What Black Widow’s $60 million Disney+ shipping actually means

All weekend, Disney It did something unprecedented: it sent an email to reporters about its box office total. why? Well, this is also unprecedented: its latest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Black widow, Brought more than 60 million U.S. dollars in video-on-demand sales on Disney+. In addition, the movie earned US$80 million in the domestic market and US$78 million in the international market. Black widowIt seems to be a success-this is one of the first films to use a hybrid cinema streaming distribution model, and the largest since Covid-19 restricted the closure of most cinemas in 2020.

After more than a year Hollywood’s uncertainty Regarding the future of the theatrical experience and the extent to which streaming media has disrupted it, the news is huge. Sarah Henschel, streaming media analyst at Omdia, said: “In the past, many people in the industry worried that real-time streaming or high-quality video on demand would completely eat away theater revenue.”Black widow Show us that this is not true. In other words, the strategy of releasing or renting movies on the same day as theaters—this practice is more common in the independent film world. After the closure of Covid theaters, large film studios have adopted this approach—by Proved to be feasible. Colic can be resolved.

But what’s the use Black widowWhat does global revenue of more than $218 million mean for the future of film distribution? That’s a little more complicated. Yes, the studios — especially Disney — may breathe a sigh of relief, because it seems they can now show movies on streaming services and theaters at the same time, and still make money.But not all studios are Disney, not all movies are Black widow——Marvel Dominates and the latest feature in a movie Seem to be loved By critics and audiences.

Those looking for evidence can only look at some of Disney’s other releases this year. CruraFor example, it brought about US$21 million in revenue domestically during the opening weekend. Raya and the Last Dragon It barely broke $8.5 million. It is true that both of these were released in the spring, when audiences may still be skeptical about going to the cinema, but they also did not cause an email explosion about how much money they made on Disney+, so their total number of streaming media may not So impressive. Also worth noting is Warner Bros. Tom and Jerry, Came out a week ago Eid al-Fitr, HBO Max subscribers can get it for free, earning over 14 million U.S. dollars, and Eid al-Fitr, Like Black widow, Is a rent of 30 dollars.In the meantime, this weekend Summer of Soul— Questlove’s documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival — Although Hulu subscribers can use it, it earns approximately $1.4 million.

All of this is to say, this is a nonsense. The success of a movie in theaters and streaming media depends on the type of movie and the audience it serves. There is no doubt that the traditional 90-day window between the movie’s release and its streaming/video-on-demand debut is permanently closing, or at least shrinking, but how studios — and for that matter, theater chains — will be full Navigation problems in open cases.For movies with a built-in fan base, for example Black widow, It’s a wise choice: put it in the theater for big-screen enthusiasts to watch, and then send it to Disney+ to make families happily reduce the price by $30 so they don’t have to put everyone in the car or worry Covid-19.For movies like this F9, This is part of the franchise built around the movie-watching experience and keep it in the theater for at least a few weeks. Indians can go to art galleries and streaming on the same day-movie fans will go to the cinema, others will go to Netflix to relax. At the same time, movies like “Dune” may have enough hype to still make money on HBO Max, which is released on the same day as theaters, because Dennis Villeneuve is adapted from Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic. The kind of things long-term movie fans want to experience in multi-hall theaters. These strategies are likely to transfer movies to movies, but the truth is that the movie distribution model will not return to the state before 2020. “I expect that many of these mixed distribution strategies will vary by title,” Henschel said, “but they will always be there.”