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by robg 1366 days ago
And yes, I recognize that most of those are Pixar, but Encanto from Walt Disney Animation is extraordinary in every way. Yet the worldwide box office was less than the Dumbo remake. I respect Disney bc they make money and art, even when art is less commercial than what the masses want. The author is dismissing the art that remains.
3 comments

2019 box office versus 2021 will never be comparable. COVID has to be factored into almost everything when doing time series analysis but movies more so than most as it was devastated by the one two punch of not wanting to go to theaters and streaming existing now.
Sure, but would Encanto have surpassed more of the remakes? I’m not sure. No recognizable IP, no big explosions, trailers didn’t exactly lend themselves to an event movie. Not exactly characters for the theme parks either.
My kids and their friends could sing many of the songs from Encanto from memory, especially "We Don't Talk about Bruno."

Frozen, which had an inferior story and even score, also had that quality.

The live action remakes have no soul and are forgotten as soon as they're over.

To the point, the photorealistic Lion King doubled the box office of Coco ($1.6B vs $800M). No comparison on what’s better art. Respect that the same company does both.
Encanto is a very bad movie. The plot is weak, it is weirdly monarchist, the third act is a complete mess.

Like many people you fell in love with some aspects of the presentation and music, but the film doesn't hold up and that's why it's going to be a sad, forgotten entry in Disney history.

If you rewatch Encanto and think about royalty, think about Ferdinand Marcos, think about how poor everybody else in this town is and how they jumped to rebuild the house of the richest, most privileged people, you may find you like the movie less.

If you look again at Bruno's strange arc and how weak his predictions are, how little justification there is for exiling him, you might see that every plot development happens because it's time for a plot development now.

Encanto was written backwards, reverse-engineered from successful stories. It is not art. It is garbage imitating art with a thick layer of lyrical frosting on top.

Coco will live forever because it's well-written and means something. Encanto is a direct-to-DVD level production.

Wasn‘t Encanto straight to Disney+?
Not straight, but it had a limited run in theaters (1 month)
No, But the theatrical run was short because of the pandemic.