In an alternate world, the executives in the Disney boardroom would be toasting their latest commercial successes as both Black Widow and Mulan topped the box office charts around the globe, with the Mouse House’s first major blockbusters of 2020 combining to earn close to $2 billion globally.
Of course, in our world, the Coronavirus pandemic came along and brought the industry to a grinding halt, and even with their reputation well and truly secured as the monolithic overlords of popular culture, Disney haven’t been immune from the financial impact of the global crisis. With their theme parks having closed for months, their cruise ships docked, their major productions being shut down and their biggest movies being pulled from the calendar, the company is set to miss out on billions and billions in revenue.
With no end in sight, Disney have taken the unprecedented step now of announcing that Mulan will be heading exclusively to their in-house streaming service for a one-off fee, which is unheard of for a blockbuster with a $200 million budget. This has obviously led to increased speculation that Black Widow will end up following suit, even though everyone’s keeping their fingers crossed that the industry will have recovered by the Phase Four opener’s intended November release.
And while it remains to be seen what’ll happen, back in March, tipster Grace Randolph, who has a reliable track record when it comes to scoops surrounding the world of mega-budget blockbusters, hinted that Black Widow and Mulan could be bypassing theaters entirely, and following yesterday’s news, she’s already proven to be at least 50% right. As such, it can’t be ruled out that she ends up going two-for-two, despite what Disney CEO Bob Chapek says publicly.
So I did some digging with all the chatter today, and apparently #Disney IS considering releasing not just #BlackWidow but also #Mulan straight to streaming.
Price points, purchase vs rental, when to #DisneyPlus all still up in the air.
Developing… pic.twitter.com/cusULkYmQW
— Grace Randolph (@GraceRandolph) March 28, 2020
The movie business is already bracing itself for a shortfall of $20 billion this year, and with the reopening of theaters taking a lot longer than even the most pessimistic of us could have predicted, we might have to get used to the idea of huge blockbusters like Black Widow debuting on the small screen. At least, for the rest of the year.
