Walt Disney Animation isn’t accustomed to many flops at the box office, but a 2022 Disney film is actually one of the company’s best modern projects despite losing a ton of money. Ever since the company broke new ground by producing the first full-length animated film in the U.S., Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1937, Disney has been the name synonymous with animated movies. Though the studio has had its ups and downs over the years, Disney animated films are known for their excellent storytelling, technical prowess, and timeless quality that makes them beloved across generations.

Despite the company’s sainted reputation, Disney’s animated output has been notoriously hit-or-miss since the end of the so-called “Disney Renaissance” in the early 2000s. While they have produced mega-hits like Frozen or Encanto, Disney has also had mᴀssive flops that lost a tremendous amount of money considering their inflated budgets. The first few years of the 2020s were a rough stretch for Disney’s flagship animation brand, but that doesn’t mean that their output was bad in terms of quality. One particularly huge Disney flop is actually one of the studio’s best recent movies, even if nobody watched it.

Strange World Is A Fun Adventure Movie

A Fun Adventure Film That Hearkens Back To An Earlier Time

2022’s Strange World didn’t seem like the kind of Disney film that was bound to become the next Frozen or Moana. Its ambitious science-fiction adventure story instantly made it alienating to a large swath of the audience, and it was meant to be somewhat subversive. However, the film’s stunning visuals are an upgrade from some of Disney’s other recent releases, and the playful character models are offset by an imaginative approach to the subterranean world at the heart of the film’s plot. Strange World is aimed at older kids, a demographic that Disney has ignored for quite some time.

Disney’s animated features in the 2020s include:

Disney’s animated movies are often inspired by folklore and cultural heritage, but Strange World feels like a return to the pages of authors like Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson, whose classic novels were beloved fodder for earlier Disney films. The movie eschews hard sci-fi in favor of a mix of science and fantasy, and it is reminiscent of the early days of the genre when authors dreamed up worlds of imaginative possibility. Perhaps its biggest strength is the approach to its themes, and it isn’t as literal as other modern Disney movies.

The studio has always toyed with deeper meaning in their animated films, and they have excelled at working a moral lesson into a plot that’s compelling on its own. However, recent releases have gotten a bit too literal with their messaging, and have failed to deliver a compelling story to wrap their moral lessons around. Even if the viewer ignores the character development and social commentary, Strange World is an exciting adventure story that doesn’t overstay its welcome. It has a large scope, and feels much more cinematic than many of its contemporaries.

Strange World Marked An Important Milestone In Representation

A Disney Animated Movie Finally Featured An LGBTQ+ Main Character

Disney movies aren’t known for taking risks, and the studio has earned a reputation as middle-of-the-road. However, Disney took a leap forward with Strange World by featuring its first LGBTQ+ main character in the form of Ethan Clade (voiced by Jaboukie Young-White). The character’s Sєxuality isn’t a major plot point, but like other young romances in fiction, Ethan’s crush on Diazo is a way to show that he’s growing up. Naturally, Disney was quite behind the times when it came to representation, but a gay character in a Disney film was a major change from the company’s iron-clad status quo.

Why Strange World Flopped At The Box Office

Strange World Faced A Myriad Of Box Office Challenges

Despite being one of the company’s better recent releases, there’s no denying that Strange World is also one of the biggest flops in Disney’s long history. The movie completely bombed at the box office and only managed to gross $73 million (via Box Office Mojo) against a reported production budget of $180 million. When factoring in the movie’s marketing and advertising costs, the sheer scope of the film’s financial failure becomes even clearer. However, the movie was undercut by a series of factors.

The box office was notoriously fickle in the first year coming out of major lockdown restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2022’s movies were financially volatile. All the top-grossing domestic movies of the year were either sequels or adaptations of comic book characters, and it was clear that the unfamiliar wasn’t going to cut it. Strange World may have had the Disney name, but it certainly didn’t look like the Disney films that audiences were used to seeing. On top of that, the movie didn’t get a wide international release due to global views on the LGBTQ+ community.

Disney squabbled with France over release rules, thus Strange World didn’t screen there. With a myriad of countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia having strong restrictions against LGBTQ+ media, Disney didn’t even bother trying to edit the film to match their cultural standards. These two factors took a lot of potential revenue off the table, and Strange World was essentially doomed to fail because of its limited release. No one factor sunk the Walt Disney Animation movie, but rather a series of unforeseen circumstances.