Disney recently announced a shift in focus to streaming, a sensible business decision when people are not attending movie theaters or theme parks. Throw in how many people are out of work right now and the fact they're probably not buying merchandise in stores or online, and trying to make as much money as possible from Disney+ makes perfect sense.
Despite that, it seems like the company remains committed to the theatrical experience...for now. While Soul is debuting on Disney+ on Christmas Day, Black Widow has been pushed to May 2021.
However, in an interview with Variety, Walt Disney Company investor Dan Loeb made it clear that he's urging them to bypass theatrical debuts and focus on Disney+. "My understanding is that the old-line executives don't want to go over the top with their big tentpole movies, which is why they announced they were pushing Black Widow and other movies to 2021," he explains.
"I don't think they appreciate the tiger they have by the tail, which is to say the value they can drive by moving into a subscription model, which has been adopted by everyone from Microsoft to Amazon," Loeb continued. "It's so value accretive. What Netflix has is this immense subscriber base that allows it to invest in an enormous amount of content and amortize that to get more subscribers. Disney isn't there yet, but they need to get there as quickly as possible."
If investors like this one continue pushing Disney, chances are they'll have to listen, and it really does feel like they're trying to hold on to something - movies in theaters - which is no longer viable or what the majority want. The performance of Tenet proved that people don't feel safe taking part in that big screen experience, and with no COVID-19 vaccine in place, that's unlikely to change for a while.
What do you guys think?
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