of Elio, a science-fiction adventure that only earned the studio a total of $152 million. In addition, it seems that most of the releases put out by Disney's subsidiaries that have attempted to reach this same audience have also struggled. Inherited from Fox during a period of transition, Ron's Gone Wrong was a colossal failure, and Spies in Disguise was a significant disappointment. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down movie theatres, Onward's box office was set to be among the lowest in Pixar's history. This has been a trend for some years. In reviewing the data, one must go all the way back to 2017 for the studio’s last successful animated feature with a young male lead, in Pixar's Coco. Granted, defining a film with a young male protagonist is a bit flexible. Mufasa: The Lion King could meet the same conditions, and that film was a great success, earning $722 million. However, despite being fully animated, the animal-fronted film is generally lumped in with live-action remakes. On the other hand, Strange World featured teenage Ethan Clade among its main cast, fronted by the adult Searcher Clade, and that film was a huge failure. Conversely, movies for and about girls have been much more successful. Moana and its sequel, Inside Out, which was spent in Riley's head, and the Frozen movies have placed young girls or women at their center, and this has resulted in tremendous box office and critical success. Even movies like Encanto, which failed to make a real splash in cinemas, became enormous cultural sensations when they were released to streaming. Songs like"We Don't Talk About Bruno" were bolstered by the exciting visuals and compelling story of the film to such an extent that an Encanto 2 could still happen. Reviewing the data, it seems that Disney movies have been struggling to connect with male audiences, and their female-led properties are performing much better. Some of this could be because Disney Animation, especially, is making more female-fronted projects. Disney Animation Studios has had success with movies for and about young boys. Big Hero 6 was a huge success in 2014, earning $657 million. While the market for this audience has not seen much success in recent years, it is clear that the right movies could still be big hits for this audience and have great crossover appeal. It's good that Disney is attempting to reach further demographics, but all signs point to this next film being a disappointment for the studio. Hopefully, with a good trailer and strong reviews, it can turn that possibility around. There is a market for movies like this, but it is not one that Disney has recently been able to reach.
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