The way I see it is that the entire industry is over-relying on the superhero genre. And there is some evidence that the viewers are a little tired of that genre right now. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t huge demand for it, there will always be huge demand for superhero films. But it does mean that the too-rapid production by all the competitors will dilute that demand, and maybe even reduce it a little. Especially if they “phone it in” like they did with Madame Web (saw it a few days ago and it’s not particularly good). Luckily this stinker wasn’t Disney. My advice to the film industry - slow down the superhero releases, maybe even take a 6 month or year break. Then slowly release them one by one with a nice interval between each one. Westerns is a perfect analogy, anyone and everyone was coming out with Westerns, and half the movies out there were Westerns, and the people just got tired of them. Later, after years had passed, the scifi genre successfully copied the Western model and it proved to be very profitable, and to produce some really good franchises.
I don’t think there is any SARS specific issue anymore. At this point, that’s just an excuse used by under-performers.
This one is one of my all-time favorite franchises. And I was indeed disappointed with what they did in the last film. I agree that anyone with the right look and attitude can be Jones. Maybe Idris Elba if he doesn’t take over as Bond. The Indiana Jones Experience at Hollywood Studios is one of my favorites, and we make sure to see it each time we are at the parks. I remember in previous years, that it had a huge line to get in, and every show had every seat filled. But more recently, that’s not the case. The huge lines have thinned out, despite the parks being at full or near-full capacity. Seems like “kids today” (and many adults today) are more interested in the more interactive experiences, and being closer to the action. Disney obviously has all the data, and if they see a waning of interest, they will decide how to proceed. But despite it all, the 2023 installment still brought in $175M at the box office. I think that’s still respectable enough to strongly consider continuing the franchise.
All the streaming companies now have the same problem. They’ve reached saturation. “Everyone” streams, and “everyone” has more than one service. That essentially means that growth can mostly come from one streamer to another streamer. And that results in churn which reduces average subscriber numbers. Also, because the service becomes commoditized to some extent, they also have to compete on price (“give plenty of discounts” to get people in), and that reduces ARPU. Slow growing subscriber numbers and even slight reductions in ARPU aren’t conducive to growing that business segment. Disney is VERY lucky that it has other business segments to balance streaming out. In fact, that is Disney’s biggest strength, their 3 legged, or 4 legged, stool.