Disney Plans a Future With More Sequels, Fewer Political Lectures, and Maybe Johnny Depp

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The upcoming era of Disney is going to be about fixing their past mistakes while capitalizing on their successes. That’s the narrative, anyway, one being supported by the entertainment media. Variety has a new article where they talk about Disney’s plans for the near future coming off a recent hit and a probable upcoming bomb (with a healthy dose of blaming online conservatives for being a bunch of meanies, no matter how much it contradicts the point of the article). The hit is Moana 2, the sequel to one of their most popular animated films of the past decade – a decade filled with a lot of duds, which has inspired Disney to go back to the well. Moana earned $643,332,467 in 2016, and its sequel is poised to do even better, having raked in $423,586,580 in its first week so far, well over half of its predecessor’s entire gross. And it’s only the first of a host of sequels Disney has marching into theaters, with Toy Story 5, Zootopia 2, and Frozen 3 in various stages of production. However, Disney’s also got the live-action Snow White remake on the horizon, and all signs point to that being a bomb that softens some of their recent successes, like Inside Out 2 (another animated sequel) and Deadpool & Wolverine (not the first cinematic rodeo for either massively popular Marvel character).

And that’s the gist of the Variety piece: where did Disney go wrong, what are they getting right, and where do they go from here? Financial analysts like Michael Morris of Guggenheim Securities see Disney’s upcoming slate as a pivot away from their foray into identity politics. Morris even acknowledged the recent election that saw Donald Trump win the Presidency, saying that it would be unwise for Disney to alienate half of their audience “before [they] even release the product.” Reading between the lines, he’s talking about people like Rachel Zegler, who has been antagonizing audiences for the past year or so with her obnoxious attitude, and her recent Instagram post where she wished Trump and his supporters would “never know peace” is a perfect example of politicizing a film before it opens. I have no doubt that her apology came from Disney, who are clearly panicking over Snow White – and if you watch the new girl boss trailer, it’s easy to see why. Disney appears to know they’ve miscalculated big time, and they’re at least trying to look like they’re changing course. Or, as Morris sums it up, “That’s why it’s important to entertain first and foremost.”

I think the sentiment is accurate; if they stick to what made the originals popular and put forth even a modicum of effort, Toy Story 5, Frozen 3, and Zootopia 2 should be successful, particularly the first two. And there’s another big mistake Disney is trying to fix, as Variety’s sources tell them that one of the two Pirates of the Caribbean scripts Jerry Bruckheimer announced earlier this year features Captain Jack Sparrow in the hopes that Disney can make things right with Johnny Depp, the beloved actor they cast aside like trash when he was accused of abusing Amber Heard, his then-wife. After clearing his name in court, Depp said that he’d never work with Disney again, and it was assumed the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise would find a way to soldier on without him (if by “soldier on” you mean lose a ton of money on a movie that doesn’t feature the actor and character that makes these films what they are). The sources say that while Disney hasn’t “engaged” with Depp yet, “Nothing has been ruled out.” And if one of the scripts has Captain Jack in it, they’re clearly going to try to mend fences and entice Johnny Depp back into the pirate hat.

What is there to make of all this? Personally, I don’t care about the animated sequels, but I think they’ll make money as long as they don’t go woke. I’d love more Pirates of the Caribbean if Johnny Depp is back (I know most people hate the last two sequels, but I quite enjoyed them, despite their admittedly glaring flaws), but otherwise, I’m not interested. Jack Sparrow is that franchise, and Johnny Depp is Jack Sparrow. As for the film’s financial prospects, I think the same goes; if Depp is back, another Pirates movie will be a hit. The fifth one, Dead Men Tell No Tales, didn’t make as much as the previous few, suggesting that audiences were growing weary of the series, but after all the tumult with Johnny Depp and the notion that he’d never play the beloved character again, his return as Captain Jack Sparrow would be a massive event that nobody would want to miss. I suspect Disney knows this as well, and if they didn’t think there was a good shot at getting Depp back – or if they weren’t planning to make a concerted effort to woo him – they wouldn’t be wasting time with scripts featuring Captain Jack. It’s not going to be easy, though; Depp is angry and hurt, and he has all the leverage right now: not only does Disney need him more than he needs them, but the public is firmly on his side. If he does decide to helm the Black Pearl again, I hope he makes them pay through the nose to get him.

I also hope Disney is sincere about abandoning their woke crap (and it’d be nice if they stopped targeting kids with harmful transgender ideology), but I’m not holding my breath. They certainly want to appear like they are, but Bob Iger has said this before, and he was selling a bill of goods. However, I do think the election was a significant event that made much of Hollywood take a step back and reevaluate. (Lord knows I’ve written about it enough at this point.) Before now, they could point to a host of other potential reasons for their loss of business, no matter how much they were clearly reaching, but they can no longer deny that they’re pissing off more than half the country with their overbearing lectures disguised as entertainment. This is all in the preliminary stages, so we’ve got a long time until we see how this plays out, but it’s going to be a fun ride till we get there watching them be forced to acknowledge the firm slap of reality.

Let us know what you think of Disney’s plans for the future and Johnny Depp’s potential Pirates of the Caribbean return in the comments!

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