Black Widow | July 9 2021 | ScarJo secures the bag from Disney

[Legion Again]

Yeah this is extremely dumb. To echo what others are saying, if they wanted to be caution hybrid in May/June would make sense. Or moving to July and keeping release options open.    
 

Moving to July and committing to PA is just wild.  
 

Gotta be a combination of 2 things —
didn’t like the spring wave in Europe/LATAM, still highly value globally synchronized release

PA results have been inconclusive enough to try it with a true blockbuster while they still have the pandemic as cover

[Fullbuster]

23 minutes ago, Damianport1 said:

The situation is very, very bad, at least in Europe. No way it settles for many months come. Theaters are closed.

 

Wrong, bad now but with the acceleration of vaccination theaters will reopen by late May / early June. Here in France it's expected half of the population will be vaccinated by late May, which means all fragile categories will be protected, hospitals will be in a far better situation. Summer will be great in Europe!

 

However Disney is right to offer the 2 options, not everyone likes to go to theaters so it's as pro-consumer as it can

[HouseOfTheSun]

4 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

Or it is that literally ANYTHING Marvel related shoots to the top of D+ and parks itself there. 

 

They might be banking on a ton of D+ PA signups from folks.

 

Who knows. 

 

Do agree that it's strange for both July and PA, but, well, I can see the reasoning if squint and see just how well Marvel performs on the platform.

Yes imagine that was a big deal as well. Marvel is simply too big to ignore on D+. 
 

although perhaps it might have been better for them to do Luca and BW under the same  Premier Access charge so people feel like they get a better deal. But boosting the base sub is important at as well. 
 

Disney is a different company now. Put them in a group with Netflix. That’s what they want to be. And I can’t blame them 

[WittyUsername]

Why did they delay it if they’re doing a hybrid release? What’s the point of that?

[filmlover]

It's odd how Jungle Cruise was the only movie in the news just now that didn't get affected at all when they moved almost everything else. Perhaps that's pivoting to D+ PA exclusively like Mulan so that way they can be done with all the movies they hyped up at the last D23.

[Fullbuster]

Just now, WittyUsername said:

Why did they delay it if they’re doing a hybrid release? What’s the point of that?

 

More theaters will be open in July than in May, much more...and in some places where they're open they'll go from 25% capacity to 100%.

It's worth the wait, theaters are mostly closed in Europe or severaly limited right now and it won't change by May 7, it won't be the case in July.

[Menor the Destroyer]

Just now, Fullbuster said:

 

More theaters will be open in July than in May, much more...and in some places where they're open they'll go from 25% capacity to 100%.

It's worth the wait, theaters are mostly closed in Europe or severaly limited right now and it won't change by May 7, it won't be the case in July.

Then why not do theatrical exclusive? And if the argument is that hybrid is going to be the long term strategy for Disney, then one would expect them to go a bit further than this. My only guess is basically what @WandaLegion said, their PA results have been inconclusive enough to test it for a big blockbuster but not quite good enough to commit long term.

[SnokesLegs]

While I do think this is a strange decision given the improving state of things worldwide with the vaccine rollout, I do think it’ll easily be the best performing Premier Access title by a massive margin and I would assume that Disney is banking on that. I know personally I won’t be venturing back to cinemas until I’m fully vaccinated in October-ish, so I’ll definitely be paying the £19.99 PA asking price for this.

 

It’s going to be interesting to see how Cinemark and the other chains who refused to play Raya react to this. Surely they’d rather have it than not.

[filmlover]

Yeah, even with this news, I doubt any chains will pass on this. Cruella, most likely some will if they offer the same terms as they did for Raya.

Edited March 23, 2021 by filmlover

[Fullbuster]

3 minutes ago, Menor said:

Then why not do theatrical exclusive? And if the argument is that hybrid is going to be the long term strategy for Disney, then one would expect them to go a bit further than this. My only guess is basically what @WandaLegion said, their PA results have been inconclusive enough to test it for a big blockbuster but not quite good enough to commit long term.

 

I know it's hard for you guys to imagine but not everyone wants to go to theaters and some people even realized they like watching at home more with Souls, WW1984..etc..so the hybrid model isn't stupid as it expands the potential audience. Besides, Some people who like theaters might not feel ready to go to theaters in July as vaccination won't have reach everyone wanting it just yet

[Menor the Destroyer]

5 minutes ago, SnokesLegs said:

While I do think this is a strange decision given the improving state of things worldwide with the vaccine rollout, I do think it’ll easily be the best performing Premier Access title by a massive margin and I would assume that Disney is banking on that. I know personally I won’t be venturing back to cinemas until I’m fully vaccinated in October-ish, so I’ll definitely be paying the £19.99 PA asking price for this.

