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

[Fullbuster]

2 minutes ago, WandaLegion said:

Sending any more movies than absolutely necessary to PA would be insanity after Raya. People (domestically) will be comfortable going back by May and this entire “Disney ‘forcing’ people back to theaters” talking point will disappear.

 

Raya is #1 in some places in the Disney+ trends, sounds like a good business decision.

 

[lorddemaxus]

6 minutes ago, Fullbuster said:

 

Raya is #1 in some places in the Disney+ trends, sounds like a good business decision.

 

#1 in some places is not a good enough indicator to release a movie that would probably make $800 mil+ in June/July.

Edited March 8, 2021 by lorddemaxus

[Lion Roar]

10 minutes ago, Fullbuster said:

 

Raya is #1 in some places in the Disney+ trends, sounds like a good business decision.

 

Where is it at #1? It's definitely not in most places in the US. 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Lion Roar

[Menor the Destroyer]

Disney+ trend list is quite vague and shouldn't be used for analysis, I doubt this film will have a Premier Access release if only to not completely destroy legs OS. 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Menor

[Valonqar]

Yeah, #1 and trending don't say shit about the boxoffice number. A movie can be #1 with poor opening number if the rest of movies posted even poorer numbers. I mean, Raya's #1 with $8.5M opening weekend, how's that good? And trending doesn't mean sold tickets. It means people talk, not people watch/buy tickets/fork out $30 for D+ Premier. 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Valonqar

[Menor the Destroyer]

4 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

Yeah, #1 and trending don't say shit about the boxoffice number. A movie can be #1 with poor opening number if the rest of movies posted even poorer numbers. I mean, Raya's #1 with $8.5M opening weekend, how's that good? And trending doesn't mean sold tickets. It means people talk, not people watch/buy tickets/fork out $30 for D+ Premier. 

That's not the same type of trending. Disney+ trending in theory should be related to the amount of Premier Access sales, the problem is that it is far too irregular and vague data, and even with what we do know, we don't have a large enough sample to make much sense out of it. 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Menor

[AN9815]

If Black Widow opens on May 7 exclusively on theatres and vaccination rate continues to increase how much do you think it can make? I know it is a difficult question since things change so rapidly nowadays. I think it could do $40-45M OW / $125-150M DOM. Again, so many things can happen

[Maggie]

31 minutes ago, AN9815 said:

If Black Widow opens on May 7 exclusively on theatres and vaccination rate continues to increase how much do you think it can make? I know it is a difficult question since things change so rapidly nowadays. I think it could do $40-45M OW / $125-150M DOM. Again, so many things can happen

UNDER 100M in those circumstances

[Porthos]

1 hour ago, Fullbuster said:

 

Raya is #1 in some places in the Disney+ trends, sounds like a good business decision.

 

As others have said, this says pretty much exactly nothing.

 

(also, I was unaware of it being #1 on any trendlist, given the success of WandaVision).

 

Either way, folks inside the House of Mouse have access to actual viewership data, including signups, number of minutes watched and repeat viewings.  What we have access to right now is the equivalent of trying to fix a tricorder with stone knives and bearskins (at least until Nielsen data starts to roll in).

 

Now if Disney decides to go hybrid for BW (unlike others, I do see this as a possibility, if not a great one), they can pre-spin it ahead of time with things like "Raya was the most watched movie on D+ over the weekend" (almost certainly true).  or "Raya outperformed Mulan by x amount" (probable) or even "widely surpassed our expectations" (doubtful) or a long list of other things that mean very little without access to actual hard data.

 

And of course they can easily play the pandemic card as a way to claim they're being good corporate citizens (do I really need to be cynical here?).

 

But I highly doubt we have nearly enough data to determine whether or not going hybrid is sound for the bottom line.  Even if we had access to all of the data from other hybrid and pure VOD releases we still might not have enough data given the limited data points.

 

Anyway, "sound business decision" also rests on just what Disney wants.  Do they want BW to make tons of money turn a profit? Do they want to earn brownie points with folks who will still hesitant to go out and about in May?  Do they want to turbocharge Disney Plus?  And do they give a flying fuck what distributors think?

