???
Now isn't the time to return to the theater. I'm not going to return with no vaccine to see an animated Disney film (no offense).
But later this year sure, especially for movies like Spiderman.
Deadline: ‘Raya And The Last Dragon’ Debuting To $8M As Pic Hits Disney+ & NYC Reopens: Why The Industry Is Greatly Concerned
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???
Now isn't the time to return to the theater. I'm not going to return with no vaccine to see an animated Disney film (no offense).
But later this year sure, especially for movies like Spiderman.
$30 is super cheap for the four of us in my family and we can watch it again right after at no additional charge. Theaters have to win back the families if they want that $80 from us instead. Thats part of the problem. They made it cheaper for house holds to watch the movie together
Considering The Croods 2 and Tom & Jerry are two of the biggest releases of the pandemic, it seems like families already are returning to theaters. Just not for Raya.
It doesn't help that the #3 exhibitor, Cinemark pitched a fit and refused to screen it. If Cinemark is all you have in your area, it's impossible to see in a movie theater.
Cinemark Theatres will not screen Disney's "Raya and the Last Dragon"
https://deadline.com/2021/03/raya-and-the-last-dragon-disney-cinemark-1234705437/ The No. 3 U.S. exhibitor Cinemark will not be playing Raya and the Last Dragon this coming weekend as Disney makes the title available both in theaters and as a $30 purchase on Disney+ on March 5. As the major...
www.resetera.com
People LOVE going to the movies. Despite the prices, the annoyances. The industry is going to be fine. This is just a sign the country isn't ready yet.
The first new original animation staring POC from Disney in 5 years is going to flop. I don't how Disney will react. If they want excuse to do more Frozen 3 to 5 along with live action remakes, they have it now.
Between this and Mulan, I dont see they prioritize asian princesses in a long time.
Between this and Mulan, I dont see they prioritize asian princesses in a long time.
People loved going to the theater. It's not going to rebound to the same level prepandemic and if it does it will be at least a year if not more
Why the hell do these people keep acting like we are still not in the middle of a pandemic. Who cares if New York is "opening"? Get back to me in 3 months when the majority of the country is vaccinated
These movie studios and theater chains are such dumbasses. Most people aren't vaccinated yet. We're still at insane numbers in the pandemic. Fuck is wrong with these assholes.
I'm probably in the minority here and just getting too old but I'm done with movie theaters. There's nothing really fun about the experience anymore for us now that Alamo is gone. 100% more fun at home for me. I can pause the movie, rewind it and rewatch it right afterwards. No trailers and annoying people either to ruin it for me. I dont know I just feel like there's others like me that aren't going back.
I absolutely adored going to theaters before but now I will go even less. It's not that I dislike Theaters but I just don't know if I can justify supporting them in the same way I use to.
Tickets over here are €11,50, but my theater has a moviepass-like option where you pay €35 for 5 films, so €7 per film, but of course you have to pay the whole €35 in advance and you have to watch those 5 films in a certain period of time. Anyway; the manager of the theater once told me that it was almost impossible for them to keep that option because their profits of a €7 ticket are very, very slim. They are kinda hoping for you to bring a friend or two who pay the full ticket price, that you buy a lot of overpriced snacks and drinks, or that you forget to watch a film or two before your pass expires.
So yeah, going by that logic a distributor would take around €6-6,50 per film, after which Disney gets like €5-5,50. So that aligns with what the article is saying.
If you as a theater aren't going to screen the new Disney kids movie you're not getting the next Avengers or Star Wars either. You kinda have to go with whatever the big movie studios want, or else you're getting fucked over.
Anecdotal but I have seen almost no marketing for this film. In fact I thought this was still in production.
I am totally certain based on the last several years of my moviegoing experience, that if not for the pandemic I would have gone to see both in theaters. I was an AMC A-List subscriber and would go nearly every weekend to see 1 or 2 new releases. But, i'm not willing to pay the asking price on Disney+ Premiere access. Particularly when it will be 'free' on the service in about 3 months. So, I can wait.
If they are that concerned about the money Mulan and Raya made, maybe they should examine their pricing and release strategies more carefully. I'm sure that for groups or families, the $30 is well worth it. But what about individuals? Personally, for most releases, it's not worth it for me.
Now if this were Black Widow or what I would consider a huge event movie... I would have to consider much more carefully.
If they are that concerned about the money Mulan and Raya made, maybe they should examine their pricing and release strategies more carefully. I'm sure that for groups or families, the $30 is well worth it. But what about individuals? Personally, for most releases, it's not worth it for me.
Now if this were Black Widow or what I would consider a huge event movie... I would have to consider much more carefully.
The extras show that they worked on a good deal of the movie and finished it from home. No way to guarantee a full theater release with all the promo materials and premieres and such. Shame because the movie was really good.
