Disney is coming off a year in which some of its biggest blockbusters entirely skipped theaters and went straight to their ever-growing Disney Plus streaming service — those titles include “Soul,” “Artemis Fowl.” “Hamilton,” “Mulan,” and this coming March’s “Raya and the Dragon.” This has begged many to ask the obvious question; Is this just the beginning of a streaming onslaught for the Mouse House? ‘
Just a few days ago, I emailed my source at Disney Canada who then confirmed to me that there were indeed plans to scratch off more big titles from theatrical to a Disney+ premiere. This is the same person who briefed me last summer, which I then reported, about the “Soul” move to Disney Plus. The news was, unsurprisingly, met with negative responses on social media, mostly from people who couldn’t accept the fact that Disney would just “dump” such an important title. Alas, these are the times we live in and, it turns out, it was just the beginning of something very major for Disney.
My source is telling me that there are early, but very serious, talks from Mouse House head honchos to punt the football and release a majority of their 2021 releases straight to Disney Plus, some in unison with theatrical releases. The titles being seriously discussed include “Cruella,” “Luca,” “Shang-Shi,” “Jungle Cruise” and, most intriguingly, the overtly-delayed “Black Widow.”
“Black Widow,” which was supposed to be release last April, is currently set for a May 2021 release, but with the pandemic raging, and vaccinations being distributed at a snail’s pace in the U.S, the notion of theaters actually reopening nationwide and people willing to buy tickets is dwindling by the day. The real question one should be asking is why wouldn’t Disney release more movies straight to streaming? In 2020, their subscription growth went from 33 million accounts in the first quarter to an astonishing 86 million in the final quarter of the year. A big reason why was their decision to move “Mulan,” and “Soul” straight to streaming.
With Netflix currently sitting at 195 million subscribers, one suspects that, with “Black Widow” and other titles migrating to Disney Plus, the streaming service will be inching ever-so-close to the Netflix-like numbers. Hitting the 100 million subscriber mark by early Spring isn’t out of the question. Just look at the subscriber jump for HBO Max after it was announced that Warner Bros. would be premiering their entire 2021 movie slate on the streaming platform.
With movie theaters, like AMC, sounding the alarm bells that they may not be able to continue business if studios continue to delay their releases until next year, the whole industry is going through this cataclysmic, shape-shifting moment, which means things will likely never be the same once this never-ending COVID-19 pandemic is finally done. You can expect more movies to make the move to streaming before the year is over.
Jeremy Saulnier’s mysterious A24 project, formerly “October,” still has no release date. You’d think, given that it has been in post-production for almost a year now.