Several days ago, Disney had an investor call where CEO Bob Chapek confirmed that the next film for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Black Widow, is still set for a theatrical only release on May 7th. This is a major mistake on Disney’s part if you ask me.
On the one hand, I’m disappointed that Black Widow has been delayed as long as it has. Scarlett Johansson is a fantastic actress and a solo film as Natasha Romanoff absolutely deserves to be seen on the big screen by those who want to. But the truth is that we’re still in a pandemic, the majority of the population isn’t vaccinated yet, and that causes a big problem.
Releasing the film as a theatrical only affair in May means that Disney is saying “If you want to support this film, you need to go to theaters.” That isn’t right. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I work in hospitality. I see how people are when it comes to wearing masks. I see how people are in stores and in states across the county. I’m not ready to trust my safety to those people. A theater can have all the policies in places that it wants, but all it takes is one person refusing to follow them under the cover of darkness a movie provides to ruin a lot of people’s day.
For once, I do want to give Warner Bros. props because they got it right. Their entire 2021 slate is releasing in both theaters and on HBO Max for a 30 day streaming window at no extra cost. That means those who want to watch Godzilla and King Kong duke it out on the big screen can, while others can play it safe and stay home.
I know that Disney wants to make money on Black Widow but the return is going to potentially be smaller now, regardless. The hit this would have been in a pre-pandemic world isn’t close to what it will do now. But Disney really does have an easy solution here: release the film in theaters on May 7th, as planned, and put it on Disney+ with Premier Access the same day.
I admit that I’ve talked a lot of crap on Premier Access since Mulan came out…but there’s a reason for that. Disney hasn’t put a film on there that’s worthy of it. The live action remake of Mulan is available to the general population on Disney+ now and I still haven’t watched it. I will eventually. I don’t really rush to watch these live action remakes…in fact, I think that Beauty and the Beast is the only one I’ve watched so far. Likewise Raya and the Last Dragon looks fun…but it’s not a movie I’d be rushing to see in theaters either. I’ve actually been really terrible on keeping up with most Disney animated films and there’s a list a mile long that I still need to watch.
But Star Wars and Marvel films are huge to me. They’re the kind of films that I take a day off from work from, or adjust my schedule, so that I can go see them opening night. They’re films that mean a lot to me and they’re ones that I would happily pay $30 for Premier Access to, and still pick up the Blu Ray on release day for my MCU collection. It has to be release day, though. If Disney put the film in theaters and tried to Premier Access it a month later…I think that would be an even bigger slap in the face.
I don’t know how any of these films have done on Premier Access, but I do know this. Disney’s strategy up to this point hasn’t been good. In fact, their strategy for testing the waters on Premier Access has been almost about as good as EA’s handling of proving why they don’t release more games for the Switch.
For those of you unfamiliar, EA’s strategy early on with the Nintendo Switch was to port FIFA games to the system, in disappointing quality, and then use the lack of sales of those titles to justify not finding a way to bring the bigger games that people actually wanted to the system.
By comparison, Disney’s first Premier Access title (to my knowledge) was the live action Mulan remake that has a disturbing lack of Mushu. The second is an animated film that’ll find its audience in time, but isn’t going to push many people to spend the $30 for the cost of admission. Black Widow in this case is the big game that everyone wants.
There’s also the fact that we live in a society where people get off on spoiling things for others. And before anyone says “Well just stay off social media until you see it” I have a question: how do you suggest I network and promote by blog. How do you suggest I get the news? I saw spoiler headlines for the season finale of The Mandalorian hours after the show dropped. Thank god I was up at 6am to watch it. The truth is, without a Premier Access during an ongoing pandemic (we’re not out of the wood’s yet), Disney is gearing up to have this film ruined for a lot of fans who have spent the last year looking forward to it.
But let Disney hear you! Post on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tell them that you want this film to get a hybrid release so that those who want to see it in theaters can and those who want to play it safe for the time being can exercise that right. Disney needs to understand that we want to give them our money…but while we’re in a pandemic we want to do it in the safest way possible.
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