 

It’s going to be interesting to see how Cinemark and the other chains who refused to play Raya react to this. Surely they’d rather have it than not.

Short term BW would obviously be beneficial. But thinking long term it may be wise for them to play a bit of hardball on this, especially if F9 and others are giving them good sales in the meantime.

[lorddemaxus]

1 minute ago, Fullbuster said:

I know it's hard for you guys to imagine but not everyone wants to go to theaters and some people even realized they like watching at home more with Souls, WW1984..etc..so the hybrid model isn't stupid as it expands the potential audience. Besides, Some people who like theaters might not feel ready to go to theaters in July as vaccination won't have reach everyone wanting it just yet

Most people will want to go to cinemas by July though. This hybrid model is stupid because it expands the audience in a lot of territories by giving them the ability to watch it for free on day 1 (which is fine to me, since I'll be doing the same thing, but from a business perspective is pretty stupid).

[imbruglia]

doing theater/disney+ is smart decision. lol 

some of y'all live in fantasy world, thinking people will be line up for theater just because they're wide open in few months.

 

[Darth Lehnsherr]

Disney is definitely going all in on PA. Personally thought a Marvel movie would be the last thing they try with PA. Disappointing decision IMO

[HouseOfTheSun]

Just now, lorddemaxus said:

Most people will want to go to cinemas by July though. This hybrid model is stupid because it expands the audience in a lot of territories by giving them the ability to watch it for free on day 1 (which is fine to me, since I'll be doing the same thing, but from a business perspective is pretty stupid).

It’s stupid only if you consider a single title making up its money with its own grosses at the theater. It’s not so stupid to grow your streaming service into the biggest in the world, which financially, will mean far far far more than having a movie it a green P&L statement. 
 

theatrical is probably dead last on the list of Disney’s priorities these days. They are reforming the company around entirely de prioritizing it, and these are the moves that have to happen. Yes, that means taking a fat L on the wallet on some of these movies...but they were already doing that so why not help the growth of you most important part of your company. 

[charlie Jatinder]

At this point I think they should increase the price or introduce a premium tier of $15 a month instead of charging $30 a film. $30 a film is simply a bad marketing pitch.

[HouseOfTheSun]

4 minutes ago, imbruglia said:

doing theater/disney+ is smart decision. lol 

some of y'all live in fantasy world, thinking people will be line up for theater just because they're wide open in few months.

 

People here really think that having a vaccine will all of a sudden make people forget the most paradigm shattering event of their lifetime and hop and skip to the theater 😂😂

 

In the Us, theatrical revenues will likely never, ever, return to what they were in in the last 2010s. The domestic box office has stagnated for a long time. No company is going to hold themselves back because of it.

Edited March 23, 2021 by HouseOfTheSun

[lorddemaxus]

4 minutes ago, HouseOfTheSun said:

 It’s not so stupid to grow your streaming service into the biggest in the world

Which they can do without releasing these movies on D+. Their shows are big enough hits to carry them. They aren't gonna be attracting subs by charging a movie an extra $30 dollars on top of their subscription etither. I doubt PA's even adding much to their D+ revenue.

 

And theatrical's big event-like experience is big to Disney's ecosystem and it's value in developing markets (where this will be pirated by shittons of people) is still huge. 

Edited March 23, 2021 by lorddemaxus

[Legion Again]

5 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

At this point I think they should increase the price or introduce a premium tier of $15 a month instead of charging $30 a film. $30 a film is simply a bad marketing pitch.

Two tiers: 

regular

premium (more monthly, get all PA with no additional charge)

[HouseOfTheSun]

5 minutes ago, lorddemaxus said:

Which they can do without releasing these movies on D+. Their shows are big enough hits to carry them. They aren't gonna be attracting subs by charging a movie an extra $30 dollars on top of their subscription etither. I doubt PA's even adding much to their D+ revenue.

 

And theatrical's big event-like experience is big to Disney's ecosystem and it's value in developing markets (where this will be pirated by shittons of people) is still huge. 

At some point, and Disney got their far quicker than everyone thought, satisfying an existing base of subs becomes more important. Moving Luca directly to D+ and BW to PA achieves that. Yes the atmosphere of a mega theatrical success is important, but that is very clearly and obviously not going to happen at any point this year. (Which it seems very few people here understand)
 

they have sat on this movie for over a year now. Marvel can not just keep waiting on the world to be ready to go to the theaters and then continue. They have TON of content in the theatrical pipeline and obviously much more in the planning stage. 
 

disney+ also doesn’t need to pull a desperate maneuver to bring themselves to relevancy. They already gave the subs and the notoriety. 
 

they are clearly going to make more money doing hybrid release than not. For a forum focused on money, it seems odd that people would question it from a Financial standpoint. 

Edited March 23, 2021 by HouseOfTheSun