The alarm bells have been ringing at Disney headquarters after a string of major box office disappointments in quick succession, a run that not even Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will be able to end.
Whether it’s been the contentious call to send a string of Pixar originals straight to streaming, the likes of Lightyear and Strange World losing upwards of $100 million each, Elemental ironically failing to catch fire among paying customers, The Little Mermaid sinking to Davy Jones’ locker overseas, or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania drastically under-performing, things haven’t been rosy for Mickey and the gang recently.
In the cruelest and most delicious twist of irony that you couldn’t possibly make up, though, the best-reviewed Disney feature of the last seven years has arrived; and Nimona belongs entirely to Netflix. Thanks to a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 98 percent, the former Blue Sky Studios original that was ditched by the Mouse House following its acquisition of 20th Century Fox and sold off to the streaming service has scored a higher critical approval rating than anything Disney has dropped since 2016’s Zootopia.
We’re not even talking about just Disney, either; Nimona has a higher Rotten Tomatoes ranking than any feature-length original released by Walt Disney Animation, Walt Disney Pictures, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, or Searchlight Pictures, which makes it all the more fascinating and morbidly hilarious in equal measure.
Maybe the company will learn its lesson and think twice about cancellations, but it’s far from a guarantee.