News, Analysis and Reviews of the Disney Entertainment Business
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Brought to fans, investors, entrepreneurs, executives, teachers, professors, and students by columnist, economist, novelist, reviewer, podcaster, business reporter and speaker Ray Keating
Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating – Episode #279: Walt Disney Was a Great U.S. Export – The U.S. State Department recognized the contribution Walt Disney made in creating friendlier attitudes around the world toward the U.S.
Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating – Episode #282: Red in My Ledger – In The Avengers, Black Widow spoke of wiping out red in her ledger. That can be a powerful notion.
Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating – Episode #286: Stan Lee on Characters – Marvel’s Stan Lee noted that creating interesting characters probably matters most in storytelling.
The “Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating” podcast serves up a Disney or Disney-related quote each day, with DisneyBizJournal’s Ray Keating offering brief, additional thoughts on how each dose ties in to life, career, business, entrepreneurship, creativity, storytelling, work, or just plain fun.
Superheroes saved the 2021 box office – specifically, Marvel heroes did so.
The pandemic obviously has devastated the movie theater business, and while the 2021 domestic (U.S. and Canada) box office take was double what was earned in 2020, the numbers remained well off the pre-pandemic 2019 level.
In fact, the $4.58 billion earned in domestic movie ticket sales in 2021 registered the same level as was garnered in 1992, according to the Hollywood Reporter. However, that fails to factor inflation into the equation, meaning that the 2021 earnings were even less than the 1992 take in real terms.
Compared to pre-pandemic 2019, the 2021 domestic box office was off by 60 percent.
As for a studio breakdown, CNBC noted that Disney led the way with 26 percent of the 2021 box office, followed by Sony’s 23 percent.
But let’s be clear, it was the Marvel Cinematic Universe that truly ruled. Five of the top six movies in terms of domestic gross were MCU movies, with three from Disney and two from Sony.
Spider-Man: No Way Home (Sony) topped all domestic earners with $573 million, followed by $225 million for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Disney), $213 million for Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Sony), $184 million for Black Widow (Disney), and $165 million for Eternals (Disney).
That tallies up to 30 percent of the 2021 domestic box office for MCU films.
By the way, the Sony MCU movies outgrossed the Disney MCU films - $786 for Sony’s and $574 for Disney’s.
As for the other top films, F9: The Fast Saga was number five at the domestic box office (Universal at $173 million) and number seven was the James Bond film No Time to Die (United Artists at $161 million).
So, we’ve learned (or relearned) a couple of things about movies during a pandemic. First, big blockbusters (in particular, superhero blockbusters) will draw some audiences into theaters – mainly, younger moviegoers.
Second, non-blockbuster, more adult-oriented movies, if you will, are having a very tough time, including The Last Duel (Disney’s 20th Century Studios) and West Side Story (Disney’s 20th Century Studios), which were both excellent. Part of this, no doubt, is less willingness among older moviegoers to sit in theaters while pandemic issues still rage on. To be less generous, such films also require more of an attention span than what might be needed for at least some superhero movies.
What does any of this mean post-pandemic? Speculation can, and has, run in all kinds of directions, but the safest take is that the pandemic has accelerated a shift among consumers to viewing more content at home. However, the degree of this shift and what it will mean for movies being released in theaters remains anyone’s guess at this point in time. The general direction of greater in-home viewing is great for consumers (who are ultimately driving the trend), and for content creators who are seeing and will continue to see increasing opportunities to create via streaming services.
But as anyone in the buggy whip industry would have told you with the arrival of the internal combustion engine, when these kinds of upheavals of innovation dramatically alter the economic landscape, matters of survival emerge for businesses who were entrenched in doing things the old ways. This all points to theater owners facing considerable challenges in creating an environment that will get people off their couches and into theaters.
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Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels and assorted nonfiction books. Have Ray Keating speak your group, business, school, church, or organization. Email him at raykeating@keatingreports.com.
The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?
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My expectations ran high for both Eternals and Dune when heading into the movie theater. Those expectations actually were exceeded with Dune. Unfortunately, Eternals turned out to be a gross disappointment, and as a result, the movie added fuel to a troubling trend emerging with recent Marvel projects.
Of course, both films have faced box office challenges with the ongoing struggle to emerge from the pandemic, as well as Dune being offered immediately via online streaming on HBO Max and Eternals expected to move rather quickly to Disney+ (perhaps just before Christmas). Dune opened domestically on October 22, and as of November 11 on BoxOfficeMojo.com, it had still taken in $332.6 million globally. After opening on November 5, Eternals registered $170.9 million worldwide. It is worth noting that the Eternals’ opening weekend domestic take came in behind the other pandemic-era MCU releases, that is, Black Widow at $80 million (along with an announced $60 million on Disney+), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings at $75 million, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage at an inexplicable $90 million.
