What Black Widow's $60 Million Disney+ Haul Actually Means

[Ed Gordon]

It proves streaming releases can make big bucks—if the movie is big enough.

Over the weekend, Disney did something pretty unprecedented: It sent out an email to reporters about its box office totals. Why? Well, that was also unprecedented: Its latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Black Widow, had brought in more than $60 million in video-on-demand sales on Disney+. That was in addition to the $80 million the film made domestically, and the $78 million it raked in from international markets. Black Widow, it seems, was a success—one of the first using the hybrid theatrical–streaming release model, and the biggest since Covid-19 restrictions shut down most theaters in 2020.

After more than a year of uncertainty in Hollywood about the future of the theatrical experience and how disruptive streaming would be to it, this news was huge. “In the past, many in the industry have feared that day-and-date streaming or premium-video-on-demand would be entirely cannibalistic to theatrical revenues,” says Sarah Henschel, a streaming analyst for Omdia. “Black Widow shows us that this is not true.” In other words, the gambit of releasing movies in theaters the same day they’re available to stream or rent—a practice, more common in the indie film world, that’s been embraced for big studio releases in the wake of Covid theater closures—has proven to be workable. The hand-wringing can subside.

Full article at: https://www.wired.com/story/black-wi...ey-box-office/

[Jon Dent]

That's gonna piss Christopher Nolan off.

And it might not be entirely bad news for Black Widow but Marvel tentpoles exist in their own box office reality, so I wouldn't say it's going to apply to all day and date releases.

[Steve Guttag]

It is far from conclusive though. There is no mystery that this strategy would bring money in fast. I still claim that this strategy brings in less overall money. It shrinks the pie. You curtail 1st run revenues, you eliminate sub run and you have no idea how many eyeballs are looking at the stream and, shortly, your mega-million dollar move sits right next to some tired 50-year old title.

[Mike Blakesley]

“In the past, many in the industry have feared that day-and-date streaming or premium-video-on-demand would be entirely cannibalistic to theatrical revenues,” says Sarah Henschel, a streaming analyst for Omdia. “Black Widow shows us that this is not true.”

Sorry, Sarah, you are sadly mistaken. Did you think that every single person would drop theatrical like a hot potato the minute streaming became a thing? No, it will be a gradual change, as more and more people "discover" that they can see movies day and date at home. They'll go out to movies less often, because movies will eventually become like just another TV show to them (they will lose their "specialness," for lack of a better word), and after a while, they'll be completely out of the habit of going out to the movies. Of course there will always be people who appreciate the theatrical experience for what it is, but the billion dollar question is, are there enough of those people to sustain the industry? I'm thinking probably not.... we need those casual moviegoers, too.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Yeah, the thing is heavily advertised on Disney+... Premier access... just drop $30 in there.

I'm never going to pay $30 for a single streaming movie I watch on my TV at home.

Watching a movie at home can't be compared to any theatrical viewing. You're not just paying for the movie, you're paying for the experience. Disney, who runs numerous themeparks around the world, should know this better than anyone else.

[Steve Guttag]

The other aspect, Sarah, that has changed as windows have shrunk (and now down to zero) is how long a cinema can play a title. It used to be that a theatre could run a title for months, if it was a good/popular one. What is the longest theatrical run now?

[Jon Dent]

Three weeks is our usual run for big releases, but that's mandated by the studios. Two weeks is our sweet spot.

[Bobby Henderson]

These days first run movies in North America get no more than a 3-4 month window from the day of the theatrical debut to when the movie is available to buy via digital download. Often the window is less than that, just 3 months for the Blu-ray to hit store shelves after the theatrical debut and the digital download version preceding it by about 3-4 weeks. Movies play in commercial theaters for considerably less time. Maybe a month for most releases and a couple or so weeks longer for actual hits.

Of course now we have Warner Bros and Disney doing variations of the day and date thing.

