Disney’s “Black Widow” Decision Takes Hits from NATO and Other Critics

 by Ray Keating

News/Analysis

DisneyBizJournal.com

July 21, 2021

 

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.

 

__________

 

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?

 

Keating has three new books out. Vatican Shadows: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel is the 13ththriller/mystery in the Pastor Stephen Grant series. Get the paperback or Kindle edition at Amazon, or signed books at www.raykeatingonline.com. Past Lives: A Pastor Stephen Grant Short Story is the 14th book in the series. Again, get the paperback or Kindle edition at Amazon, or signed book at www.raykeatingonline.com. And order the 15th book in the series What’s Lost? A Pastor Stephen Grant Short Story – grab it at Amazon.com or signed editions at www.raykeatingonline.com. 

 

Also, check out Ray’s podcasts – the Daily Dose of Disney, Free Enterprise in Three Minutes, and the PRESS CLUB C Podcast.

 

You also can order his book Behind Enemy Lines: Conservative Communiques from Left-Wing New York  from Amazon or signed books  at RayKeatingOnline.com. His other recent nonfiction book is Free Trade Rocks! 10 Points on International Trade Everyone Should Know. 

 

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Star Wars George Lucas on Secret of the Move Biz

Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating – Episode #8: George Lucas on the Secret of the Movie Business – Ray Keating sees wisdom for the movie business and beyond from Star Wars creator George Lucas. 

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.

Equating Disney to Thanos ... Seriously?

by Ray Keating

Commentary

DisneyBizJournal.com

May 13, 2019

Is the Walt Disney Company the corporate equivalent of the evil Thanos from the Avengers films? Well, at least one professor writing in the Washington Post thinks so.

When it comes to how markets and business work, a seemingly endless stream of economic ignorance spews forth in newspapers and across the Internet. That was the case with this recent Washington Post opinion piece – provocatively titled “The Avengers are the heroes of ‘Endgame,’ but Disney was the villain all along” – which is long on hyperbole, and very short on economic thought, substance and evidence.

In one of my careers, I’ve worked as an economist in public policy circles for about 30 years. As a result, I’ve grown used to silly economics being tossed around not just by politicians, but too often by fellow economists. The Post article was written by Dan Hassler-Forest, who is listed as “an author and public speaker on media franchises, cultural theory, and political economy. He lives in the Netherlands and works as assistant professor in the Media Studies department of Utrecht University.” From that description, it’s unclear if Mr. Hassler-Forest has any actual training in or extensive time studying economics, or if he just spouts off on matters related to the economy.

What is clear from this article is that Hassler-Forest has a taste for trying to make points without much evidence, yet with a great deal of over-the-top rhetoric. Let’s consider key examples.

First, keep in mind that in the two Avengers movies – Infinity War and Endgame – Thanos wipes out half of life in the universe, and then later on decides he’s going to wipe everything out and start over. But Hassler-Forest asserts:

What goes unspoken, though, is the degree to which Marvel’s corporate parent, Walt Disney Co., has practically accomplished the very thing Thanos set out to do — not in the fictional world, but in our own very real one. With this film, the company demonstrates how totally and irreversibly it has rewritten the global media landscape in its own image. Indeed, Disney has far more in common with Thanos than it ever did with any of the Avengers...

Wow. That’s pretty heavy. But perhaps we can just forgive Hassler-Forest for some excess in terms of style in order to grab the reader’s attention, and he’ll soon serve up the substance. Well, unfortunately, no, that never happens. Instead, we just get more overheated rhetoric without depth.

A bit later, Hassler-Forest writes:

Where Thanos arrogantly declares himself inevitable, this film’s success was never a question for Disney. The Mouse House, once the successful purveyor of a particular kind of children’s entertainment, has transformed itself into the 21st century’s autocratic titan of entertainment franchises, thanks in part to its ongoing acquisition of companies such as Lucasfilm, Fox and, of course, Marvel.

Hmmm, what to do with this? Well, first, there’s the idea that the movie’s “success was never a question for Disney.” Really? It seems that with this point and others, Hassler-Forest is blissfully unaware of the risks involved in bringing high-cost movies to the public. Indeed, Disney itself has a long line of massive, expensive flops, including recent examples like Dumbo and Solo, which, of course, is part of the formerly surefire-hit Star Wars universe. Even a cursory review of the movie business – and any other private industry – makes clear that there is no such thing as an “autocratic titan.” Instead, even the largest businesses are subject to the decisions of consumers. Sometimes consumers love your movie, as is the case with Endgame, and sometimes they don’t. 

