Mulan to release on Disney+ on September 4th for $29.99 in the US (UPDATE: fee provides ongoing early-access to subscribers)
- Thread starter Spectromixer
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The more I think about this the less sense it makes to me. Why don't Disney just hold all their big movies until cinemas open back up. It's not like the movies have an expiry date on them.
It's a long-term rental. You can't call it a purchase if it's only active while you're a subscriber.
Tracking for the film never topped $200m in the US. Given that they won't have to share revenue, anything over say $120m from this will be more than they would have likely made from the box office in the US. Pretty amazing really.
Because any company needs a decent cash-flow. And currently Disney has most of their income sources on hold or heavily reduced.
I wonder if they will do it with Widow too. It sucks because Black Widow finally got a solo movie after a decade that deserves the big screen, but I can't picture them holding out another year.
you're getting early access essentially.
There will be a point at which the movie becomes "free"
Unless they start segmenting things off forever.
Unless they're giving you a video file to keep its bullshit
Someone was saying that was a fake twitter. I haven't seen any official news on it, anywhere.
EDIT:
Marvel fans tricked by fake tweet claiming Black Widow is skipping cinemas
Disney has yet to confirm a streaming-only release for Marvel film, insisting Mulan’s Disney+ unveiling is a ‘one-off’
www.independent.co.uk
Yeah that's what I was thinking. For that price you should be able to keep it, regardless if you sub or not.
The thing is, this is better than what they did with Trolls 2 for that situation. This is like a 6 month rental with unlimited access for just $10 more than what you paid for Trolls 2.
Disney isn't calling this a purchase. The thread title really needs to be changed.
To gain access to it for 6 months before it hits Disney+ normally. It's the same reason you pay to watch a movie in a theater when you also pay for a streaming service that it will end up on. You could wait to watch it on that streaming service eventually or you could pay to watch it now on top of what you pay for your streaming service.
I think under normal conditions, it's 2.5 times the budget. I think Mulan has a budget of $200 million, so $500 million is probably the break even point once you account for marketing and other factors. The marketing dollars probably aren't as high given the situation so I wonder what the real break even point is for Mulan.
Totally agree, for some reason there are mental blocks that cause me to immediately react negatively to some of these announcements. I will probably come around, just wish it wasn't tied to D+ (even though I will probably have the service for years).
Because movies need time as "the new interesting thing" during their releases to make money, and movie studios have years of planning and scheduling going on to maintain a consistent schedule. Pushing back movies screws up the entire schedule for releasing movies that they have planned and it costs studios money to either reschedule film production, releases, marketing, etc, etc, etc.
It is a far more complicated process than just "release it later no big deal".
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I just requested the title to be changed to be more clear. It's not a traditional rental like Trolls World Tour that only lasted 48 hour but you still need to be a Disney+ subscriber to continue watching it until the film is presumably played on the service for everyone.
Much more accurate. I feel like there were MORE negative comments when people found that out, versus just being a one-time rental for unassumingly 48 hrs or whatever.
I need to pay 5€ (or more) per month to access a movie I paid 30€ for? Wtf is this? Look at Apple or Amazon, its not that hard.
Officially we don't know. But it's assumed it would be the same wait time you would see from theater run to home release to streaming.
So probably six months.
It's not a purchase. It's more like early access/extended rental.
I dunno, it's still not totally accurate. I really think we should be calling this early access because the thread title implies you won't get it on Disney+ without paying.
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that's a given because all news films end up under the Disney+ subscription. also I think we ran out of characters in the title because it cut off the end lmao
Given how hard it is for people to grasp this, I'm not so sure it's a given. =)
It can certainly be shortened. Just say (UPDATE: the fee provides early access to the film) or something like that.
1. Disney needs cash flow asap
2. Disney already spent like 90% of the marketing budget with zero return on it and would need to spend the money again for the new release
3. No telling when it could open back up, and if it did who says theaters do even 50% of their previous numbers
4. Disney was already unsure of this movie and had discussions about doing this long before covid shut theaters down. Disney had 2 major concerns
- that the movie was far too different from the animated one for Western audiences
- general sentiment against China was on the rise including the actress comments about the HK protests
This was a hard choice being thought about for nearly a year that just kept getting thrown onto,
Black Widow will be an infinitely harder decision.
If Mulan works very well and Covid isn't looking to be completely gone by Summer 2021 from a November standpoint, they'll probably do it again and push Widow as a Thanksgiving or Christmas family viewing event at home.
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Yeah it's not like they can just stop for two years.
Good chance too if it got released later it'd get lost in the shuffle amidst other movies that they're presumably still working on.
This is fucking stupid. If you're going to charge $30.00 then they may as well put it up for sale on all streaming storefronts just like all those other movies that couldn't get into theaters. This sets a shitty precedent for a service that's already starved for content.
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That requirement is also due to revenue sharing with theaters (around 45% goes to the theater). I imagine since they'll just tack this on as an "add-on" to your subscription fee, they can probably get around Apple, Amazon, etc. taking a cut of the proceeds, but even if they do, they'll be taking less than theaters would. Given the relatively tepid box office tracking for this all the way up until around the original release (it was expected to do $175-200m), Disney will undoubtedly come out ahead on the US take from Mulan with this strategy.
It's like seeing it in theaters but also paying a monthly fee to rewatch it anytime for free. How good the deal is depends on how many people are splitting the rental fee and I guess whether it's good enough that you'd want to rewatch it
It's really crazy that they include that stipulation. There should be two sections of the app-streaming and purchased movies. If you have a subscription you can watch streaming content. The other section has movies you can watch if they've been purchased regardless of your sub.
And actually now that I'm thinking about this -maybe the reason they are doing it this way is to get around some App Store loophole with Apple that conflicts with the iTunes Store.
Someone was saying that was a fake twitter. I haven't seen any official news on it, anywhere.
EDIT:
Marvel fans tricked by fake tweet claiming Black Widow is skipping cinemas
Disney has yet to confirm a streaming-only release for Marvel film, insisting Mulan’s Disney+ unveiling is a ‘one-off’
Wow, I thought I saw it was from the verified Disney+ account. That's messed up.
Oh they absolutely are. Anyone thinking they're not using the data here to make future decisions is naive.
Netflix will be looking at this very closely as well. Don't be surprised if investors push for Netflix to gate content behind a paywall as well. $10 extra to see something a month "early."
Another case of getting fucked as a customer.
People will pirating the shit out of this day 1 in the best quality available and can keep it forever.
Paying customers are literally renting it for 30 dollar +
the whole point is disney will take pretty much every cent of that 30 bucks+sub, which is insane. it is shitty, but if this succeeds, i bet Tenet will only be on HBO Max so WB can maximize profits
i wonder if they do have to pay theatres something though to break out of the contract, it's playing in theatres supposedly in September, but i doubt AMC and them were fine with them debuting on VOD without some compensation
If I need to buy it for early access digitally, I'd rather do it through vudu so that I own it, not have it be unavailable if unsubscribe.
doesn't seem like a bad deal to me, $30 lets you watch it soon. Eventually it will be on Disney plus for the normal fee, you are just paying to jump ahead.
I spend way more then $30 to see a movie in the theater and I can only watch it one time.
Mulan isn't a movie I would get but the concept is fine with me.
I spend way more then $30 to see a movie in the theater and I can only watch it one time.
Mulan isn't a movie I would get but the concept is fine with me.
Probably an old deal from the fox days, I think the X-men movies generally premiere on tv through hbo