Black Widow: Disney Plans To Be Flexible With Debut
When and where will Black Widow show up?
It appears Disney CEO Bob Chapek comes from the Elastigirl school of media management.
Yep, Mr. Chapek said Disney would be “flexible” in its approach to the release of Black Widow.
“We’ll make the call … probably at the last minute, in terms of how these films come to market, whether it’s Black Widow or any other title,” Chapek said Bloomberg. “We’ve had unbelievable success in theaters, so we think it’s important to build our franchises — but at the same time, we don’t think it’s the only way to do it.”
Disney Has Options
The comments were the first inkling that Disney — Hollywood’s top box-office hitmaker — could adjust its theatrical release plans to include a streaming option even for Black Widow, part of its Marvel powerhouse of megahit movies. For most of its biggest new movies, like Black Widow and other Marvel films, Disney has been delaying their releases until these once-guaranteed blockbusters may have a more certain shot at becoming box-office behemoths.
Today’s comments regarding the debut of Black Widow arrive in the wake of Chapek’s Disneyland reopening announcement:
In the meantime, this week Disneyland Resort hosts A Touch of Disney at California Adventure.
Movie Theaters or Disney+
But the one major piece of Disney’s many businesses that remains in doubt is movie distribution in cinemas. As such, recent films like Soul and Mulan premiered on Disney+.
So The Mouse maintains options.
“We love the theatrical window,” Chapek said. “We think it’s important for building our franchises. At the same time, we don’t think it’s the only way to do it. … We’ll see what happens over the next couple of months. So much is changing, it’s such a dynamic environment. It’s really hard to predict what’s going to happen with consumer behavior in the next month as it comes to re-emergence back into the world of normal. We’ll be watching the call carefully and make the call when we have to.”’
It’s going to be a very interesting spring, True Believers. Maybe we’ll all have to be flexible.