‘Black Widow’ Posts Big Drop at Box Office for MCU Title; Disney Mom in PVOD – Deadline

If Disney maintains all of that theatrical PVOD day and date pattern, it might not be all that scary for rival studios in the future to catch a Marvel movie in its second weekend at the box office.

The studio’s original standalone Marvel Cinematic Universe film Black Widow had a nice fall during his second session at the domestic soundtrack, down -67%, with $ 26.25 million. Black Widow lost No.1 to Warner Bros. the theatrical release of HBO Max on the day and Space Jam: A New Legacy, which opened at $ 31.65 million.

If you want to know what the negative impact is of having a Marvel movie available in homes and theaters at the same time, well, here it is: it’s the second biggest weekend drop on record for an MCU title distributed by Disney, beating Ant-Man and the Wasp (-62%).

Some might argue that the second weekend’s drop is very much in line with Universal’s F9 (also -67%), which comes out in the window. However, this is a comparison between apples and oranges, as the second Sunday in this sequel fell on July 4, which is traditionally an off-peak day for the movies. F9‘s Monday at BO on July 5 closed up + 15% from Sunday.

Oh, and with regard to the big money-making machine that is the Disney cinema and the Disney + Premier funds: the studio has not released an update on how Disney + Premier is; last weekend being a $ 60 million start in the global market, leaning heavily toward purchases in the United States.

How’s that for transparency?

The 10-day box office for Black Widow stands at $ 132 million in the United States, with an additional $ 132 million overseas, for a total aggregate take of $ 264 million to date.

While Disney has reported that this Disney + theatrical strategy is in response to the pandemic – and the ongoing news of the Delta variants and re-masking in LA doesn’t really help – many in the industry are concerned that the studio has opened up a Pandora’s Box for how films will be distributed in the future. This, they say, will lead to a collapse of a mast’s income-generating pie, similar to how Napster capsized the music industry.

Even though Warner Bros. offers its subscribers HBO Max Jam space 2 for free this weekend and until mid-August we ring them less, as they have already allayed city and exhibition fears that they will only practice their day and date model this year because of Covid-19.

Now Disney has said he will only do it with another title, that of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt Jungle cruise July 30. But it wouldn’t be shocking if Disney continued this dynamic theatrical-Disney + window practice with more movies on their slate.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek has regularly touted in his public appearances that the entertainment conglomerate meets the needs of consumers to see movies when and where they want. And if Disney dates future films, they’ll likely do it piecemeal. They are aware of the PR mess in which Warner Bros. ended up when they dropped their entire roster this year on HBO Max. The question is whether Disney will announce any further changes (or not) ahead of CinemaCon in Hollywood and theaters in late August. As the box office bounces back from Covid-19, many are eager to celebrate the return of cinema to CinemaCon. But any further day and date announcements by Disney will certainly throw a wet blanket over the conference.

Following Black WidowOpening a nationwide record of $ 80.3 million last weekend and its combined cinema-Disney + total global take of $ 219.3 million WW, the studio’s share price soared in boom on Monday, while that of exhibitors fell. Obviously, the studio is keen to appeal to the Wall Street love affair with streaming.

However, to what Disney CEO Bob Chapek, the studio’s president of media distribution and entertainment, Kareem Daniel, and Wall Street must realize that this Disney + Premier theatrical model is a bigger fugazi than Dogecoin. itself, a way to decimate a great business model. where consumers previously bought the same piece of PI twice: in theaters and later in an auxiliary window.

Those who bought Black Widow on Disney + will not buy it anymore. Also, there’s a question regarding the fanboy element here: Typically they would see the movie twice in theaters before buying it for the house on the road. Didn’t that happen here with Black Widow? Or have the fanboys seen it once in a movie theater and then bought it at home a second time?

Aside from the Disney + Premier theatrical model, there is a bigger loss of dollars here for the studio in the hack.

Made: Black Widow was the most pirated movie last week on Torrent Freak, ahead of The war of tomorrow in second place. I understand from sources who have seen several reports of hacking that apparently Black Widow could be the most pirated title to date during the pandemic, ahead of Wonder Woman 1984.

Studios go the extra mile to encrypt and watermark their films before release. Pristine copies of a tent pole spell out death at the box office, and they still spell death here on both the box office side and the Disney + Premier side.

Many of these hacking sites dress up in footage from the movie to make it look legitimate. An industry analysis source informed me over the weekend that in a study done for a studio it showed these hacking sites to be the # 1 way for those at home to watch movies. , not Disney + or any other streamer.

A correction to my analysis last weekend: Disney does not collect 100% of its Disney + Premier revenue, many studio finance sources have informed me. On a PVOD version, they have to share around 15% of the revenue with platform providers like Amazon Firestick, AppleTV +, etc. So the $ 60 million worldwide PVOD last weekend is actually roughly $ 51 million net for Disney. While it’s not as steep as the 40% they have to hand over to the exhibit, once again Disney burns through an auxiliary window faster and will walk away with less money in the end than it does. usually would on a regular theatrical release.

Meanwhile, Black Widow does not yet have a release date in China, the blackout of American films there is complicating matters, and there would be tons of pirated copies of the film there. That’s a loss of $ 200 million at the box office for Black Widow.

Napster millennials grew up, Disney, and they used to have their media for free.

Is this really a path you want to pursue with future cinema films?

Again, Wall Street only sees part of the process by touting the Disney + theatrical day and date model. When a consumer watches a movie for free, you don’t get the same kind of devotion or loyalty that you get with a paid viewer. There is arguably a negative ripple effect of this, and it wouldn’t be surprising to hear that this will be felt by all of Disney’s business units linked to Black Widow.

How financially responsible is it to celebrate the flexibility of Windows?