New Analysis Reveals Disney Overspent On Almost Half Its Movies And Shows

Disney has overspent on almost half productions analysed (Photo by Jeremy Moeller/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Two of the most-asked questions in the movie industry have finally been answered – what percentage of Disney’s movies go over budget and which of its famous franchises are the worst performers.

The amount Disney spends on its movies and streaming shows has been a talking point since the start of the pandemic as it has released a string of costly underperforming productions.

Disney’s chief executive Bob Iger explained that during the pandemic the caliber of its film-making suffered from having less supervision on set whilst costs surged because of “the need to deliver a certain level of spectacle,” according to Kevin Feige, boss of its Marvel Studios division.

Feige told Variety that Marvel’s latest movies “have been upwards of a third cheaper than they were two years before that” though he declined to say whether they were over or under budget. That information isn’t disclosed in Disney’s filings in the United States as they combine the expenses of all of its productions and don’t break down the results of each one.

In simple terms, if a movie goes over budget it means that its costs are rising so more theater tickets have to be sold for it to break even at the box office. The lack of disclosure has kept observers guessing about Disney’s ability to stick to its budgets. Until now.

Although Disney’s filings in the U.S. don’t itemize the financials of each production, it is available elsewhere if you know where to look. Despite being as American a brand as you can get, many of Disney’s movies are not filmed in the U.S. and there is good reason for this.

Talking from Hollywood, Feige explained that since 2012 very few Marvel movies “have been [shot] here and they moved because of the cost.” Almost a third of the 54 Marvel movies and shows have been shot in the United Kingdom as it offers studios a cash reimbursement of up to 25.5% of the amount they spend in the country.

When streaming started to explode in popularity, studios descended on the U.K. in order to keep filming costs down. To ensure that Disney didn’t get squeezed out, it signed a deal in 2019 which reportedly gave it use of almost all of Pinewood Studios in the U.K. for a decade.

“There was a time, which is not right now, but there was a time where we made that deal…five or six years ago where everybody was fighting for stage space in the great expansion of not just us but everybody,” Feige explained to Variety. “So we had the opportunity to lock up Pinewood.” It came with a catch.

Studios filming in the U.K. can only get the reimbursement provided that at least 10% of their core costs are incurred there. In order to demonstrate this to the authorities, studios set up separate companies to produce each film in the U.K. and they are obliged to file legally-binding earnings releases.

The earnings releases reveal everything from the cost of the picture and the amount of the reimbursement right down to number of production staff on the crew and the social security payments they receive. They also usually state whether the picture was over, under or in line with the budget.

This author has previously reported on whether Disney’s Marvel movies, Lucasfilm productions and live action remakes of its classic cartoons were over or under budget.

Now the complete picture can be presented for the first time with the remaining pictures including Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Mary Poppins Returns.

The most striking discovery in the data is that of the 51 Disney productions which reported their financial performance in the U.K. over the past 15 years, only one came in under budget. That was Disney’s last Star Wars movie, 2019’s The Rise Of Skywalker and it is understood that it cost less than expected as the editing of the movie took less time than usual.

This was revealed in an interview on The Rough Cut podcast with The Rise of Skywalker’s editor Maryann Brandon who admitted that the latter stages of the production schedule were accelerated which “affected everything.”

She estimated that the crew had three months less to work on The Rise of Skywalker than The Force Awakens, the first of Disney’s Star Wars trilogy. Brandon explained that the reason for the tight timing was that Disney insisted on sticking to the movie’s December 2019 release date rather than delaying it which would have increased the post-production time and therefore the cost. Instead, filings for the movie show that it ended up “below the production budget.”

Reshoots are often planned into budgets but The Rise of Skywalker’s director J.J. Abrams told Entertainment Weekly that the movie ended up needing fewer than The Force Awakens. He explained that because The Force Awakens was the first movie in the series “we didn’t know if these characters would work, if the actors would be able to carry a Star Wars movie. There were a lot of things we didn’t know. On [The Rise of Skywalker], we knew who and what worked.”

Nevertheless, in percentage terms, more of Disney’s Star Wars productions were over budget than those of any other franchise. Four of the eight filmed in the U.K. blew their budgets and although Marvel beat that with seven, a total of 16 of its productions were made in the U.K. meaning that 43.8% exceeded their forecasts.

Overall, a staggering 47% of Disney’s 51 productions were over budget with the number peaking at four in 2016 when the costly live action remakes got underway. They broke new ground so it’s perhaps no surprise that they cost more than expected. That said, the only movie released so far this year which was made in the U.K. and was over budget was Snow White – another live action remake.

Of course, the Disney movies made in the U.S. and elsewhere may have all been in line with the budget or under budget though that seems unlikely given the performance of their U.K. counterparts. Not only is the sample size of U.K. productions extremely large but it covers all of Disney’s key franchises.

Crucially, the data is indisputable. Disney didn’t respond to an opportunity to comment and it doesn’t need to as the data comes directly from its filings. Given that the Mouse can get more than a quarter of its costs reimbursed in the U.K. it’s no surprise that Feige said “many of our movies will be there for the foreseeable future.” With almost half of them coming in over budget it really is a dream ticket.