Disney+ will reportedly be releasing other big movies via their Premier Access. Earlier this month, theater owners all over the world were shocked to learn that Disney was going to launch Mulan on their Disney+ streaming service. Subscribers will pay an extra $29.99 to have access to the movie, while it will appear in some theaters overseas. When asked about the possibility of a movie like Jungle Cruise or the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Black Widow skipping theaters in favor of a streaming debut, Disney claimed that Mulan is a one-off.
However, thanks to some new reporting, it looks like Disney+ will end up having some more movies released under their Premier Access. This does not mean that the Black Widow movie will end up on the streaming service instead of theaters, but it very well could in the short run. This information comes directly from the Disney+ support care site, where they confirmed that more large movies will end up on Disney+. “For now we have Mulan, but when time goes by, the Premier Access will be more updated,” according to a live chat representative. With that being said, this could be a way of getting subscribers to pay the extra $29.99 for Mulan.
Major movie theater chains, for the most part, are still shut down across North America. AMC has announced plans to reopen their doors next week for the first time since the middle of March. They are attempting to open 100 theaters with 15-cent movies on August 20th. This is about 1/3 of their total theaters and it remains unclear if people are even willing to sit in an enclosed area with a bunch of strangers. With things estimated to get worse before they get better, Disney will have to make some big decisions when it comes to releasing their blockbuster movies from the summer of 2020.
With the live action adaptation of Mulan, Disney has been bleeding out cash on marketing, which gets worse every time the movie gets delayed. The same can be said for Black Widow and many are arguing that making some money is better than none at all, leaving one to believe that the Mulan Disney+ release will be an experiment to test the waters for the future. Even so, the standalone Natasha Romanoff movie will more than likely wait to open in theaters when it is safe to do so.
Disney and Marvel Studios are sitting on Black Widow and were supposed to have the Eternals movie open in November. Mulan will certainly help Disney+ in the original content department, along with the MCU shows, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision, which are still expected to debut this year. Depending on how the next handful of months go, Disney and Marvel Studios may decide to skip theaters and bring Black Widow directly to streaming. Murphy’s Multiverse was the first to report on the possibility of Disney+ and Premier Access delivering other blockbuster movies.