Well, we know the answer to the last one, but it might still be a variable.

 

The point of this is that "sound business decision" might not be as an easy answer as we think on either side of the equation.  That they've been so reluctant to punt Black Widow to a hybrid model does speak volumes.  I'm not quite sure we can call it definitive.  

 

If I had to bet, I'd bet on "no hybrid".  Or, ironically, hybrid in Europe/UK but perhaps NOT the US. Wouldn't that ruffle some feathers.

 

(not saying this last one is a great bet, but could be in the cards)

[filmlover]

5 hours ago, WandaLegion said:

DOM and Asia will be good to go for May, Latin America might still be struggling in July. The decisive factor is how they feel comfortable handling Europe, which unfortunately is now looking like it won’t really spin back up until June/July.  
 

Although it would kill my club, and miss May Day holidays, I think the wisest move at this point is to June, with the possibility of slightly delayed release in European countries as need be. Probably the June 11 spot Peter Rabbit just vacated, gets you Dragon Boat Festival in China. Then Luca to the July 2 spot Minions just vacated and Shang-Chi to Aug (Aug 6 imo and just bully TSS somewhere else, but there are more diplomatic options later in the month).

Disney seems bound and determined to release Cruella and Luca in late-May/mid-June considering marketing officially began for them recently (while they really haven't released any new marketing materials for Black Widow in almost a year) so that won't happen unless one or both of those end up pivoting to D+ exclusively. Still think this ends up taking Shang-Chi's July 9 spot soon to go with the "better safe than sorry" approach and allow A Quiet Place Part II to be the first official "theater only" blockbuster test on Memorial Day weekend.

Edited March 8, 2021 by filmlover

[Porthos]

Now if I want to try to say why hybrid might happen after all, it has very little to do with Raya or Mulan and everything to do with timing.

 

We are starting to get leaks that BW will hold its late-April release in (parts of) Asia.  LA and NYC will also be open, if limited, unless things blow up in folks faces (very possible!).

 

But, ironically enough given the situation last year, theaters in UK and elsewhere in Europe are still scheduled to be closed.  Latin America isn't doing very well.

 

So does Disney go Old School and have a staggered release for BW where it is late-April/early-May in most of the world but June/July in most of Europe/Latin America?  Or do they just grit their teeth and go PA in those places?  But if BW is released on Premiere Access in some places can they really withstand the pressure not to go hybrid elsewhere?  Especially if criticism comes from the press over being responsible in a pandemic? Disney might not care what distributors think, but what the press thinks is another matter.

 

I don't know.  But that's the #1 with a bullet reason to go hybrid:  Europe/UK not being open for theaters and Disney not wanting a staggered release.

 

If one thinks Disney doesn't care about the downside of a staggered release, then the possibility of hybrid goes way down.  But if Disney is sticking to the late-April/early-May release for Asia/DOM (and all signs point to it doing so), then hybrid is still a possibility.

Edited March 8, 2021 by Porthos

[SpiderByte]

Plus if it's a hybrid release they might move the movie up a week to April domestically. That'd be a refreshing change from the endless delays (and also give it a bit more space)

[Legion Again]

25 minutes ago, filmlover said:

Disney seems bound and determined to release Cruella and Luca in late-May/mid-June considering marketing officially began for them recently (while they really haven't released any new marketing materials for Black Widow in almost a year) so that won't happen unless one or both of those end up pivoting to D+ exclusively. Still think this ends up taking Shang-Chi's July 9 spot soon to go with the "better safe than sorry" approach and allow A Quiet Place Part II to be the first official "theater only" blockbuster test on Memorial Day weekend.

I think it's notable that the Cruella trailer was 5.28.21 and the Luca trailer was "summer."   

I think Cruella is sticking pretty much come hell or high water, but BW, Luca, Shang-Chi, Jungle Cruise are all subject to one last round of shuffling as the situation demands.

