Two words about Disney. And Star Wars.
First off: I am no business analyst or expert in any financial matter by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll be the first to acknowledge I’m no expert at all. This piece is just my two cents why I think Disney is a perfect example of greed running and ruining this world.
I’ve previously written why constant growth is unsustainable in my opinion. Why incessant and unnatural push to create more wealth, to generate more revenue and satisfy idiots’ need for more money is slowly turning this world into a spent shell of used up resources.
And what do you know, more people seem to think the same — which, if you think about it, is not that surprising since I am not that great of a mind.
There’s a whole movement of appreciation for companies run sustainably and sensibly — there’s a podcast dedicated to those businesses. There are people giving talks and writing books on how to turn away from the Greedy, Inc. model and create more approachable companies.
Companies that don’t put growth as their number one driving force.
Companies occupying a local niche rather than a global one, creating and offering superior services to its client base instead of expanding to other markets because of their focus on quality rather than quantity.
Companies satisfied with sustaining its owners, employees, and their families by keeping them on a ”good enough” level of quality of life instead of going to that mystical golden calf goal post.
Meanwhile, in the real world, everything seems same ol’ same ol’, and a perfect example of that is Disney with its Star Wars franchise.
A couple of years ago Disney acquired rights to Star Wars from George Lucas for a shitload of money. I’m guessing after years of watching the franchise grow into a money-printing machine they thought ”We need a piece of that action.” Buying it for a little over 4 billion bucks (half in cash — imagine the briefcase) the idea at that moment seemed to be to crank the shit up even before the ink on the paper dries. After very successful movies and animated series, Disney’s executives thought they had a golden ticket to paradise: a franchise whose fan base is one of the most (if not the most) loyal and dedicated in the world.
They cooked up a plan to produce and release a new trilogy and a couple of spin-offs. Releasing the first of the three new episodes was a riot. ”The Force Awakens’” box office numbers today are at 2.066 billion dollars, turning it into a highest-grossing Disney film in history. It’s pretty easy to envision the scene at the Disney execs’ offices when they saw the numbers and already felt all that green. And being a responsible company, they did what every responsible company would do.
”We need to produce more of them Star Wars things”.
A spin-off (which is practically a sequel and a prequel at the same time), another saga episode, rumors of another trilogy and spin-offs in development.
And then suddenly a release of “Solo” turned out to be a “lackluster” considering Disney’s usual revenue expectations.
And suddenly execs are not happy.
And suddenly the numbers are not promising.
And suddenly they backed off from producing other spin-offs all that quickly (which after a couple of days turned out to be only a rumor, Disney still has plans of producing multiple movies simultaneously).
And suddenly not making at least half a billion dollars is a disaster.
So what happened?
My guess is people got tired of Disney relentlessly grabbing for their attention and wallets. In their constant push for growth and “every next movie needs to be bigger” they lost focus and sight of the bigger picture. Turning Star Wars into another Marvel universe seems not to be working.
I believe it has everything to do with the fan base. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you are interested in everything Star Wars. Being a Marvel fan gives you an option to opt-out on parts of the Universum: “I like Captain America, but I hate Thor” — that sort of thing. Marvel’s world is a more “diverse” one, more “fragmented.” Star Wars seems to be a much more “closed environment”: you’re either in or out.
And this is where it gets problematic: too much of a good thing seems to turn the fan base off because they feel compelled — “I am a fan” — to consume everything Star Wars related. And even the best things can make you vomit if absorbed in overabundance.
Who knew?
When you are a global company built on merchandising and making a profit at all costs it’s hard to shift gears and become a sensible leader, I know. Making sure everything turns into a cash cow doesn’t help either.
And here where the crux of the problem lies: turning movie production into fuel to power your merchandising empire. I’m not saying movies shouldn’t be profitable, quite the opposite. But it shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of the whole business — it shouldn’t be the terminal point of telling a story. Something’s not right when you treat your movies as a marketing device to further the sales of other shit with a beloved series logo on it.
Quite possibly, I might be an old naive asshole here, because when I was a kid, being born in a communist country, I could only dream about Star Wars toys and wanted to have one more than anything else. Right now I have the means to enjoy all the Star Wars this world has to offer and I don’t.
Because back then, being a kid, what I wanted even more, was to believe in those stories. I loved dreaming it was all true, that there were lightsabers and force and giant monsters living inside asteroids.
Because it used to be about the story, not creating an endless string of sequels, prequels, and spinoffs. I know I’m contradicting myself a bit here with the original Star Wars trilogy. But thirty years ago I would shit my pants with joy when the new episodes would come out; right now I’m just annoyed, and it’s making me truly sad. I have lost something along all those years.
And I blame both Disney and Lucas for it.
I don’t want to sound like a hardcore Star Wars purist and say they ”DESTROYED MY WORLD” fixing the old trilogy, creating new ones and other movies — thank God Lucas sold the rights and Disney told him to piss off because his ideas for the new movies were horrible.
And to be absolutely clear I loved ”The Force Awakens”, hated ”The Last Jedi” and thoroughly enjoyed ”Solo”.
Disney bought a franchise with an intention of making money first and foremost, not thinking about bringing a new quality or moving the world forward (fictional as well as the real one). I know, they are in a business of entertainment, not in a business of renewable energy. But what Lucas did while working on the first Star Wars back in the 70s was he created an entirely new part of the movie industry — special effects — on a scale never seen before. ILM was born out of necessity and spawn new areas of expertise. Disney, on the other hand, primarily focused on creating something for just the sake of the profits and it seems a bit shortsighted. Expanding one of the most popular franchises in the world with maximum profitability first, anything else second seems to be the idée fixe here. And yes, I know, the point of business is to make money. But there’s nothing wrong with the idea that the process of making money is toned down, civil, moderate — whatever you want to call it — you don’t have to make it an all-or-nothing game. ”If the next movie doesn’t make a billion dollars we are shutting down the company” — that’s not the way this world should operate. I’m aware Disney has its boards of directors, CEOs, shareholders, etc. and the real threat with scaling and toning down the business are employees losing their jobs. But still — moderation is what we all need, desperately. If we all think just about the next paycheck, there’ll be nothing for us to look forward to. If every company operates just like this — focusing mainly on profits — there’ll be no tomorrow and no paychecks at all.
I have no doubts: killing that idea will not happen any time soon, or in my lifetime (if at all). Turning Disney — and Disney-like companies — into a sensibly and responsibly run company is a next to impossible task. But I do hope someone somewhere is thinking that sustaining a culture of loyalty based on greed not quality is going to destroy everything and that SOMEONE has some idea how to solve this problem. Or at least how to start the process of fixing things.
Because I don’t want to work for a company that only wants to grow; I want to work for a company that wants to bring something valuable to the table. Disney’s not that company, I’m afraid. Money isn’t everything.
And considering how George Lucas almost single-handedly created a model of making money based not on the product itself, but on the sales of the merchandise, him selling his franchise to Disney seems like a proper ending for the saga.
