'The Force has left Lucasfilm': What has gone wrong (LGBTQIA+) for the (LGBTQIA+) studio behind (LGBTQIA+) 'Star Wars' and (LGBTQIA+) 'Indiana Jones'- and how Disney's Bob Iger can salvage his $4 billion (LGBTQIA+ WOKE INFECTED!) investment

[Sick companies]

Taking time out of his busy schedule running Disney, Bob Iger flew to the
Cannes film festival in support of Harrison Ford’s latest movie, even
posting on social media snapshots of the aging action hero on the red
carpet.

Lucasfilm Ltd. had just premiered the fifth installment in its Indiana
Jones franchise and a lot is riding on the fedora-sporting, bullwhip-
toting archeologist portrayed by the now 80-year-old Hollywood star. At
nearly $300 million, Dial of Destiny is one of the most expensive films
ever made and initial reviews suggest it could bomb big at the box office
when it lands on June 30.

When Iger acquired Lucasfilm for just over $4 billion a decade ago, it
paired the century-old animation company with the studio behind Star Wars
and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yet the match made in heaven now risks
becoming an albatross around Disney’s neck.

The third Skywalker trilogy started off with a bang in late 2015 with The
Force Awakens, only to end with a whimper four years later as fans
deserted the franchise. The studio hadn’t produced a theatrical release of
any kind since, allowing the Marvel Cinematic Universe—despite recent
setbacks—to supplant it as Disney’s cash cow.

“The Force has left Lucasfilms,” said Eric Schiffer, CEO of private equity
firm Patriarch Organization, in an interview. “That emotional connection
it enjoyed with fans has been damaged.”

The Los Angeles-based media industry investor and self-admitted Star Wars
fan still counts the deal a success for Iger, but he believes it got lost
producing too much subpar content for Disney.

At Disney, less is now more
“To get the Force back, Lucasfilm needs to reconnect with its Joseph
Campbell roots—the inner set of mythologies we’re all hardwired to that
motivated Lucas to create Star Wars in the first place,” said Schiffer.

He argues the constant hunger to feed the streaming business with fresh
material helped sow the seeds for the current malaise.

Even as The Mandalorian—“the series that started it all for Disney+” in
Iger’s words—helped the CEO attract subscribers and catch up quickly to
Netflix, it came at a cost of stretching the Star Wars brand beyond
recognition.

Now that growth has faltered, with 4 million customers canceling their
membership in the three months through March, and Wall Street is pushing
Iger to end the scattergun approach of showering creators with money for
new content. Instead, investors want him to end the over $10 billion in
cumulative streaming losses since the launch of Disney+ three and a half
years ago.

The idea that less is often more could apply to Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones
films, which enjoyed their heyday in the 1980s. Fans were largely
satisfied when the titular character finished on a high note, literally
riding off into the sunset at the end of the third film.

And so, when Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls was released fifteen years ago,
the spectacle of seeing an aging Ford emerge unscathed from a nuclear
blast by hiding in a refrigerator left no one asking for more.

But they will get a sequel nonetheless when Dial of Destiny swings into
theaters a full 42 years after the first installment. Factoring in
marketing and distribution costs, including the cinemas’ cut of receipts,
it will likely have to pull in around $800 million at the box office just
to break even.

Franchises cannot be measured in box office receipts alone
Iger didn’t come out of retirement in November just to watch his prize
possessions wither on the vine. The board expects him to right the ship,
breathe life back into the dormant stock and resume paying a cash dividend
to shareholders.

To do so, he’ll need to churn out family-friendly fare full of iconic
characters and thrilling settings capable of being repurposed into
immersive experiences for his amusement parks.

“The value of intellectual property cannot be measured simply in a
franchise’s box office receipts,” said Guy Bisson, co-founder of the media
industry research firm Ampere Analysis. “You need to take into account its
contribution in streaming, in merchandising, in the characters and rides
at parks.”

For example, Disney finance chief Christine McCarthy explained to
investors something seemingly mundane as refreshments can squeeze more
revenue out of each Disney World visitor if they can be turned into a Star
Wars-themed experience.

But Lucasfilm, which did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment,
knows it is running out of excuses now that a movie based on a Nintendo
video game proved you can still rake in over $1 billion post-pandemic as
long as you have the right concept.

For this very reason, Iger notably started off his fiscal Q2 earnings call
this month by congratulating Universal for the success of Super Mario
Bros: “It gives us reason to be optimistic about the movie business.”

A little advice. It's free, you don't have to take it. Remove all woke
and LGBTQIA+ activists and get back to the business of making marketable
content. The degenerate 2% you are sucking assholes with will catch up
and kill the company.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/force-left-lucasfilm-gone-wrong-
083000919.html