THB #172: The Lightyear Conundrum

June 28 will mark the 4th anniversary of Asad Ayaz becoming Disney’s president of marketing. The nomenclature is now Disney Studios Content’s president of marketing Asad Ayaz.

The job has become much, much smaller than it was when he signed on.

In 2018, when he took the job, there were 5 titles in the pipeline for the rest of the year, after 5 had already been released. Ant-Man & The Wasp opened to $76 million. Wreck It Ralph 2 opened to $56 million. The other 3, including Mary Poppins Returns, opened to under $25 million each.

In his first full year, 2019, there were 10 Disney movies on the schedule and 2 from Fox. Six of the titles opened to over $160m… 2 Marvel, 1 Star Wars, 3 animation sequels. Live-action Aladdin opened to $92 million, live-action Dumbo opened to $46 million and live-action Maleficent 2 opened to $37 million.

Deconstruct these results and you can’t really complain too much. But so much of the success was momentum created by all IP of the highest order. Literally, t…