HSX Forum
Movies
- Bad Box Office Multiples — Yes, the $80 million opening isn’t terrible for a movie available at home during the latter stages of a pandemic. But did you see those trajectories? Yikes. Typically, a Marvel movie opening day (Thursday-Friday combined) represents 39.8 percent of the weekend gross, according to rival distribution executives, which suggests that Black Widow was on track to open at about $100 million. But attendance dropped precipitously from Friday to Sunday for a huge 49.1 percent opening day ratio, well above other Marvel pics, suggesting apathy among those who might have gone to a Saturday date night showing or a Sunday matinee. OK, but the pandemic!, Disney argues. Casual fans who aren’t dressed up as Red Guardian on opening night might be reluctant to visit a theater at all. But the opening day percentages for F9 and A Quiet Place II—two summer 2021 films not available at home—were much stronger, according to NATO numbers.
- Unknown Streaming Factors — I know these numbers can be dizzying, but stay with me here. Disney’s share of domestic theater revenue on a Marvel movie is typically about 60 percent, so let’s say about $50 million of the $80 million goes to Mickey and Minnie. On streaming purchases, Disney pays the distributor (Roku, Amazon Fire, etc.) only about 20 percent, I’m told, and gets about $24 per purchase. So that $60 million—from about 2 million of the 103 million Disney+ subscribers—translates to about $48 million for Mr. and Mrs. Mouse. (This varies by country; Disney did not include a breakdown of digital revenue by territory, but sources say it’s mostly domestic.)
The problem, of course, is we don’t know how many people watched each purchase of Black Widow at home, and how many of those who did watch at home would have gone to the theater. Those are the two big wildcards that will determine whether this entire new model ends up working. We do know the average U.S. household is 2.37 people, and the average Disney+ household is probably more than that. So my guess is the average revenue per viewer of Black Widow was much lower at home, bringing down the total average per viewer on opening weekend.
- Frontloading — Disney is acting like Tinkerbell magically created this premium access revenue. But PVOD already exists, Disney simply frontloaded it to coincide with theatrical, charged a bit more, then put the revenue number in a press release as if it was found money. Marvel films typically do well on PVOD after the theatrical run, a window that will likely be significantly weakened now. And, of course, we’ll never see any media attention on those numbers because Disney doesn’t typically reveal them.
- Piracy — On Friday, Black Widow immediately shot to the top of TorrentFreak’s most-pirated movie list, just as Godzilla vs. Kong, Mortal Kombat and most of the HBO Max day-and-date movies did. That tends to happen when a pristine copy is conveniently made available online by the studio. Wanna guess which recent hit movies haven’t been traded as frequently? F9 and Quiet Place II.
- Precedent — If I were Dwayne Johnson or Emily Blunt, I’d be concerned that Disney won’t release premium access numbers for Jungle Cruise later this month. If Disney doesn’t, we will all assume it was a flop. Sorry, Dwayne. That’s the problem with opening the barn door; everyone’s now running hog wild with these numbers, and it’s difficult to stop reveling.
- Next Weekend — We’ve seen it over and over in 2021: Films also available at home might open to a decent number in theaters, but they fall off a cliff in the second and subsequent weekends. That makes sense: The Red Guardian guys show up but everyone else is fine watching at home (and fewer of those superfans will return for subsequent rewatchings). Marvel movies typically enjoy long tails in theaters, but I’m betting Black Widow won’t.
