Young Woman And The Sea is a winning biopic, so why does it feel like Disney's trying to sink it?

Young Woman And The Sea debuted in theaters this past Friday, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the weekend box office chart. That’s because Disney declined to report the film’s ticket sales (apparently a studio can just decide not to do that). Estimates put its take around $500,000, a suspiciously round number without much evidence to back it up. Hollywood insiders have speculated that the studio didn’t want to tarnish the film’s awards prospects by releasing poor box office numbers, but I don’t buy it. We’ve seen plenty of nominations in the past for films that barely registered during their limited theatrical runs. And even if that were the case, Disney has no one to blame for the lackluster performance but themselves.

If you’re expecting a review of Young Woman And The Sea, please accept my apologies in advance; that’s not what this is going to be. If it was, it would be mostly glowing. Young Woman And The Sea isn’t perfect or especially groundbreaking, but it’s a solid piece of filmmaking with a strong emotional core. Daisy Ridley gives an endearing performance as Trudy Ederle, a swimming trailblazer whose story should be more widely known. In another timeline, you might be reading that review right now. In this one, Disney has made such infuriating choices when it comes to releasing this film that it’s hard to focus on anything else. There’s something more going on here.

What’s going on here

Young Woman And The Sea is the fascinating real story about an American sports hero who overcame sexism, her father’s disapproval, her trainer’s petty jealousy, and every other obstacle put in her way. Not only was she the first woman to successfully swim the English Channel, but she did it in record time, beating the fastest of the five men who came before her by a good two hours. Ridley’s Ederle is just as steely and determined as Annette Bening’s Diana Nyad in Nyad, but way more likable.

The audience in my theater cheered and jeered in all the right places. It’s a crowd pleaser. Disney used to make underdog sports films like this all the time. So what’s the problem with this one? Is a female athlete’s story so much less compelling than the rowing team in The Boys In The Boat or the adventure racers in Arthur The King? Young Woman And The Sea is far more entertaining than either of those films, yet they were both given typical Hollywood marketing campaigns and releases. The Boys In The Boat made a healthy $55 million at the box office, while Arthur The King made $34 million. Why leave that kind of money on the table?

Strangely, there’s little evidence that Disney actually wanted to make any money on this film at all. If you hadn’t heard about it until now or you didn’t know when it was coming out, that’s totally understandable (and, I expect, pretty common). The official trailer was only released a month ago, leading to a few commercial spots on cable and online, probably as the result of some contractual obligation. Ridley did some interviews on daytime shows like The View and Good Morning America (you know, the ladies’ programs), but was largely absent from late night. Were they afraid she’d get asked a Star Wars question if she went on Jimmy Kimmel?

Then there’s the issue of timing, a missed opportunity so egregious it borders on willful negligence. Had Disney held Young Woman And The Sea for another month or two, it could have taken advantage of the inescapable hype around this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris. Ederle competed in the last Summer Olympics held in Paris, in 1924. There’s a whole sequence in the film devoted to the event, and her disappointing performance there (she won two bronze medals and shared the gold in the 4×100 meter freestyle relay, but could have done much better with proper coaching). Of course, the upcoming games are going to be carried by NBC and Peacock. I imagine the promotional campaign would have looked very different if the Olympics were on Disney-owned ABC. Corporate synergy is the one marketing tactic Disney has truly perfected. And without that kind of incentive, what’s a Mouse to do?

For someone’s consideration

In fact, it’s only at the insistence of producer Jerry Bruckheimer that Young Woman And The Sea got a theatrical release at all. It was originally slated to go directly to Disney+, but after audiences responded with overwhelming positivity in test screenings earlier this year (according to The Wrap it scored higher than any film Bruckheimer has ever made, and that’s saying something), he threw his weight around and got the studio to give it a limited run in theaters before shuffling it off to their streaming service.

“We held it against [Disney], and Jerry Bruckheimer is relentless. He really went for it,” Joachim Rønning, the film’s director, told The Hollywood Reporter. “So it wasn’t that it was that hard, but there’s always algorithms and budgets and things like that. So I definitely respect the process, but then we got [a limited theatrical release]. So I’m just thrilled to be able to show an epic story like this on the big screen.”

If it wasn’t already clear from the ominous mention of “algorithms and budgets,” things like artistic merit and quality are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the decision-making of Hollywood studio executives. You shouldn’t need a test audience to tell you that Young Woman And The Sea is an entertaining film that belongs on the big screen. And then, when they do, you shouldn’t need a power-producer twisting your arm.

And, again, the idea that this is just a play for Oscar eligibility doesn’t add up. If that were the case, why not wait until the fall awards season, when its release would keep it fresh on the minds of critics and Academy voters? If the purpose of putting a film in theaters isn’t to bring in audiences, it doesn’t matter when it comes out, right?

That Disney had to be bullied into doing what anyone with some artistic sensibility could have told them it should have done in the first place is a symptom of a creative industry seized by shortsighted corporate overlords. In the pre-Disney+ era, a film like this would have had the studio’s full backing. As The Wrap noted in that aforementioned piece, Disney calls these kinds of mid-budget, inspirational, real-life stories “brand deposits.” Their original purpose was not to make a huge profit but to shape the perception of the Disney brand as family-friendly entertainment with a wholesome and uplifting message. Young Woman And The Sea was made in that mold, but it came along a decade too late. Disney is a different company now. Its priorities have shifted towards pushing out massive blockbusters and feeding its streaming platform. There’s not much room for anything else.

Audience attendance in theaters is down across the board this year, but Disney in particular has been seeing sharp declines for longer. In 2023 Universal overtook Disney in global ticket sales, toppling the entertainment giant from the top spot for the first time since 2016. Audiences don’t feel any urgency to see Disney films in theaters anymore, because they know they’ll be available on Disney+ soon enough. Giving Young Woman And The Sea a brief two-week theatrical run and then sending it straight to streaming not only hurts this film, it reinforces that perception. A half-assed theatrical release is almost worse than no theatrical release at all.

It’s hard not to see how the pattern of neglect and disrespect here relates to the problems within the industry as a whole. Disney CEO Bob Iger has gone all-in on sequels and, as we reported last week, Pixar president Jim Morris announced that every other film the studio releases for the next few years will be a sequel or a spinoff. Any average movie fan can see how wrong-headed that is. Disney needs more original, throwback, feel-good movies like Young Woman And The Sea. Audiences may still find it through good word of mouth, but I fear it’s more likely it will come and go without much impact. And Disney, which basically engineered that outcome, will take all the wrong lessons from it.