‘The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’ Is Disney’s Worst-Reviewed Movie of 2018

If you thought that A Wrinkle in Time would end the year as Disney’s only critically-panned movie, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is hitting theaters this weekend to prove you wrong. The reviews for the live-action movie started to pour in this week, and it’s currently the worst-rated Disney film of the entire year.

As of Thursday morning, the day of its actual release, Nutcracker and the Four Realms has a measly 28 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. 46 critics have reviewed the movie so far, with only 13 of the considering it “Fresh.” That means a whopping 33 critics who have reviewed the movie deemed it “Rotten.”

What’s even worse than the overall Rotten Tomatoes score is the rating that the individual critics are giving the film. The average rating given to Nutcracker and the Four Realms is 4.6 out of 10. Up to this point, A Wrinkle in Time was the only other Disney film in 2018 to be generally disliked by critics, but it’s still boasting better scores than Nutcracker. For comparison’s sake, Wrinkle in Time has a 42 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 5.3 out of 10.

With these kind of poor reviews, and very little marketing compared to the other Disney movies, Nutcracker could easily become a major bomb for the otherwise incredibly successful studio. Despite the negative reception, A Wrinkle in Time still managed to haul in over $100 million at the domestic box office. Without the backing of Ava DuVernay, Oprah Winfrey, and Chris Pine, it’s tough to see Nutcracker even coming close to that number.

Outside of these two films, Disney is having an incredibly year at the box office. Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Incredibles 2 all broke records during their theatrical runs. Ant-Man and the Wasp topped the total of the series’ first film. Christopher Robin was the lowest earner of the group, but still made nearly $200 million on a modest budget. Even Solo: A Star Wars Story, which is considered a failure in terms of the Star Wars franchise, was able to take in almost $400 million worldwide. It’s also worth noting that each film in this list was met with mostly positive reviews.

Looking ahead to the rest of the year, Disney has two more films and both are likely to be hits both with critics, and at the box office. Ralph Breaks the Internet could easily be a crowd favorite, based on the success of the original Wreck-It Ralph, and Mary Poppins Returns is already receiving a major Oscar push from the studio.

Sadly, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms isn’t going to be keeping up Disney’s high-flying 2018 trend.