As for critics and audiences, on RottenTomatoes.com, Eternals has earned a woeful 47 percent critics score, with audiences coming in at 80 percent. Meanwhile, Dune has scored well with both critics (83 percent) and audiences (90 percent).
In general, I think that the critics got both right.
Dune ranks as sci-fi/fantasy done right. It’s a visually rich, immersive story, with interesting characters. The film offers hints of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Game of Thrones and Lawrence of Arabia. The cast is spot on, and the director, Denis Villeneuve, gets fine performances out of each actor, including some who have not showed such abilities before, like Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista.
Throughout the film, my mind never wandered to thinking about when this would be over, but rather wanting the movie to go on, and pondering where the characters were headed and the implications of their actions. And given the ending, I found myself thinking that Legendary and Warner Brothers better greenlight a sequel with Villeneuve at the helm, and thankfully, they have.
In contrast, Eternals was a bloated, uninteresting story, with characters that largely were flat, along with most of the performances.
And unlike Dune, Eternals was plagued by story points that made little sense, including glaringly contradictory moments for assorted characters (such as Richard Madden’s Ikaris, not to mention that his ending was way too on the nose).
Amazingly, there are some out there arguing that Eternals isn’t getting the love it deserves because fans are unwilling to deal with big issues being brought up in a superhero movie. My immediate reaction to such assertions is to laugh – and to be perfectly clear, to laugh mockingly. Big issues? The writers and director, Chloe Zhao, seemed to be striving to present some deep moral quandaries over which the characters and audience were meant to wrestle. Alas, though, these so-called big issues amounted to shallow or meaningless situations seemingly dreamed up by a group of college students believing that they had great insights on matters that in reality they possessed little or no knowledge of in the end. The so-called moral quandaries served up in the Eternals spoke more to the obtuseness of the filmmakers, at best, or to their amorality.
It also needs to be pointed out that the more the MCU goes in on CGI effects, the worse the results seem to get. Though not as bad as the end scenes in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings or what was offered in Captain Marvel, several of the scenes in Eternals came across more like crude animation, as opposed to interesting and/or immersive CGI.
Interestingly, the character and performance that turned out to be the most interesting in Eternalswas Angelina Jolie as Thena. Here was a troubled character whose challenges and reactions made sense, and there was some life to Jolie’s performance. Don Lee also was pretty good as Gilgamesh, and Kumail Nanjiani had amusing moments as Kingo, though most didn’t fit with where the story was at the time.
Regarding how the Eternals fits into the MCU, part of my high expectations going in could be attributed to an assumption or hope that this film would break the recent trend in MCU entries being poor-to-middling. WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier had moments on Disney+, but came up miserably short in the end, while Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings were middling MCU movies (with Black Widow coming in ahead of Shang-Chi). The LokiDisney+ series has been the lone major MCU standout really since Avengers: Endgame.
Eternals was supposed to get the MCU back to interesting, exciting and compelling storytelling and characters, devoid of plot holes and character inconsistencies. But that disappointingly was not the case.
My thoughts at the end of Eternals were pretty much the exact opposite of what I experienced with Dune. I was thankful that Eternals was over, and rather than wondering what would come next for the characters, I was left wondering where the heck the MCU was heading – and not in a good way.
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Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels and assorted nonfiction books. Have Ray Keating speak your group, business, school, church, or organization. Email him at raykeating@keatingreports.com.
The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?
Great Christmas Gift! The Disney Planner 2022: The TO DO List Solution is here! It combines a simple, powerful system for getting things done with encouragement and fun for Disney fans, including those who love Mickey, Marvel, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Pixar, princesses and more. Also, “The Disney Planner 2022: The TO DO List Solution” comes with a handy spiral binding for easy use.
NATO is very upset with Disney. No, not that NATO. The National Association of Theater Owners.
NATO issued a press release earlier this week that praised Black Widow as “a well-made, well-received, highly anticipated movie.” But it also pointed out that the movie experienced “a surprising 41% second day drop, a weaker than expected opening weekend, and a stunning second weekend collapse in theatrical revenues.”
Indeed, the second weekend theatrical box office numbers for Black Widow dropped by 67 percent, which was the largest decline of any MCU movie. Disney also has been silent on Disney+ Premier revenues for the film after the opening weekend. For good measure, Black Widow ranked as the most pirated movie during its opening week.
