Go Canada

This is almost a week old ....

The effort to unionize Canada’s animation industry has received a boost, through a new strategic alliance between two groups central to the movement: the Art Babbitt Appreciation Society (ABAS) and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). ABAS is a nationwide collective of hundreds of animation workers agitating for better rights, while IATSE is the largest union representing the industry on the continent. ...

... but still worth commenting on.

Two decades ago (more or less), the Animation Guild in Los Angeles went to Toronto and Vancouver to help Canadin unions organize Canadian artists into their own union.

At the time, Disney had a sizable studio in Toronto and a somewhat smaller studio in Vancouver. And the Canadian IA came pretty close to getting enough representation cards and interest to get a Canadian animation guild going.

But in the end, the effort fell a wee bit short. As a Canadian animator explained at the big meeting of yet-to-be-organized Disney empooyees (Canadian division):

"We really like the idea of being in a union, really. But ... we don't think Disney would like it. And we're, you know, afraid they'd close the studios if we unionize.

So, we're not gonna do it."

Which is what happened. The artists in Vancouver and Toronto didn't sign quite enough cards (which is what you had to do in Canada in those days to "go union". Easier and less complicated than in the States), and Disney Animation Ltd, Canada, remained non-union.

And fourteen months later, Disney in Burbank closed Disney Toronto and Disney Vancouver. (Some exec decided they could do the work elsewhere (Disney had various overseas facilities at the time), so elsewhere went the work.

There's a moral there somewhere, but the one I've always drawn is: "Union or non-union is seldom the primary reason entertainment companies ship production work off to London, Paris, Mumbai, Toronto, or Timbuktu. Mostly its Free Money (government subsidies) or the talents and quality of the work force, or the whims of a highly-placed executive.

Hopefully, Canadian artists will plunge forward with organizing their own labor organization this time.

It's Good To Be Top Giant

As recently as '84, Disney was the weak sister among movie studios. There was Splash, but there was also The Black Hole and (soon to be) The Black Cauldron, also various other gems. But now? ...

The [Walt Disney] Company has brought in an industry record $7.67 billion to date at the worldwide box office, it announced on Sunday. That passed the previous record, which was also set by Disney, when it made $7.61 billion at the global box office in 2016. ...

There was a bit of a turnaround near the end of the Ron Miller days, and then Jeffrey Katzenberg, Frank Wells and Michael Eisner jump-started the place, and Robert Iger sent the company into hyper-drive (commercially speaking).

Diz Co. will probably be appointing Mr. Iger "Chairman For Life". Wouldn't at all surprise me.

H/t Director Mike Milo ...

Lion Still Ultimate Monarch

The Lion King remains at the top of the Big List, while Leo and Brad come in #2.

THREE DAYS OF GROSSES

1) Lion King -- 4,725 -- $76.7M (-60%) -- $351.9M

2) Once Upon A Time In Hollywood -- 3,659 -- $41M -- $41M (1st weekend)

3) Spiderman: Far From Home -- 3,851 (-564) -- $11.8M (-44%) -- $344M

4) Toy Story 4 -- 3,610 (-140) -- $9.7M (-37%) -- $395.5M

5) Crawl -- 2,720 (-450) -- $3.9M (-36%) -- $31.3M

6) Yesterday -- 2,550 (-112) -- $3M (-40%) -- $63.3M

7) Aladdin -- 1,798 (-307) -- $2.6M (-38%) -- $345.7M

8) Stuber =- 2,150 (-900) -- $1.7M (-58%) -- $20.1M

9) Annabelle 3 -- 1,287 (-694) -- $1.5M (-41%) -- $69.7M

10) The Farewell -- $1.4M (+26%) -- $3.6M

As mentioned previously, the new iteration of Aladdin has now passed the billion dollar mark in gross revenues. Toy Story 4 has now made $917,928,506 on a global basis, and Lion King 2019* has pulled in $962,675,534 and looks to be ... I donno ... a money-maker?

So taken altogether, the Walt Disney Company has two animated features in the marketplace poised to smash past a billion dollars, and an animation-dervied feature that's already done so.

Meanwhile, down at a lower elevation, The Secret Life of Pets Deux is out of the American Top Ten and now clings to rung #11. It's worldwide gross is $331,986,255.

Aladdin Too = MooLah

This tells you all you need to know about the Big Mouse doing more live-action remakes of Diz Co.'s animated feature catalogue:

... The Guy Ritchie-directed [Aladdin] live-action remake of the 1992 animated classic grossed $999.3M globally through Thursday, with $343.1M domestically and $656.2M at the international box office. This makes Aladdin the fifth Disney-branded live-action release to ever cross the $1B threshold, alongside Beauty and the Beast, Alice In Wonderland and the second and fourth Pirates of the Caribbean films. ...

Hell yes they'll be doing more! All the way down to The Black Caudlron.

