Will You Pay $30 to Watch 'Mulan' at Home?
by EG
Studios aren't sure how much to charge viewers to rent new movies when they're released for streaming instead of in theaters during the pandemic. For its first attempt at releasing a movie direct to home viewers, Disney is going to charge $29.99 for Mulan. That hefty fee is on top of the subscription to Disney+ that you'll also need to be able to rent the movie. Is that too much? Read on and decide for yourself.
When Disney removed Mulan from the release calendar in late July, the company tacitly acknowledged that it was hard to pin down a date when Americans would be able to return to theaters. That decision set the stage for an even more dramatic move from Disney, which Aug. 4 said it would release the live-action remake on Disney+ beginning Sept. 4.
Disney's plan to sell Mulan for $29.99 to the streamer's customers in the U.S. and other select countries makes the film — whose big-screen release was thrice delayed because of the novel coronavirus and widespread cinema closures — the centerpiece of the premium video-on-demand revolution. Like Universal, which signed an unprecedented pact with AMC Theatres on July 28 to create a 17-day PVOD window, Disney is experimenting with top-tier pricing for home viewing as the pandemic wears on. "PVOD is certainly here to stay," sums up Screen Engine/ASI CEO Kevin Goetz. "COVID-19 isn't responsible for PVOD's success, it merely accelerated the inevitable."
Privately, theater owners were crushed when Disney CEO Bob Chapek made the Mulan reveal during the company's fiscal third-quarter earnings call. (The company's stock soared more than 10 percent the day after the news, even though the conglomerate also had disclosed a $4.7 billion loss during the period.) "We now have a bit of chaos in the exhibition industry because of the move Disney just made," says Wall Street analyst Eric Handler of MKM partners. "The studio for many years has been the biggest supporter of the theatrical window, and now here they are with a big tentpole film and they are going Disney+."
While Chapek told investors Mulan is a "one-off," he also said it's a prime opportunity to test the appetite for PVOD. Sending the Niki Caro-directed film to the living room might have less to do with turning a profit on the $200 million tentpole than with Disney's laser-like focus on growing Disney+, which has attracted more than 60 million subscribers in just nine months but has a far less robust originals release cadence than streaming leader Netflix.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
Do you think $30 is too much to pay to stream a movie? Let us know in the comments below.