If seeing Black Widow via Disney+ Premiere Access cost $30 then that means that $60 million haul is equal to 2 million unit sales. That doesn't seem like so much for a nation of 330 million people. I've long been annoyed by mere gross box office tallies; they're not impressive anymore. Actual tickets sold should be the real metric for a movie's popularity.

The WIRED article didn't take a couple of other factors into account with its claim that day and date releases isn't so bad for commercial theaters.

Both HBO Max and Disney+ require paid subscriptions to gain access to the content. HBO MAX customers are paying roughly $15 per month. Disney+ costs about half that, but then you have to pay quite a bit extra to see Premiere Access movies -roughly what it costs to buy a movie on retail Blu-ray or UHD discs. Those costs of entry cloud the image of what the $60 million+ haul of Black Widow actually means. Not everyone wants to sign up to yet another streaming service just to see a movie that's currently playing in theaters.

Just like people got tired of paying for cable, serious fatigue is setting in with streaming services. How many subscriptions does somebody need? I personally don't have a Disney+ subscription and don't feel like getting one either despite how many Emmy nominations Ted Lasso received. Amazon and Netflix are enough, and I'm leaning toward quitting one of them (maybe Netflix). I don't have enough time to watch that much TV.

The biggest test for this day and date release scheme will be if/when movie studios make movies available to rent a la carte, without subscription, from any online movie buying/rental service the same time the movie debuts in theaters.

I think the folks who believe day and date releases won't be so bad for theaters aren't very aware of the money margins from within theaters have to operate. Movie theaters and entire chains can go out of business even if some people are still coming to the theaters. What is the make or break point in terms of ticket sales?

Currently the real estate market is a scary wild card in this. It's possible for theaters that are profitable and popular to still get closed for good, all thanks to a landlord that refuses a lease renewal and sells the property to another developer. Or the landlord radically increases the rent to get the same result.

I think it will cost movie studios enormously if many commercial theaters end up closing. It will change how people think about movies. They'll just be TV shows then. How many people will want to pay $30 to watch a made for TV movie?

[Lyle Romer]

These days first run movies in North America get no more than a 3-4 month window from the day of the theatrical debut to when the movie is available to buy via digital download. Often the window is less than that, just 3 months for the Blu-ray to hit store shelves after the theatrical debut and the digital download version preceding it by about 3-4 weeks. Movies play in commercial theaters for considerably less time. Maybe a month for most releases and a couple or so weeks longer for actual hits.

Of course now we have Warner Bros and Disney doing variations of the day and date thing.

If seeing Black Widow via Disney+ Premiere Access cost $30 then that means that $60 million haul is equal to 2 million unit sales. That doesn't seem like so much for a nation of 330 million people. I've long been annoyed by mere gross box office tallies; they're not impressive anymore. Actual tickets sold should be the real metric for a movie's popularity.

The WIRED article didn't take a couple of other factors into account with its claim that day and date releases isn't so bad for commercial theaters.

Both HBO Max and Disney+ require paid subscriptions to gain access to the content. HBO MAX customers are paying roughly $15 per month. Disney+ costs about half that, but then you have to pay quite a bit extra to see Premiere Access movies -roughly what it costs to buy a movie on retail Blu-ray or UHD discs. Those costs of entry cloud the image of what the $60 million+ haul of Black Widow actually means. Not everyone wants to sign up to yet another streaming service just to see a movie that's currently playing in theaters.

Just like people got tired of paying for cable, serious fatigue is setting in with streaming services. How many subscriptions does somebody need? I personally don't have a Disney+ subscription and don't feel like getting one either despite how many Emmy nominations Ted Lasso received. Amazon and Netflix are enough, and I'm leaning toward quitting one of them (maybe Netflix). I don't have enough time to watch that much TV.

The biggest test for this day and date release scheme will be if/when movie studios make movies available to rent a la carte, without subscription, from any online movie buying/rental service the same time the movie debuts in theaters.

I think the folks who believe day and date releases won't be so bad for theaters aren't very aware of the money margins from within theaters have to operate. Movie theaters and entire chains can go out of business even if some people are still coming to the theaters. What is the make or break point in terms of ticket sales?

