Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 07/10/23

Jim Caviezel as Tim Ballard

Disney cast-off Sound of Freedom continues to defy Hollywood expectations. The relatively inexpensive Angel Studios hit (a taut true story about true-life hero Tim Ballard‘s daring heartfelt quest to rescue a sex trafficked child) took the third spot on this weekend’s box office chart, just behind Disney‘s big-budget, much-hyped and fading Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny which, BTW, played on nearly twice as many screens (4600 compared to 2852).

As The Hollywood  Reporter notes Sound of Freedom, which amazingly opened atop the box office rankings on July 4th, copped an A+ CinemaScore from theatergoers and finished Sunday with a domestic take of $40.2 million. That’s on a reported overall production budget of just $14.5 million.

Disney’s lack of Sound judgement is, of course, Angel Studio’s gain –  and, as Variety reports, is the latest example of the Magic Kingdom losing its fabled magic touch. Of course, while noting the company’s string of box office misses, faltering Disney+, loss of profitability for once sure-fire brands like Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and even ESPN, and thinning theme park attendance, the article seems to go out of its way to avoid the Woke elephant in the room personified by things like this and this. Essentially, the once unabashedly American (as opposed to global) company took its faith-and-family brands turned them upside down and inside out and spit in the eyes (and at the values) of their loyal audiences who, frankly, have been left feeling disrespected and betrayed. The company’s blatant attempt to use its financial clout to meddle in Florida’s education curriculum also didn’t endear it to parents. Add to this, the company’s struggling ABC broadcast network (for decades the home of such broad-based – and long-gone – family-friendly hits as Happy Days and Who Wants to be a Millionaire) and you have a corporate giant that seems disconnected from its customers and is paying the consequences.

IMHO, when it comes to analyzing the problems at Disney, I think podcaster Megyn Kelly and her guest conservative commentator Charlie Kirk came much closer to hitting the nail on the head. My somewhat out-of-the-box (if not out-of-my-mind) idea for fixing things follows.

Why Elon Musk should buy Disney. Let’s face it. The establishment media’s knives are out for the guy as they root for Twitter being ripped to Threads by its upstart Meta rival. Almost accidentally, Musk has gone from being seen by the powers that be as a visionary producer of Green New Deal-friendly electric cars and other technology to a thorn in their side as they attempt to solidify their tight grip on the management of information and ideas conveyed via social and traditional media. At this point, there’s really no turning back. They’re out to get him and, as the old saying goes, the best defense is a good offense.

As it happens, Disney is a broken brand with a tanking stock price. Now, I’m no billionaire business genius but it does seem to me that there’s an opportunity for a Musk Media enterprise built upon by the joining of Disney to Twitter that would embrace and celebrate both traditional values (a la Disney) and free speech (a la Twitter).

Regarding the latter, on Twitter the only rules should involve how an opinion is expressed (with a modicum of self-control, i.e. without threats, hateful epithets or curse words that have a way of degrading civil communication). In other words, with perhaps extremely rare exception, virtually any opinion should be able to be expressed so long as it is done so civilly.

Regarding Disney, it’s a valuable faith, family and freedom-friendly American brand in control of other faith,family and freedom-friendly American brands. Most Americans are preconditioned to love what it puts out into the culture. It’s the ultimate turnkey media company. As a new owner with, frankly all the right enemies, Musk is well-positioned to turn a negative into a positive and restore trust with the public.

Creatively, he can start by using Disney+ to remake the flagging streaming industry which is suffering both from a glut of largely unremarkable product. I mean, come on. Despite the that that for some reason it’s going into its third season, how many people are actually watching The Sex Lives of College Girls on Max? Beyond that, the very layout of the streaming platforms screens scream CLUTTER. It’s headache producing to scroll through it all. IMHO, the key to a successful streaming business is to simplify the page layout while offering quality programming that actually is alignment with the values of its customers. Even better, provide it for free and in a way.

Disney+, for example, could be reimagined as a so-called FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television) service that would offer a collection of linear channels comprised of Disney assets like ABC, ABC News, The Disney Channel, Vault Disney (comprised of vintage Disney classics), ESPN, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The History Channel, Nat GEO and others. There could be a channel devoted to Star Wars and even a Tesla Tech Channel focused on science and technology. There could be a search function allowing users to search for particular recent and past shows while avoiding the visual clutter. For a premium membership the recent and older programming could be offered commercial free. Of course, access to Twitter would also appear on the homepage. And if Musk really decided to, metaphorically speaking, explode some gatekeeper heads, he could give Tucker Carlson his own channel. Just spitballing here.

John W. Kennedy is a writer, producer and media development consultant specializing in television and movie projects that uphold positive timeless values, including trust in God.