NATO makes a case that Disney and the industry is leaving money on the table with the dual in theaters and at home release. NATO might be right … for now. But the movie business is in the midst of great change and experimentation.
Other than simply raising questions, the key NATO points were:
• “Based on comparable Marvel titles, and other successful pandemic-era titles like F9 and A Quiet Place 2 opening day to weekend ratios, Black Widow should have opened to anywhere from $92-$100 million. Based on preview revenue, compared to the same titles, Black Widow could have opened to anywhere from $97 to $130 million.” (See the actual opening numbers for Black Widow here.)
• “Premiere Access revenue is not new-found money, but was pulled forward from a more traditional PVOD window, which is no longer an option.”
NATO concludes that “simultaneous release is a pandemic-era artifact that should be left to history with the pandemic itself.”
Of course, no one should be surprised that theater owners aren’t keen on home offerings like Disney+ or Disney+ Premier Access. And one can easily make the case that with more videos offered via streaming, including extra dollars from PVOD (premium video on demand), the movie business will face revenue losses and a rejiggering of business models. That process is well under way.
In a Deadline piece, the author, Anthony D’Alessandro, argued what “Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek, the studio’s Media and Entertainment Distribution Chairman Kareem Daniel, and Wall Street need to wake up to is that this Disney+ Premier theatrical model is a greater fugazi than Dogecoin itself, a means of decimating a great business model whereby consumers previously bought the same piece of IP twice: in theaters and later in an ancillary window. Those who purchased Black Widow on Disney+ won’t buy it again.” And he goes on berating Disney and others in the industry, noting, “The Napster millennials have grown up, Disney, and they’re used to getting their media for free. Is this really a road you want to continue on with future theatrical films?”
This is kind of funny. Mr. Alessandro, and many others in and around the industry seem to think that Hollywood CEOs are calling the shots. For their respective studios, they surely are. But entrepreneurs pushing technology forward, and consumers making decisions about options in the marketplace, are calling the ultimate shots. Companies like Disney are at least smart enough to see that vast changes are upon us, and business models must be adjusted, accordingly. The music industry failed to see what was happening, and it took Steve Jobs to save them. Newspapers never got it – with a tiny number of exceptions – and were decimated as a result.
Fighting consumers and resisting technology are surefire paths to business oblivion. Streaming is here, and it is the future of the movie and television industries … for now, that is, until something else comes along to disrupt things. And that’s free enterprise, and it always has been. But now, in this high-tech, digital age, change simply comes a heck of a lot faster.
Yes, it’s a time of great experimentation in terms of how movies are presented to consumers. But make no mistake, it will be consumers who decide which model works and which doesn’t. If you’re in the movie business and that makes you uncomfortable, it’s time to pick another career.
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Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels and assorted nonfiction books. Have Ray Keating speak your group, business, school, church, or organization. Email him at raykeating@keatingreports.com.
The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?
Please support the efforts of DisneyBizJournal.com to bring news, analysis and commentary on Disney to readers such as yourself. Make a contribution right here via PayPal. Thanks!
The Walt Disney Company announced today that Black Widow debuted over the weekend to the tune of $218 million. Disney noted that the film had “the largest domestic box office opening since the pandemic began and the largest domestic opening weekend since Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker in December 2019.”
Most interesting is the breakdown supplied by Disney, that is, “$80 million in domestic box office, $78 million in international box office and over $60 million in Disney+ Premier Access consumer spend globally.”
This is the first time that Disney has released numbers from its Disney+ Premier Access option. With the Premier Access priced at $29.99 (in addition to the Disney+ subscription), that means 2 million of the 103 million Disney+ subscribers paid to watch Black Widow. The $60 million from Disney+ subscribers accounted for nearly 28 percent of the total box-office take announced by Disney.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing to compare the Disney+ Black Widow revenues to since this is the first time that Disney has announced Premier Access revenues. There was no word regarding Mulan, Raya and the Last Dragon and Cruella. And no one knows if the company will continue to make such announcements in the future.
Obviously, though, Disney must have been very pleased with the Premier Access performance of Black Widow … and/or disappointed with previous efforts.
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Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels and assorted nonfiction books. Have Ray Keating speak your group, business, school, church, or organization. Email him at raykeating@keatingreports.com.
The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?
Please support the efforts of DisneyBizJournal.com to bring news, analysis and commentary on Disney to readers such as yourself. Make a contribution right here via PayPal. Thanks!
Yes, I’m excited to see Godzilla vs. Kong, which will be released tomorrow (March 31). Hey, when it comes to movie monsters, this is the heavyweight title fight. If I get a basic story that makes sense (Note to blockbuster creators: It’s not that hard for your story to make sense!) and great battles between legendary monsters, I’ll be satisfied.
