Electric hate / Box office bloodbath / Animania

With 'The Electric State,' is the jig finally up for expensive Netflix movies?

Hey everyone, welcome back to The Traverse. Life’s been busy, so it’s been a few weeks since I last published. With that in mind, I’m trying a new format today that’s more of a roundup of what I missed with mini essays. If you like this more than my typical long essay format, or if you’d like to see a mix of both in the future, let me know. Thanks for reading!

The Gist

• Electric hate: Netflix’s mega-expensive movie “The Electric State” is a viewership dud compared to its other expensive movies.

• Box office bloodbath: The box office is off to a terrible start this year and it’s not certain what the first real hit will be.

• Animania: A Chinese animated movie is now one of the biggest movies of all time, while Hollywood’s animation slate looks weak to start the year.

⚡️ Electric hate

Netflix’s 300-plus million dollar “blockbuster” from the Russo Brothers, “The Electric State,” dropped last Friday and was watched by 25 million viewers globally in its first weekend. That’s more on par with the streamer’s Zack Snyder-directed “Rebel Moon” (24 million views) — which failed to make the overall Netflix top 10 — than it is with the Russos’ last Netflix movie, “The Gray Man,” which was watched by 43 million viewers in its first three days and is currently Netflix’s seventh most-popular movie ever.

25 million viewers would be quite the accomplishment if Netflix was making any money at the box office on this movie. But when a traditional theatrical release opens below expectations with poor word of mouth, it typically means it will have weak legs and lose money. If we apply that same way of thinking to “The Electric State” (15% Rotten Tomatoes critic score), we can probably call it a dud (though, to be fair, people are more likely these days to watch bad Netflix movies at home than they are to pay to see a bad movie in a theater).

There’s been much confusion and debate over why Netflix spends so much money on what are essentially TV movies. The obvious answer is because they want to supplant legacy Hollywood studios as the de facto entertainment force in the world, and to do that, they have to spend big money on big movies. When they’ve spent a lot on other movies, they’ve at least been able to brag about popularity (“Red Notice”), Oscar nominations (“The Irishman”), or both (“Don’t Look Up”). That probably won’t be the case with “The Electric State.”

But the movie also raises another topic I’ve been thinking about since my days at Business Insider: Can Netflix create long-lasting movie franchises? In that regard, it has yet to touch the likes of Disney or Universal. After all, it’s hard to build franchises off of movies people watch in their homes, half engaged, and never talk about again. There are no merchandise or theme park options for “Red Notice” or “The Electric State.” And as I wrote about Snyder for “Rebel Moon,” maybe the Russos just aren’t a great investment if you’re trying to build a viable franchise (outside of Marvel, which they’re astutely going back to). Amazon learned that the hard way (in TV anyway) with their big-budget bomb “Citadel.”

Notably, in a new interview with Variety, when Netflix co-CEO refers to the “return of our biggest franchises” this year, he lists TV shows.

---

“Snow White” (Disney)

🎟️ Box office bloodbath

You’ve probably heard by now that last weekend’s total domestic box office was the lowest of the year so far, even worse than Super Bowl weekend (It’s also the lowest since February of last year). The overall box office is also trailing last year at the same time, even though this year was supposed to be a “comeback” after the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes of ‘23.

But as I’ve previously noted, this year always had some risky bets and 2026 might actually be the first post-pandemic year to hold pre-pandemic promise. That said, after much handwringing over there being a lack of supply in movie theaters, there might actually now be a lack of demand, as

Scott Mendelson

recently pointed out.

Last year at this point, “Dune: Part Two” had already opened to strong numbers. This year’s first tentpole release, “Captain America: Brave New World,” has not been the Marvel victory lap that Disney probably hoped for after “Deadpool and Wolverine,” and it is barely limping past $400 million worldwide. And its “Snow White” remake is not looking promising this weekend either, with projections coming in below $50 million domestically. For comparison, “The Little Mermaid” opened to $95 million two years ago. Not great.

