How long could Disney leave between the upcoming digital release of Mulan and a streaming debut on Disney+? With The Lion King and Aladdin, Disney have enjoyed success in remaking 1990s animated classics into big budget, live-action blockbusters. Next on the list was Mulan, the classic tale of young girl in ancient China taking her father's place as a warrior with the help of a wise-cracking cartoon dragon. With stunning visuals and an exciting Asian cast, Mulan looked set to be one of the biggest movie releases of 2020. And then the pandemic happened. Disney have now announced that Mulan will no longer premiere in theaters, but digitally with a $29.99 price tag to purchase the film.
COVID-19 has wreaked havoc across the world, with the entertainment industry just one facet of the mass disruption caused. Some movies, (the likes of Tenet and New Mutants) still plan to release in theaters, Trolls World Tour went straight to digital, Artemis Fowl arrived on Disney+, and Bill & Ted Face The Music will have a joint theatrical and digital opening. Studios are desperately trying out new distribution models in a world still very far from normal, and as highlighted by Trolls World Tour, not entirely without success. But with all due respect to Scoob, Mulan is easily the most high-profile, expensive and hotly-anticipated film to go digital in the pandemic era. While Disney have stressed that the $30 price point allows consumers to purchase Mulan for keeps, some have balked at the figure. How long until Mulan gets its inevitable Disney+ release and becomes available to subscribers for free?
Disney+ first launched in November 2019. For the purposes of comparison, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker premiered theatrically in December 2019, and released on home media the following March. The J.J. Abrams movie then arrived on Disney+ in May, but this was reportedly moved forward by 2 months as a result of the pandemic, and to celebrate Star Wars day. Deadly worldwide virus notwithstanding, there would've been a 7-month period between The Rise of Skywalker's theatrical and Disney+ releases. Frozen II followed a similar path, premiering in November and releasing digitally in February. The sequel was due to land on Disney+ in June, but was also brought forward.
Mulan will be released on VOD September 4th, and following that same approximate 7-month rule of thumb, the earliest Hua Zhou's sword-twirling daughter could arrive on Disney+ would be April 2021. With that said, there's plenty of reason for Disney to leave a longer gap between those dates. Since fans aren't getting the big screen Mulan experience, Disney need to justify the $30 price purely via exclusivity. Will customers already subscribed to Disney+ be willing to pay out extra cash just for a 7-month head start? Surely there would have to be at least a year between Mulan's September VOD release and its streaming debut to make the purchase worthwhile?
Much is riding on how successful Mulan's pioneering distribution strategy proves to be. The pandemic means anything released this year, especially while movie theaters are still restricted, will make less money, meaning digital releases could offer a better chance for studios to recoup their investment. If Mulan's September roll-out performs strongly, Disney might hold off on a streaming debut for as long as those $30 payments are coming in. On the other hand, if the prospect of paying movie ticket-level prices to watch Mulan on a laptop doesn't prove enticing, Disney could cut their losses and revert to the typical 7-month model that was beginning to establish itself before the pandemic struck.
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