The films are sitting in a vault and no money is being made if studios aren't releasing anything. Meanwhile new films are constantly being produced which you can't really put on hold because many people will lose their jobs like that and your expensive computers, camera/sound equipment and soundstages will just sit there and won't be used for anything while they are perfectly fine for usage. So keeping stuff like that closed will cost them a lot more money than if they would just use it to make films.
Disney is also in a place where they're still getting a lot of money from licensed stuff like LEGO. Those LEGO sets are also already produced (often many months in advance) and just sitting in a warehouse somewhere, which would cost a lot of money just to keep it in thoe warehouses, while they could just sell the sets. Disney films also have a huge tail when it comes to sales of merch and Blu-Rays etc. So even if the movie isn't doing too hot right now, they will probably still make a profit off of all the toys, brand deals and Blu-Ray sales. In the case of 3D animation they can also re-use a lot of assets for things like a Disney+ spin-off show, or in other films.
Also LEGO is losing a lot of money on those sets, as they could've produced sets that they could actually sell instead. There's a reason we got a lot of Sonic merch featuring the old design, or why there are car commercials being aired with James Bond branding even though the film was delayed by a year. Those contracts are already paid for and those brands aren't going to delay their expensive marketing campaigns for a year.
Long story short; not releasing films costs the studios a lot of money. Possibly even more than releasing them and not making a profit.
Most of these movies was finished and delayed almost a year because the pandemic.
The studios already lost opportunity money. There are still a lot of upcoming movies need to be released. Disney just used Raya to test the water. Look like it fails.
Exactly. It's (way) cheaper for your family and Disney is making more money off of it by getting rid of the middleman because they're getting the full $30 where they would've gotten ~$20 otherwise. I don't see them getting rid of this model when the pandemic is over.
I'm wondering what Soul did for them, seeing as they released that for free (included with a paid subscription, of course). When I look at my Letterboxd frontpage I saw pretty much everyone watching Soul between Christmas and New Years, while only 2 of the people I follow have seen Raya and one of 'em is a movie critic. I personally know a couple of people who signed up for a month of Disney+ just to watch Soul and didn't renew after a month, so if those numbers are way higher than what they're making off of Premier Access with Raya I'm curious if they'll just start releasing the films in a similar way as HBO Max. So free with your subscription for a month, then removed until they get a 'real' home media release after 3-4 months.
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Yeah, I think a part of it is that it's ultimately easier for families to just pay a $30 premiere access fee to watch a movie at home, than take the family out to an expensive theater.
I don't have kids myself, but my best friend is a family of six: him, his wife, and their four children. We live in LA, and the cost of theater tickets is anywhere from $20-25 a ticket, with children prices being not much lower than that. Like he's told me, a trip to the theater would cost him anywhere between $100-200, and while, sure, he could spend that, but getting his kids to settle down in a theater is like herding cats.
He also has a 70" 8k television, and an amazing sound system, so him and his wife would rather pay the $30 to see the movie on Disney+, and they don't have to worry when their kids get rowdy or antsy, as they can just pause the film, or let the kids run around or whatever.
Ultimately, it saves them a bunch of money.
The last time we saw something in the theater, it was me, my best friend, and three of his kids to see Sonic the Hedgehog, and at least with that it was free, because I worked for Disney at the time, and got tickets to a free screening for it, and was able to bring guests. So all we had to pay for was popcorn and sodas, which, for my friend, was way cheaper than having to buy tickets for himself and his 3 kids, on top of concession snacks.
I imagine a lot of families are going to opt to just watch films at home day and date if possible, simply because it's more convenient, and with money being tight due to the pandemic, they aren't eager to take a "family trip to the theater" like they may have in the past.
Personally, for me, as a newly single guy with no kids, I don't have a desire to watch things in the theater, especially with vaccine rollout still being far from widespread
Soul is the top streaming movie ever since it released. I think it did ok for Disney.
That's true, but we don't know how many people who watched Soul were already subscribed to D+ and how many subscribed just to watch Soul and then let their subscription lapse. Right now a lot of people are subscribed just to watch WandaVision, and most'll probably keep their subscription running to watch the next MCU show that starts in 2 weeks. There's probably a pretty big overlap between that audience and the audience for Raya (mostly parents/adolescents who love animated movies) and of course the usual Disney fans who are already subscribed year round.
Yeah, but what is better? Holding off on those obligations to maximize profits or sending everything out to die just to lose money anyways?
This should be beneficial for every party involved. People aren't going out buying the merchandise attached to these films if the films themselves fail to draw an audience.
If these companies can't agree on that much, then I suppose they all deserve to lose out in the end. Still, it is just ridiculous to me that they keep trying to do this and still wind up failing.
To me it is just crazy. They already waited the year. Just wait another. People would have gone out in droves to see this film and others had the state of the world been different. I just hate seeing them throw entertaining projects (especially ones featuring POC) out to die.
