The big lesson from Disney's rare failures in its $6 billion-plus year

Disney Animation's "Moana" repeated as box-office champ over the weekend, grossing $28.3 million domestically, according to studio estimates. The film, which has grossed $177.3 million worldwide, gives the Mouse House its fourth animated film of the year to open at No. 1, following "Zootopia," Disney/Pixar's "Finding Dory" and the mostly CGI-animated "Jungle Book."

"Moana" comes right on the heels of Disney's "Doctor Strange," which continues the eight-year string of consecutive Marvel hits — including May's "Captain America: Civil War," which stands as the biggest movie of the year worldwide ($1.15 billion).

The year's only four releases to top $900 million globally, in fact, all hail from Disney: "Civil War" is followed by "Dory" ($1.027 billion), "Zootopia" ($1.024 billion) and "The Jungle Book" ($966.5 million), with "Doctor Strange" ($635 million) at No. 9 and rising.

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And Disney still has "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" — which is doing high advance sales, naturally — in the holster with a Dec. 16 release. The studio's decisions since 2009 to buy Marvel and Lucasfilm continue to pay off handsomely.

So while Disney has already topped $6 billion worldwide this year, it did have some misses — and most of them share a common trait.

"The BFG," which blends live-action performances with CG animation effects, was a major disappointment, grossing only $55.4 million domestically and $178 million worldwide (on a reported $140 million production budget). And the sequel "Alice Through the Looking Glass" bombed domestically ($77 million) and grossed only $299 million worldwide — a shadow of what 2010's "Alice in Wonderland" ($1.025 billion) grossed.

Elsewhere for the studio, "Pete's Dragon," which combined human performances with its animated dragon, performed modestly — $142 million worldwide on a $65 million budget. (This year, the studio also distributed the critically acclaimed "Queen of Katwe" and the middling "The Finest Hours.)

So the takeaway for Disney in even its greatest box-office year ever seems to be: Straight animation, plus live-action performances surrounded by animated effects, can be a big box-office draw. But once the lead characters themselves feel like human performance oddly bent by twisted CG effects, the results — no matter how dazzling — can often turn off otherwise loyal Disney audiences.

Source: (c) 2016, The Washington Post · Michael Cavna ·