Currently the real estate market is a scary wild card in this. It's possible for theaters that are profitable and popular to still get closed for good, all thanks to a landlord that refuses a lease renewal and sells the property to another developer. Or the landlord radically increases the rent to get the same result.

I think it will cost movie studios enormously if many commercial theaters end up closing. It will change how people think about movies. They'll just be TV shows then. How many people will want to pay $30 to watch a made for TV movie?

You are spot on with the streaming service fatigue. If you want access to everything you probably end up paying close to what a cable or satellite subscription costs. I haven't cut the cord because I watch live sports. Every time I consider it, I get turned off by how many services I'd need to subscribe to and then the pain to have to switch between them for different content. Right now I can just flip through channels or do a search on my overpriced DirecTV but at least it is convenient and easy to use. I do get HBO MAX for "free" because HBO is part of my DirecTV package.

[Mike Blakesley]

I get turned off by how many services I'd need to subscribe to and then the pain to have to switch between them

It is kind of amazing how nobody seems annoyed by this. You could switch TV channels in about 2 seconds; it takes a whole lot longer to exit one service, login to another and find the title/episode you want.

Just another example of how things aren't always "improved" with all the modern "improvements."


There is now a whole plethora of articles coming out about how Black Widow took a huge second weekend (and also a second DAY) drop. All thanks to home streaming and piracy. Nice going, Disney, how much did you cost yourselves AND our industry? Here, we were down about 70% from week 1 to week 2.

[Martin McCaffery]

You know there will be a app for changing among streaming services any moment. Soon it will just like channel surfing (except for those who don't have to patience to download and program an app).

[Marcel Birgelen]

You know there will be a app for changing among streaming services any moment. Soon it will just like channel surfing (except for those who don't have to patience to download and program an app).

Well, I've seriously thought about such an app, but believe me, those content owners don't want that to happen. They see their app and their content as their turf and they'll defend it. The app, how good or bad it may be, is part of your "integral experience".

Actually, a while back I built an app that allowed anytone to deep-link to content on Netflix, HBO, YouTube, Vimeo and a bunch of others. (Disney+ wasn't a thing then) Google didn't want to accept it in their store, because it used "unsupported API calls". I never did anything really nasty, just linked directly to the "page" the content was located on, but it skipped all the menus in front of it. It still required working subscriptions for Netflix. Yeah, I did a little bit of reverse engineering there, but this is a nice indication of how restrictive this stuff is.

[Mike Blakesley]

We only have Netflix and Amazon Prime, thru a Dish Network system, but they both are a pain to get out of if you want to go somewhere else. They both make you go back to the "home" screen and then arrow to an exit button and then it's "Are you SURE you want to exit?" Whereas with YouTube or a bluray, you can just press the "Live TV" or "DVR" button on the remote to go right to the stuff you want. I suppose next they'll pop up a box in the middle of the evening news that says "YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED ANY NETFLIX FOR FOUR DAYS, WANT TO WATCH SOME NOW?" And you'll have to click "No" and then "are you sure?" and Yes to get back to what you want.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I'm mostly using AndroidTV based systems, one of which is integrated into the Sony OLED TV in the main living room. For the other TVs I do have an external AndroidTV player. We actually have one of those players in our screening room too, which we sometimes use for third-party content, YouTube and other stuff. I've watched to some Netflix content that way and the results are halfway decent. The RF remote the thing uses is just good enough to make it to the booth... Google mandates some "UI standards" and pressing the "Home" button will get you to the "home screen". This allows reasonably quick switching between apps. Still, nothing like switching between channels.

If you want to watch a movie, you still end up searching for it on three or four different services and those TV remotes aren't made for typing. While Google has some "Alexa-type" search assistant, that allows you to speak into the remote, the results aren't stellar. Some apps allow you to connect to your mobile phone, but there is no uniformity between them and most of those interfaces are very buggy.