People in the animation business (i.e., the artists) complain all the time about Disney's crass commercialism and non-creative chops rebooting its heritage and library. But it won't be stopping anytime soon when a billion or more dollars is accumulated in one fell swoop.

For the diminishing few who might be upset that "Disney" could even think of doing the remake thing, understand that it's not Disney anymore. It's the movie-amusement park/distribution platform version of Berkshire-Hathaway.

Jean Harlow and Jiminy Cricket

Clark Gable, Jean Harlow (and Jean's double), also Cliff "J. Cricket/Ukulele Ike" Edwards, singing with a familiar voice.

Eighty-two years ago, M-G-M released Saratoga, a racetrack movie starring Clark Gable (America's heartthrob) and Jean Harlow (America's reigning sex goddess).

Sadly, Ms. Harlow had gone out of the movie star/sex goddess business a month and a half prior to the film's release, when she had gone home sick and soon died, taken at age 26 due to uremic poisoning from damaged kidneys. (No penicillin in those days, also no dialysis machines, so Ms Harlow ended up a goner.)

Production on "Saratoga" had begun on April 22, 1937. Gable, Ms. Harlow, and Walter Pidgeon top-lined. A few rungs down the cast list, singer and character actor Cliff Edwards portrayed Gable's sidekick "Tip". Ninety percent of the movie had been shot when, on May 29th, Harlow collapsed on set, never to return.

At the time, Clark Gable and Jean Harlow were two of the biggest stars on the planet. Cliff Edwards, a Metro contract player (he had originally been hired by Irving Thalberg in 1929) was a 1920s singing star on the downslope of his career. Cliff had starred on Broadway and created a boxload of hit records, but he went through record royalties, stage and movie salaries as quickly as he got his hands on the cash. Also, his third (and final) marriage had recently broken up and alimony payments weren't cheap. Edwards would do more character parts, and the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio, but his big-money days were behind him. He would die broke and alone in the early 1970s.

As for the near-completed Saratoga, Metro considered reshooting the film with another actress, but a torrent of letters from anguished fans convinced the studio to finish the picture with voice and body doubles. (In the clips above, Mr. Gable and Mr. Edwards are mostly playing to Mary Dees, the late Ms. Harlow's double, thoughn the final scene, Cliff and Clark sing and laugh with the actual Jean Harlow.)

Saratoga, despite the unevenness of the final result, went on to be one of M-G-M's big hits of 1937. Audiences, apparently, were happy to put up with voice and body doubles to see Jean Harlow one last time.

The Streaming Horse Race

It appears that Netflix is losing some of its mojo ...

... Shares of Netflix have now fallen each of the last nine trading days, as the stock began its downfall even before it released its quarterly financial report, which indicated it lost subscribers in the U.S. for the first time since launching its streaming service nearly a decade ago. Netflix also disclosed last Wednesday that it added just 2.7 million subscribers worldwide, while it had previously anticipated adding about 5 million in the quarter. ...

This couldn't have anything to do with Diz Col coming into the streaming space in a few months with its $7 per month fee, could it?

Or that some of Netflix's big suppliers will be picking up their metaphorical marbles and moving to different platforms?

Naaah. Must be something else that we're not picking up on. (When I figure out what that might be, I'll get back to you.)

But no matter what it turns out to be, a year from now the universe of entertainment delivery system will be a tiny bit different ...

The Lion Doesn't Sleep ...

... this weekend.

THREE DAYS OF GROSSES

1) Lion King -- 4,725 -- $192M -- $192M (1st weekend)

2) Spider-Man Far From Home -- 4,415 (-219) -- $21M (-52%) -- $319.7M

3) Toy Story 4 -- 3,750 (-460) -- $14.6M (-30%) -- $375.5M

4) Crawl -- 3,170 -- $5.7M (-53%) -- $23.5M

5) Yesterday -- 2,662 (-93) -- $4.7M (-29%) -- $57.2M

6) Stuber -- 3,050 -- $3.8M (-53%) -- $15.9M

7) Aladdin -- 2,105 (-452) -- $3.6M (-41%) -- $339.9M

8) Annabelle 3 -- 1,981 (1,228) -- $2.5M (-56%) -- $66.4M

9) Midsommar -- 1,105 (-1,602) -- $1.57M (-57%) -- $22.4M

10) Secret Life of Pets 2 -- 1,380 (-940) -- $1.4M (-56%) -- $151.4M

Disney dominates worldwide box office (big surprise), what with Lion King raking in $533m, Toy Story 4 at $854.4m, and Aladdin (the live action redo) nudging against an even billion with $988.8m.

With the stampede of Disney product, The Secret Life of Pets 2 has been half-trampled, taking in a relatively modest $318.6m, which is what DreamWorks Animation features were taking in during the later Katzenberg period. Pets, of course, was produced in France with an $80m budget.