Tag: Trailer

Image Group LA. Getty Images.

One lesson that applies to every individual and cultural institution is that your public image is a fragile thing. That goes triple for businesses, even the biggest, most powerful megacorporations. You can spend decades establishing your brand, and decades more reassuring your customers they can trust the quality of your goods and services. But still your house is built from cards arranged on a wobbly table. A few false moves by people who aren’t as smart, talented or business savvy as the ones who worked their asses off to create all that success, and the structure comes crashing down all over the floor. I’d add, “Just ask Deadspin,” but I’m not sure it still exists.

And so it is with Disney. Over the past … few years? Decade maybe? … their brand has become damaged. Depending on who you talk to, it either can’t be trusted to give you quality family-oriented entertainment, or it’s straight-up toxic. That damage was on display this week when the star of their new tent pole superhero movie stepped in it:

And despite the fact Disney immediate scrambled their Public Relations Rapid Response Team to try and walk back what Anthony Mackie said, the damage is done. As the lawyers say, “You can’t unring a bell.” 

But an action star (on an already troubled project) stepping on a rake to a foreign audience is a drop in the ocean compared to the problems with the Mouse’s live-action Snow White remake. Which probably began the instant someone in a board room said, “You know what’s a good idea? How about if we do a live-action Snow White remake?” And was only exacerbated when the star playing the title character gave interviews bad-mouthing the original for … something or other. Sexism, I guess ?Not being empowering enough to women? Promoting the male patriarchy? Forcing fairy tale princesses into Handmaid’s Tale-style servitude? I’m not sure.

Rachel Zegler definitely called the cartoon Prince that helped guide five generations of young females into puberty “a stalker.” Which is less than ideal for a company struggling to boost ticket sales to their theme parks with actors portraying that movie’s characters. Parks that are already swarming with a disturbingly high ratio of childless adults. Not to mention the fact the entire Disney empire began with that universally beloved film. 

But where the Mouse shit really hit the overpriced souvenir fan was when the trailer was released almost exactly two months ago. And it was not well received. Not at all:

The demented looking animated dwarves. The cheap CGI. The lackluster music. It was a disastrous reception for a movie Disney desperately needs a win on. As of right now, it has just shy of 6 million views, and just 40,000 likes. And according to reports, 1.4 million dislikes (YouTube stopped posting those numbers, but they’re available elsewhere). Roughly speaking, that’s a ratio of 35 dislikes for every like. With over 65,000 comments, practically none of which are good.

And yet, two months after the trailer dropped, the news still keeps finding ways to get worse. Someone took those comments and set them to music. And it is glorious. The funniest 1:47 you’ll spend today:

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Bravo. Perfection. 10/10. No notes. 

Until now, I was not aware this channel existed. But they’ve made a fan out of me. The insane Pirate Metal motif. The way it couples together the comments in order to make them rhyme:

If I saw this movie on a plane, I would still walk out,

This trailer makes me want to sit on the TV and look at my couch.

And:

This movie should come with a disclaimer: No dwarves were harmed, but you childhood might be,

I haven’t seen anything self-implode this hard since that Titan submarine.

Giphy Images.

And where it really gets bad for the people who’ve sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into this investment? The video debuted five days ago and already has close to 2 million views 105,000 likes. And counting. Making the ratio of views to the original 1-to-3, but the ratio of likes, 2.6-to-1. That number will only get worse as this goofy work of art increasingly goes viral. 

This is what happens when you stop providing your customers the thing that made them loyal in the first place. Your brand is seen as toxic. And making fun of it becomes sport. A sport more fun than the lazy, uncreative, assembly line dreck you’ve been churning out. Who knows if Disney can turn this ship around. But we know almost to a moral certainty Snow White won’t be the thing that wins their audience back.