Disney's first film featuring openly gay main character flops at box office

Disney's first film to feature an openly gay main character flopped at the box office, bringing in $18.6 million over the five-day holiday weekend to become one of the entertainment giant's worst box office releases. 

The animated film, "Strange World," featured stars such as Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid and Lucy Liu, and had a budget of $120 million to $130 million, according to the outlet Variety.

"Strange World" had Disney's second-worst opening weekend in modern history, with the pandemic-era release of "West Side Story" grossing $10.5 million.

Disney originally projected the movie to earn $30 million to $40 million over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, The National Review reported.

Film critic Jordan Woodson argues the poor attendance is not because of the main character's sexuality.

"In reality, it's going to flop because they didn't market it at all," Woodson says. "They'll use this as an excuse to not have queer rep ever again."

Podcaster Patrick Bet-David said his children were not entertained by "Strange World."

"Within 10 minutes of the movie, my 10 year-old-son said, " 'Dad, I have no desire to watch this movie. Can we leave?' " he tweeted. "We left."

The film's flop comes days after Disney fired CEO Bob Chapek and brought former CEO Bob Iger out of retirement.