So what will be first real hit of the year? Please tell me it’s not going to be “A Minecraft Movie.” After that, WB’s “Sinners” is on deck, but the next franchise tentpole isn’t until Marvel’s “Thunderbolts” in May.

---

“Ne Zha 2” (Beijing Enlight)

🐷 Animania

There’s been a lot of animation news since I last published. Since we’re on the topic of a box office bloodbath, lets look at the new “Looney Tunes” movie, “The Day the Earth Blew Up,” which WB dumped on distributor Ketchup Entertainment and opened to a paltry $3 million last weekend.

I recently wrote about how animated kids content is a goldmine for entertainment companies, and yet they’ve slowed investment on streaming and theatrical releases are few and far between (the first major animated movie this year isn’t until “Elio” in June; “A Minecraft Movie” and “Lilo and Stitch” are hybrid, and the former will likely appeal more to tween gamers, if at all).

But animated movies can only be hits if the studio believes in them, and WB did zilch to revive the “Looney Tunes” brand in any meaningful way before punting this new movie and canceling another (which it is now apparently looking to sell to Ketchup as well). Now they’ve even removed the original series from Max (but it’s going to Tubi).

Meanwhile, a Chinese animated movie, “Ne Zha 2,” recently crossed $2 billion globally and is now the fifth biggest movie ever (not adjusted for inflation). Granted, the vast majority of that (uh, around 99% of it) is from China, but still quite a feat considering the Chinese box office had taken a big tumble last year. But “Ne Zha 2” reflects the country’s growing entertainment ambitions, fueling fandom around Chinese mythology — and it’s not just in movies.

Last year, the Chinese game “Black Myth: Wukong” — the first big-budget global Chinese game release — broke through…but even then, as I wrote about, the majority of the people playing it were in China. The region has a long way to go to strike the kind of global cultural footprint that the likes of Japan and South Korea have (that said, “Ne Zha 2” earned $20 million stateside, which isn’t nothing).

---

“Coco” (Disney/Pixar)

Beyond the Traverse

The latest and biggest franchise news across film, TV, gaming, anime, and comics.

Film

🇲🇽 Speaking of animation: Disney set a 2029 release date for Pixar’s “Coco 2.”

🎯 Amazon is eyeing former Sony Pictures head Amy Pascal and Harry Potter franchise producer David Heyman to produce its next iteration of James Bond.

• ICYMI: My bear and bull cases for Amazon’s Bond.

🤔 Jonathan Majors, who Marvel fired after he was convicted of assault and harassment, says he’s considering a role in a superhero movie that isn’t Marvel or DC. Uh, okay.

🔫 The estate behind Jason Bourne has reportedly taken meetings with Skydance (which is buying Paramount), Netflix and Apple.

🪚 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise rights are also up for grabs, sending Hollywood into a “free for all.”

💀 “Zero progress” has been made on the next “Saw” film, despite “Saw X” reviving the franchise.

Television

👿 Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos took a jab at the former Marvel TV regime, telling Variety “We wanted to make great television; they wanted to make money.”

⭐️ George Lucas’ canceled, pre-Disney Star Wars series apparently would have cost $40 million an episode and “blown up” the franchise.

• It couldn’t have been any worse than where the franchise is now.

✝️ The New York Times reports how Amazon and Netflix are rushing to turn Bible stories into “Game of Thrones”-like shows and movies.

Gaming

🤖 The SAG-AFTRA video game strike is still going, and the two sides are “frustratingly far apart” on key issues like AI.

🎮 Xbox boss Phil Spencer suggested that more movies and shows based on its games could be on the horizon and that they’re “gaining confidence and learning” (hopefully they are more like “Fallout” than “Halo”).

Anime and comics

Amazon says it’s prioritizing a “growing slate” of anime, and is particularly eyeing “big IP” with “social buzz.”

Richardson Handjaja

at Animenomics has more context.

• ICYMI: My previous report on the boom in anime, thanks to streaming giants and growing interest outside Japan.