Next comes a rhetorical flourish from Hassler-Forest that, well, makes no sense whatsoever:

Disney’s brutal ascent maps improbably well onto the cinematic franchise that has helped fuel its rise. In the first three Soviet-like “Phases” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a colorful variety of superheroes assemble to fight off “devourer of worlds” Thanos.

The “brutal ascent” that Hassler-Forest refers to is Disney’s purchasing of such IP as Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, Fox, and the Muppets (yes, he threw in the Muppets!), along with mentioning “Disney princesses.” I’m not really sure what’s “brutal” about that. And somehow the phases of the Marvel Universe movies are “Soviet-like?” Is this some strained link to the communist Soviet Union’s five-year plans? Who knows? And apparently, from the Post’sperspective, who cares? It’s a spicy read that, I guess, the editors agree with in the end?

But there’s more.

Again, the piece descends into Hassler-Forest’s ideology of all-encompassing corporate power:

Disney’s swelling assemblage of franchises and brands is the only Infinity Gauntlet that matters in the current entertainment landscape, offering it power enough to determine how many of us spend the vast majority of our free time.

And then there’s the following:

But it is increasingly clear that a single company is defining the rules of the game. It’s a transformation of the media industries that gives truly unprecedented power to a small handful of horizontally and vertically integrated companies, with Disney incrementally fortifying and consolidating its position of unquestioned market leadership.

And how about this tidbit?

... we willingly surrender ourselves to the media corporations that seek to own the entirety of our media landscape. As the success of “Endgame” demonstrates, Disney can now snap its fingers, and an entire global entertainment culture reshapes itself to the company’s every whim. 

Golly? Apparently, Hassler-Forest missed the memo that technology – the combination of digital, computer and telecommunications innovations – has vastly expanded opportunities for creators and choices for consumers in recent times, to the point that the movie business and traditional Hollywood is being forced to change and adapt at a previously unimagined rate. In reality, one can argue that companies like Disney have to be more innovative and responsive to consumers than ever before. That’s exciting news to which Mr. Hassler-Forest seems completely oblivious – or could it just be that he chooses to ignore such developments because they contradict his assumptions about evil corporations running the world?

Disney is “defining the rules of the game” and snapping its fingers to reshape “an entire global entertainment culture”? I’m guessing that Disney CEO Bob Iger would be surprised to hear this.

For good measure, the arrogance of Hassler-Forest is striking in his statement that Disney has the power to “determine how many of us spend the vast majority of our free time.” Moving beyond Hassler-Forest’s missing the realities of how people are actually spending their time and money – again, as illustrated by the decline of network television and Hollywood’s ills beyond the superhero genre (which also is not exempt from movie bombs) – the assumption clearly is that individuals are too stupid to make their own choices about what they like and dislike. Other than Hassler-Forest, the rest of us, apparently, are just a bunch of dopes being manipulated by Disney and other big companies. 

Or, does Hassler-Forest have an even more demeaning view of the public? After all, he also writes:

But as with Thanos’s master plot, these supposed “endings” only prime us for our next fix. For a brief period, the cultural conversation will be focused on the increasingly rare experience of a massively shared moment of narrative closure — before we move on to the next set of industrially produced episodes.

This would seem to indicate that Hassler-Forest sees the public as the equivalent of drug addicts, to be manipulated or controlled by corporations cranking out fixes in industrial fashion. It all sounds rather, well, grim, not to mention Marxian.

In the end, a movie like Avengers: Endgame increasingly is the exception as our entertainment culture becomes more and more fractionalized. Consumers have ever-expanding choices from a wider array of creators than ever before in the history of mankind. The entertainment business is becoming increasingly entrepreneurial, innovative and competitive. There, of course, will be big businesses that appeal to large audiences, but there increasingly are smaller creative ventures that find market niches, and wind up thriving as well. 

Thankfully, there is no Thanos controlling the entertainment business. Instead, the entertainment business is being reshaped and transformed by innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. I think Captain America, for example, would appreciate this economic reality.

Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels. He can be contacted at  raykeating@keatingreports.com.

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