The MCU, Avatar, and Star Wars have made Disney one of the reigning kings of sci-fi movies for the past few decades, but these four other sci-fi movies are ignored by far too many people. Outside of these three major franchises, there are tons of original Dis…
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The MCU, Avatar, and Star Wars have made Disney one of the reigning kings of sci-fi movies for the past few decades, but these four other sci-fi movies are ignored by far too many people. Outside of these three major franchises, there are tons of original Disney sci-fi movies and smaller series that didn’t do as well, whether or not they were good. Of them all, though, these four movies definitely deserve more attention.
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Flubber, TRON, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea are just a few of the many live-action sci-fi movies that Disney was making before their modern dominance over the genre. On top of that, Disney is constantly making animated sci-fi films like WALL-E, Lightyear, Strange World, Elio, and more. But, for a crash course on Disney’s sci-fi efforts, these four films may be the most important.
4) Treasure Planet
John Musker and Ron Clements are two of the most important figures in Disney history, with them being behind some of the most significant movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios. They first directed The Great Mouse Detective, one of Disney’s only successful animated movies in the 1980s, before directing a streak of successes consisting of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules. Before them all, though, the duo had one idea: Treasure Island in space. They pitched this concept over and over again, but uninterested Disney leadership kept assigning them to other films and saying that they would revisit the concept in the future.
Eventually, Musker and Clements made a deal saying that, once they directed Hercules, they could make their sci-fi Treasure Island idea. Thus, 2002’s Treasure Planet was born. The film wound up being one of Disney’s best movies. It features a scale like no other, rich sci-fi worlds, and a dynamic camera that required the cutting edge of technology. All of this required a massive budget of $140 million, which, unfortunately, the movie wasn’t even close to making back. Treasure Planet only grossed $109.6 million, making it one of Disney’s biggest flops ever. It was swept under the rug and was a core reason why Disney moved away from hand-drawn animation in the 2000s. Disney almost never acknowledged Treasure Planet anymore, which is undoubtedly a disservice to these two iconic filmmakers.
3) John Carter
In the 1980s, Walt Disney Studios acquired the film rights to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ beloved sci-fi series, John Carter of Mars. Although development was stagnant for decades, director and writer Andrew Stanton revived the project in the 2000s, leading to the release of 2012’s John Carter. The film was meant to be the start of a franchise on the scale of Star Wars, something Disney was attempting to compete with. Unfortunately, the $306.6 million film only made $284.1 million and had no cultural impact. It was an incredibly embarrassing moment for Disney, and while the company would later go on to buy Star Wars, it is interesting to experience one of the company’s biggest missteps.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl proved that movie adaptations of Disney Parks rides could be a massive success, helping out Disney’s movie and theme park divisions simoultaneously. Disney constantly tried to recreate the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but to no avail, leading to a string of flops and critical failures. However, it seemed like a foolproof plan to make a movie about one of Disney’s most popular lands directed by Brad Bird, one of Disney’s most popular filmmakers.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t foolproof. 2015’s Tomorrowland was an odd experience, with it not truly showing off the titular world of the future until around halfway through the movie. The box office flop cost $190 million to make, and it just wound up being a bloated, colorless dissapointment. It is an odd stain on the branding of Disney Parks, but it is definitely an interesting watch.
1) The Black Hole
Only two years after the release of Star Wars, Disney released their own sci-fi epic: 1979’s The Black Hole. The film follows the members of a space ship who come across another ship that was presumed missing. Eventually, they learn that the missing ship’s inhabitants hope to be the first to explore the inside of a black hole.
The Black Hole was a big swing for Disney, with it being a more adult-oriented original idea with a budget of $20 million. This was nearly double the budget of Star Wars, proving that Disney had confidence in the idea. However, The Black Hole was a critical failure and didn’t light the box office on fire. Disney basically never talks about The Black Hole anymore, but it is an interesting relic of a bygone era where Disney took major risks with its live-action movies.
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