But a movie like Godzilla vs. Kong really is meant to be seen on the big screen, and while more and more people, thankfully, are being vaccinated, COVID-19 remains a thing. So, many of us will not be traveling to theaters to see this clash of titans, but instead will be watching on HBO Max.
While Godzilla vs. Kong is being released in theaters and on the HBO Max streaming service at the same time, it appears to be just a bit early for gaining true clarity in terms of evaluating the titanic struggle between streaming and theaters. At best, if more people than expected show up at the theater to see King Kong slug Godzilla, we at least might get a bit of much-needed optimism for movie theaters.
According to The Wall Street Journal, prior to the pandemic hitting, there were 5,502 theaters opened on a Friday night. That compared to only 2,558 on March 26, 2021. Yikes. But more theaters will be opening in coming weeks. Will we get back to 5,500? Hmmm.
With each passing week ahead of increased vaccinations, and hopefully, increased normalcy, the big battle of “Streaming vs. Theaters” quickly approaches.
Indeed, the first major engagement could be Disney’s Black Widow, which is scheduled for a July 9 release in theaters as well as via Disney+ with Premier Access (i.e., $29.99 in addition to the monthly Disney+ subscription fee).
Still, one analyst quoted by the Journal expected that theater capacity limitations are unlikely to be lifted before the fourth quarter of this year.
Major movie studios are not walking away from theaters. It was noted in the report that “Universal, Warner Bros. and Paramount all point to an exclusive U.S. theatrical window of 30-45 days for a post-Covid world,” which is “notably shorter than the 90-days the industry” used to operate under, but would still leave adequate time for the bulk of box-office receipts to accumulate – according to how the numbers traditionally break. But that’s assuming that consumer behavior will not change post-coronavirus.
Make no mistake, if moviegoers want to watch movies in theaters, the studios will be more than happy to oblige, while moving films to their streaming services quickly. But what if a significant chunk of moviegoers simply want to see movies on their own big screens in the comfort of their own homes?
I’m not sure how much would be lost, for example, if I choose to simply go with Black Widow via Disney+. And then there’s the additional question of being willing to wait for it on Disney+ without the additional charge. Will Disney+ continue with the Premier Access extra thirty bucks for big movie releases even as services like HBO Max serve up Godzilla vs. Kong at no extra cost?
All of the questions are being assessed by industry players, as they try to predict and read the consumer. In the end, the consumer will dictate some kind of mix between theaters and streaming. But discerning that balance at this point in time seems nearly impossible. Hence, we see why the CEOs of theater companies, studios and streaming services get paid the big bucks – and why, if they get it wrong, they’ll be tossed out of the C-suite.
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Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels and assorted nonfiction books. Have Ray Keating speak your group, business, school, church, or organization. Email him at raykeating@keatingreports.com.
The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?
Please support the efforts of DisneyBizJournal.com to bring news, analysis and commentary on Disney to readers such as yourself. Make a contribution right here via PayPal. Thanks!
Disney has announced updates to its movie release schedule, including the next Marvel Studios’ release Black Widow.
Black Widow will be released in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access (that is, at an extra cost of $29.99 beyond the Disney+ monthly subscription fee) on Friday, July 9. It was formerly scheduled for May 7.
Cruella will use the same combination of theater release and Disney+ Premier Access on May 28. The release date for this film, though, has not changed.
Meanwhile, Disney and Pixar’s Luca will stream (at no extra cost) exclusively on Disney+ starting on Friday, June 18. Previously, it was set for a theatrical release on that date.
Other new release dates are Free Guy on August 13, 2021 (previously May 21); Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on September 3, 2021 (previously July 9); The King’s Man on December 22, 2021 (previously August 20); Deep Water on January 14, 2022 (previously August 13); and Death on the Nile on February 11, 2022 (previously September 17).
Kareem Daniel, chairman of Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution, said, “Today’s announcement reflects our focus on providing consumer choice and serving the evolving preferences of audiences. By leveraging a flexible distribution strategy in a dynamic marketplace that is beginning to recover from the global pandemic, we will continue to employ the best options to deliver The Walt Disney Company’s unparalleled storytelling to fans and families around the world.”
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Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels and assorted nonfiction books. Have Ray Keating speak your group, business, school, church, or organization. Email him at raykeating@keatingreports.com.
The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?
Please support the efforts of DisneyBizJournal.com to bring news, analysis and commentary on Disney to readers such as yourself. Make a contribution right here via PayPal. Thanks!
