After a series of delays which pushed the movie from its planned release date of March 26th, Mulan is now set to debut on Disney+ on September 4th...for $29.99. As a result, Disney has decided not to give the live-action blockbuster a theatrical release in most countries, and should this experiment work out, it could be a game-changer for them and Hollywood.
As exciting as it is to think that we'll be able to see Mulan as soon as next month, what most fans want to know is whether Black Widow will ultimately head down a similar path this November.
Disney CEO Bob Chapek addressed that during last night's 3Q earnings call, and when he was specifically asked about Black Widow, he suggested Mulan would be a one-off. "We're very pleased to be able to bring Mulan to our consumer base that's been waiting for it for a long, long time, as we've had to unfortunately move our theatrical date several times," Chapek said.
"We're fortunate that we have the opportunity to bring it to our own direct-to-consumer platform so consumers can enjoy it," he continued, "but we're looking at Mulan as a one-off, as opposed to trying to say that there's some new business windowing model that we're looking at."
"So Mulan is a one-off. That said, we find it very interesting to be able to take a new offering - our premiere access offering - to consumers at that $29.99 price and learn from it and see what happens, not only in terms of the uptake of the number of subscribers that we get on the platform, but the actual number of transactions on the Disney+ platform that we get on that PVOD offering."
Disney has to know that they upset exhibitors with this decision, so there's no way they would announce a similar release for Black Widow (especially when the hope is that theaters will be open again by Nov). However, should Mulan prove to be a huge financial hit, the Marvel Studios movie could well follow suit.
What do you guys think?