New Disney Streaming Service: Disney+

[EricJ]

Why are people so against Premier Access? It's going to be either that or constantly postponing films for the next year or two. I'd rather have Premier Access than having nothing at all.

Here's a cookie: You can have it now for $5, or I'll give it to you for free if you can wait till after supper, without spoiling your appetite.

[Farerb]

Okay, I guess we are discussing this again so here are my thoughts:

1. Tenet has failed in theaters. Shockingly people are not going to theaters regardless because it's probably not a priority to them while there's a pandemic. So right now theaters is not really an option.

2. Regardless, it's not Disney's job to keep theaters on "life support". I feel bad for the workers, but it is what it is. Things like COVID have happened before and they reshaped businesses and ways of life and theaters is probably going to be another thing that is going to change. Personally I feel like streaming already geared towards that direction and COVID just made it sooner rather than later.

3. Any film that Disney produces is their property and they can do whatever they please with it. They are not obligated to provide us "free" entertainment. We all know what D+ was meant to be at the start but things change, COVID made sure of that and Premier Access films will eventually be available to all subscribers so what is the big deal?

4. Disney doesn't force anyone to buy anything. People can choose not to buy Premier Access films, waiting for them to be "free" or available to purchase on digital or physical releases is always an option and Disney even announced it beforehand.

5. Disney can and should do whatever they can in order to survive as long as it doesn't jeopardize people's lives (like opening the parks).

[Bill1978]

Just my two bits. I happily paid the price for Onward when it was VOD before it was moved onto Disney+ (for free). So cost isn't really the issue. My main issue really is that in order for me to watch Mulan (early) my only option is to sign up to Disney+ AND then pay on top of that. I understand from a business model why Disney chose that path, but honestly I feel Mulan could have made more money if Disney released it on all the VOD platforms before making it a Disney+ exclusive. A lot of decisions Disney has made with + since Covid-19 hit has really highlighted to me just how money hungry Disney has become ie removing the free week trial the week Hamilton landed on +. Don't get me wrong. they have been money hungry like all businesses should be, but I felt in the past they have been much more subtle about. Plus throw in all the confusing messages they send out, I understand why some people are frustrated over Mulan. Why were Disney happy to 'dump' Artemis, Hamilton, Ivan and many other theatrical movies onto + without extra cost, but Mulan has to be purchased?

[Ben]

1. Tenet's $260m+ internationally says otherwise. And the fact that it isn’t really a wide family crowdpleaser and geared towards a narrower market means it probably wouldn’t have done Mulan numbers anyway. And...maybe it just isn’t that good?

2. Disney could have offered Mulan to theatres internationally even in those countries that have D+. In this case, the theatres were actively saying they would take a day and date release.

3. D+ was offered as a subs service. You pay and get all the content. If a film is $10m, $60m, $100m or $200m and debuts on D+, it should be within that service. We are not being asked to pay extra to watch all the episodes of the $150m+ WandaVision show, are we?

4. No, we are not forced to do anything. And many will be waiting for Mulan to turn up for within their subs package. But why this was different is an odd one, given Hamilton and Artemis Foul's route.

5. But...not putting Mulan in theatres and giving that avenue a chance is affecting people's lives too. No everyone making films is on $20m a year. I lost a shoot this summer and have friends that didn’t get work. Two theatres that I am friendly with are threatened with closure because they don’t have fresh blockbuster content to show. That’s around 20-30 people at each site potentially with no jobs this Christmas, rent to pay, gifts to buy... So much for not jeopardizing lives, or at least livelihoods...

[Farerb]

$260m is not really a success for a $200m+ film. How much do warner actually get out of this?

Disney considered the cost of Mulan vs the cost of the others. Hamilton is $75 million, which is nothing compared to the $200-300 million of Mulan (and probably Soul or Black Widow). Onward was a lost cause and from what I know Artemis and Ivan weren't expected to be a box office successes and Disney considered moving them to D+ anyway.

The whole idea of the Premier Access was to allow people to watch the film early, not to own the film, that's why it's a D+ exclusive now but eventually people would be able to purchase it/see it on D+ without extra pay. Why does it matter that Mulan is like that? Just pretend it's not on D+ yet and everything is the same.

Helping people with their livelihood should be the state/government's responsibility. Not Disney's. It's not just theaters/film industry that suffers now, it's also restaurants, museums, live stage theaters, pools, gyms, etc...

From what I hear Soul is going to be on D+ (don't know if as a Premiere Access title or not) because they want it to be eligible for awards, but Black Widow is going to be postponed, who does it help that it's postponed? Is Black Widow more viable than the next MCU films? Why can't they help theaters when everything goes back to normal? Why does it help postponing everything?

Also from what I'm hearing the situation in Europe is becoming worse and they are probably going to close everything again.

All I'm saying is if there are only two options now:
1. Postponing films to an unknown date that could be a year or two from now
2. Releasing films on streaming now
then I prefer the second option and when the time comes for theaters to be opened again then sure let's open them and watch films like we used to, but that doesn't seem to be an option at this point unfortunately.

[gaastra]

1. Tenet has failed in theaters. Shockingly people are not going to theaters regardless because it's probably not a priority to them while there's a pandemic. So right now theaters is not really an option.

Funny thing is they did a survey and most of the people didn't even know the indoor movies were even open!

[Ben]

They are postponing films because they need them to make back twice their budgets to break even. And streaming doesn’t cover this either. Some films have budgets that are too big to avoid going to the multiplexes. Tenet was an experiment that has failed in the US because no-one is going to theatres in the US. So they will wait until audiences return. They’re not going to release $200m Wonder Woman or Black Widow movies and only make $100m in VOD or less in streaming, right? Mulan was an experiment too, but again it won’t have covered its budget and marketing. There is no win for studios unless they hold back their huge blockbuster films until there is an audience big enough to support them! It’s pretty simple!

[gaastra]

This week--

Secret Society of Second Born Royals
Magic of disney's animal kingdom
Oceans
Fault of our stars
Hidden figures
The giant rubber crab
Wild central america s1
Plus new episodes of older shows like muppet babies s2 have been added.

[EricJ]

The giant rubber crab

The giant ROBBER crab. (Although a giant rubber crab would be worth tuning in for.)

[Ben]

As much as I enjoyed Hidden Figures, it’s another example of a film that I’m not sure should be lumped in with the "Disney" family branding. In its apparently not very stringent own guidelines, D+ becomes more and more problematic...

[Daniel]

The Fault in Our Stars is charming. Curious if they censored the sexual scenes and left the f-bomb.

[Ben]

Is that the one with Augustus Waters, or whatever his name was? Funny story there. If so, I have seen it, and found it mawkish and predictable...sorry!

[Bill1978]

I've never seen it so can't answer your question Ben, all I know is The Fault In Our Stars began the trend in Hollywood (and also publishing) where every Young Adult story, involved one of the love interest having some form of incurable disease.

[Ben]

Yeah, that’s the one. Funny enough I just noticed tonight that it’s playing on regular UK TV tomorrow night. I only saw the film because a youngster in the family had been reading the book, and I had to "be" Augustus during her vacation read. I cracked her up with a silly, over the top cool voice, and wound up having to sit through the movie, which hit just about every beat it could with rhythmic precision...!

[Daniel]

The Call of the Wild was also added... for the UK. I enjoyed that one. Gorgeous scenery. The CGI was distracting at times, though.