All in all, I would really prefer some kind of "Media Center" environment into which you plug your streaming subscriptions. Some integral interface that let's you browse through all available content on all your subscribed services.

It all feels clumsy and a bit like it was with DVDs and BluRays... you remember those unskippable trailers and copyright warnings and often convoluted menus? The pirates didn't have to go through that and the pirates can have all their content in one place, not needing to hop between three or four different services, all trying to keep you in as long as possible, like a Vegas casino...

[Martin Brooks]

Just like people got tired of paying for cable, serious fatigue is setting in with streaming services. How many subscriptions does somebody need? I personally don't have a Disney+ subscription and don't feel like getting one either despite how many Emmy nominations Ted Lasso received. Amazon and Netflix are enough, and I'm leaning toward quitting one of them (maybe Netflix). I don't have enough time to watch that much TV.

Ted Lasso is on Apple TV+, not Disney.

Apple TV does have the advantage of consolidating most other streaming service channels. So if you have, for example, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Hulu and Disney+, they can all be accessed from the AppleTV UI (I forget whether you can also access Netflix from there).

Personally, I want to see most movies in a movie theater. But what I want or what you want is not relevant. What's relevant is what the masses want. Go to Facebook and when this topic comes up in various groups, you'll see that most people (or most people who comment) don't want to see movies in theaters anymore. They feel the advantages of viewing at home outweigh the disadvantages. Argue that theaters have bigger screens, far better sound, better picture and the group experience of seeing a movie, especially a popcorn movie, with a large group of other people and they couldn't care less. They talk about expensive tickets and concessions, rude people, sticky floors and the ability when watching at home to pause a movie and use the bathroom.

Even before the pandemic, AMC, the largest chain, averaged ticket sales of just 92 tickets per day, per screen. That is most obviously not sustainable. They lost $2 billion in 2020 and they lost another $295 million in the first quarter. Dalian Wanda has dumped most of their AMC stock investment and have left the Board. I don't see how AMC survives but stranger things have happened.

From Disney's perspective, they now have over 100 million subscribers to their streaming service (internationally). That generates about $9.6 billion a year that they don't have to share with theaters or international distributors. My guess is that they really don't care too much about theaters anymore. They probably now consider the theaters to provide "incremental revenue".

Consumers don't always make logical decisions. Many have dropped cable but are spending more on streaming than they did on the TV part of the subscription. Surveys have shown that most people will subscribe to about 3 streaming subscriptions, but many people don't count Amazon Prime as a streaming subscription because they bought it for other reasons (like free shipping).

Theaters made a huge mistake by allowing the studios to shorten the windows to nothing. All they needed to do was boycott the movies from any studio that shortened or eliminated exclusive theatrical windows. Now they're screwed even though they made deals to share the streaming revenue for day-and-date releases.

My guess is that we lose a LOT of theaters in the next few years (in spite of some new builds). But I've been wrong before. I was actually quite surprised that almost every theater in NYC has reopened after the pandemic closures. But the real question is how long they survive. Meanwhile, Alamo Drafthouse is still planning to open one new theater in Manhattan and one in Staten Island and Regal is still planning on opening a new theater in Flushing, Queens, although I suspect that theater will focus on playing Chinese-language films.

I've frequently quoted how many theaters, screens and seats NYC has lost (36% of the theaters and 16% of the net screen count since 2001 and 68% of the seats since 1987 and 47% of the seats since 2012), but I was just doing some research into Los Angeles theaters and I think they've lost far more (but at least they still have some great single-screen theaters). In Westwood alone, the Odeon, Avco, National, Crest, Coronet, Plaza and Westwood are all gone. And while Hollywood still has the Chinese, El Capitan, Dolby Theater, the Egyptian and the Academy's Linwood Dunn, no one has stepped up yet to save the Cinerama Dome or the Hollywood Arclight and they've also lost the Fox, Vogue, Hollywood Pacific and a ton of others. In California overall, almost every theater once THX certified is gone. It's not that all theaters will disappear, but it will be more like legitimate theater: each City will probably wind up with just a few multiplexes.