They will probably lose less money this way, and they already have more films lined up for later this year/next year that will probably even out the production costs of the films that are bombing right now. This way they can still earn some goodwill from the people who were looking forward to Raya.
The studios will survive, but not if they just sit on movies indefinitely. Sooner or later those have to come out and they will have to cut their losses or hope they perform well enough to make a profit. And some future projects will probably have smaller budgets to even it all out.
edit: Let's say this films budget is $200 million. Frozen 2 had a budget of $150 million, so it's probably less, but let's say $200 mil for the sake of this example. That way they need ~7 million families to cave and pay $30 to see it over the next couple of months. Even less, because people will still go see it in theaters, even though they aren't making the big bucks there. That's less than 10% of their user base. On top of that some people will just buy the Blu-Ray when it comes out in a couple of months, people without Disney+ might VOD it on Amazon or iTunes etc. If they would delay the film another year that would mean they would earn $0 on this film, while right now they're earning millions. And yes, the film would probably make more if they'd delay it for a year. But they already have films lined up for next year that will make that kind of money.
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Just Disney being greedy, require D+ on top of $30 is pretty shortsighted. Why can it be separate rental like any other movies?
If WB can stream their entire 2021 line up for free even some of them are very expansive (~$200m budget) like Godzilla or Dune. Disney can do it too and they reach near half of Netflix user base already.
Saw it tonight, 7/10. Formulaic but pretty and well done. Moana is still the only non Pixar movie that I'd compare to the classics. But ya paying $30 bucks to watch it on the couch instead of going to the theaters, ya I'll take that any day.
It actually came in handy for me since we're on a shared account. I didn't have to deal with any bullcrap with running it past the main account holder, so that's one positive. Oh ya but needing the subscription to do it is weird, they should allow you to rent without signing up.
It actually came in handy for me since we're on a shared account. I didn't have to deal with any bullcrap with running it past the main account holder, so that's one positive. Oh ya but needing the subscription to do it is weird, they should allow you to rent without signing up.
Disney+ is support to cover the loss of theater revenues. Disney never loses anyway, there still a lot of way to make money from Raya like merchandises...
I dont know if they slow down on new ip and focus on sequels.
All I know is that I was aware of Soul coming out when it did. For this movie, I just heard about it today.
I can't disagree with that. They should've made it $30 if you don't have Disney+, or $20 if you do. Something like that. That way it's about the same as the Universal films were last year iirc (for subscribers). I think they were also $20, day and date.
And we're definitely going to see a Raya series on Disney+ in a couple of years. There's no way they're just going to sit on all these assets that didn't earn them that much money when they can reuse them and recoup some of the cost.
Black Widow (May 7)
Shang Chi (July 9)
Eternals (November 5)
Also, it's worth noting that Doctor Strange 2 was scheduled to hit this year after WandaVision, and before Spiderman 3. So I think there's a very legitimate (but 100% speculative) possibility that Disney rushes production to get that in this year as well.
Black Widow in May, Shang-Chi in July, Eternals in November and Spider-Man (a Sony release) in December.
Then we have Dr. Strange 2 in March 2022, which is a follow-up to Spider-Man since Dr. Strange is supposed to appear in that, so they probably don't want a different film in between the two. And since Spidey 3 takes place around Christmas Sony probably isn't going to delay that unless they really have no choice.
The MCU films are probably all locked in at this point.
Lots of probably's in this post, haha, but we'll never know for sure. Maybe they'll delay some things by a couple weeks, like Fast 9 did, but other than that I don't think there'll be more big delays.
At one point Thor was scheduled for February, between Spider-Man and Strange. I don't think Marvel minds having an unrelated film in between the two. The Guardians of the Galaxy are appearing in Thor but that doesn't mean the very next film they release is going to be GotG 3, it's not. Heck, they released two films in between Infinity War and Endgame.
Sony is going to have Spider-Man out this year come hell or high water but I wouldn't at all assume any of the rest of the movies are "locked in." With their currently announced slate, they're releasing Shang-Chi on the same day as one of the final episodes of Loki. I don't think that's going to end up happening.
Did Tom and Jerry do the $30 release strategy too, or was it available as part of HBO's regular subscription?
I'm surprised this wasn't bolded.
"And that's definitely because Disney did not reach a deal with No. 3 chain Cinemark, as we first told you (thus, losing around 250 bookings), Harkins, and Canada's Cineplex."
And yeah, Raya is also on Disney+ so Disney will rake that money in. Remember, unlike Hobo Max, Disney+ is like in way many more countries.
"And that's definitely because Disney did not reach a deal with No. 3 chain Cinemark, as we first told you (thus, losing around 250 bookings), Harkins, and Canada's Cineplex."
And yeah, Raya is also on Disney+ so Disney will rake that money in. Remember, unlike Hobo Max, Disney+ is like in way many more countries.
the industry is surprised because they thought our society would be dumber ? I mean I guess I get it ...
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