Black Widow’s box office decline: movie theater owners blow up Disney

Although Marvel Studios Black Widow topped the box office when it premiered simultaneously in theaters and on Disney + (with “Access to the first »), he fell to second place last weekend while Warner Bros. ‘ padded Space jam spiritual successor took the lead.

While Black Widow‘s The initial $ 80 million domestic theatrical box office was not to be sneezed at by covid-19 pandemic-era standards, the film did just that. $ 26.3 million the following weekend—a steep fall that has apoplectic many theater owners. In response to Black Widowsecond weekend at the box office, the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) released a public statement detailing the organization’s concerns about the film’s “staggering collapse” and how Disney + ‘s Premiere Access is slowing revenue by depressing movie attendance.

“Why has such a well-made, well-received and long-awaited film performed less well,” he said rhetorically in the inflammatory statement. “Despite claims that this hasty pandemic-era release strategy has been a success for Disney and the concurrent release model, it demonstrates that an exclusive theatrical release means more revenue for all stakeholders at every cycle of the film’s life. “

In the same way Black WidowAt the $ 80 million box office, Disney also proudly touted the $ 60 million the film initially made from Disney +, where subscribers could purchase access to the film for $ 30 day and date with its. debut in theaters. NATO was careful to point out in its statement that Disney must cede a percentage of its Premiere Access revenue to the various other platforms where Disney + is made available. But the biggest problem NATO sees with Disney’s Black Widow Exit strategy is how immediate access to Disney + encourages piracy and cut back on box office sales that might otherwise have come from regular viewers who tend to flock to theaters for Marvel tents. For everyone Black WidowPremiere Access’s success, NATO insisted, questions remain over amount of extra money for film could have made it in a world where people don’t share login passwords.

“Combined with the lost theatrical revenue and traditional PVOD revenue, the answer to these questions will show that the simultaneous release costs Disney money in revenue per viewer over the life of the film,” NATO said. . “Piracy has undoubtedly still affected Black Widowand will affect its future performance in international markets where it has not yet opened.

From a NATO perspective, Disney’s strategy with Disney + should be viewed as “a pandemic era artifact that should be left to history with the pandemic itself”. What is important to keep in mind is that while we may want to think of the pandemic as a story, it is still ongoing and affecting people on a daily basis. As cinemas reopen and movie studios start reporting box office numbers again as if things are back to normal, Covid-19 cases are on the rise again in the United States as the delta variant of the virus began to spread. According to tthe hollywood reporterDisney declined to respond to the NATO statement, but the studio has undoubtedly heard of such concerns before, and it won’t be the last of them. What Disney and the other big Hollywood studios are going to have to do in the future is weigh these concerns against their financial interests, while being mindful that this is exactly the kind of response that is trending. to come from major tectonic changes in the market.

Black Widow is now in theaters and streaming on Disney + with Premiere Access.

To find out more, be sure to follow us on our Instagram @io9dotcom