[Legion Again]

14 minutes ago, Porthos said:

Now if I want to try to say why hybrid might happen after all, it has very little to do with Raya or Mulan and everything to do with timing.

 

We are starting to get leaks that BW will hold its late-April release in (parts of) Asia. LA and NYC will also be open, if limited, unless things blow up in folks faces (very possible!).

 

But, ironically enough given the situation last year, theaters in UK and elsewhere in Europe are still scheduled to be closed. Latin America isn't doing very well.

 

So does Disney go Old School and have a staggered release for BW where it is late-April/early-May in most of the world but June/July in most of Europe/Latin America? Or do they just grit their teeth and go PA in those places? But if BW is released on Premiere Access in some places can they really withstand the pressure not to go hybrid elsewhere? Especially if criticism comes from the press over being responsible in a pandemic? Disney might not care what distributors think, but what the press thinks is another matter.

 

I don't know. But that's the #1 with a bullet reason to go hybrid: Europe/UK not being open for theaters and Disney not wanting a staggered release.

 

If one thinks Disney doesn't care about the downside of a staggered release, then the possibility of hybrid goes way down. But if Disney is sticking to the late-April/early-May release for Asia/DOM (and all signs point to it doing so), then hybrid is still a possibility.

Yeah this is very much where my head is at atm as well. AM&tW is some precedent for an MCU release having a pure theatrical release scattered over a few months in summer (for reasons related to the World Cup and competition) but the situations are also pretty different overall.

[SpiderByte]

Yeah the weird stuff with the World Cup definitely isn't the same as with Widow. but again: well likely know in the next 24 hours.

[XXR vs XXR]

3 hours ago, AN9815 said:

If Black Widow opens on May 7 exclusively on theatres and vaccination rate continues to increase how much do you think it can make? I know it is a difficult question since things change so rapidly nowadays. I think it could do $40-45M OW / $125-150M DOM. Again, so many things can happen

 

Looking at the current and expected rates of vaccinations domestically, there will be another 150-175 million doses administered by May 7th. This would bring total doses administered by then to 240-265 million. At least 1/3 of that would be full vaccinations, or around 80-90 million. 

All things considered, I wouldn’t be surprised if it ranged anywhere from $60-120 million opening weekend. I’m really not sure exactly where people will fall by then in terms of being in crowded theaters. Personally, I’m expecting somewhere in the $70-80 million range OW and $180-220m domestic total. 

For comparison, had Covid never come around I was expecting about $125 million OW and $315 million domestic from it back in 2020.

Edited March 8, 2021 by VenomXXR

[CJohn]

It is gonna be a combo like Raya for sure.

[Legion Again]

If you’re a US citizen living in the US reading this message and you strongly desire a vaccine, you’ll have had a 2nd shot by May 7. It’s that’s simple 

[TwoMisfits]

6 minutes ago, WandaLegion said:

If you’re a US citizen living in the US reading this message and you strongly desire a vaccine, you’ll have had a 2nd shot by May 7. It’s that’s simple 

 

Doubtful in major metros and uber-urban areas...in my metro, I'm up to 40K on the waitlist now, but I'm part of 1B - we still won't be starting "norms" til  early April or later b/c there are 80K behind me on the waitlist, and we are getting 18-20K 1st doses/week (and we have 1C folks to get through after 1B before we hit "norms").  The metro is hoping to get more 1st doses/week soon, but it hasn't yet (it went from 16K/week Feb to 19K/week for 1st 2 weeks of March)...

Edited March 8, 2021 by TwoMisfits

[filmlover]

It all comes down to whether Disney feels confident marketing this starting in the next couple of weeks (especially when promotion is still gonna have to be done through these "virtual" events that haven't caught anyone's attention). If they aren't getting a good feeling, they'll delay again or just do a hybrid release to get it over with. They were clearly fully ready to take the write-off on Raya by releasing it in the current environment, but we'll have to wait and see if they're willing to be the one to test the blockbuster waters without a home component at the same time.