Marvel’s black widow will arrive at Disney Plus for $ 30 on July 9, same day as theaters

Disney has postponed the launch of Marvel’s Black Widow once again, this time until July 9 – but Black Widow will also be available for broadcast on the same day on Disney Plus for $ 30 via the service’s Premier Access model, in addition to what you pay for a regular Disney Plus subscription, the company said on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, Disney said:

• His next Pixar film, Luca, will become an original Disney Plus film, available to stream at no extra cost on June 18, with virtually no cinemas.
• Cruella, her 101-Dalmatian live-action reboot, would also be available as a Premier Access release on Disney Plus on the same day as theaters on May 28.
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the next Marvel film to appear on screens later Black Widow, was also delayed. Black Widow essentially took over from Shang-Chi on July 9, and now Shang-Chi is scheduled to be released on September 3.

The launch of Black Widow’s Premier Access is not a rental; it does not have a time window that you must observe before your access expires. Buyers will be able to watch Black Widow as long as they are active subscribers to Disney Plus.

However, Disney has not yet confirmed the date on which the Black Widow will become part of Disney’s regular catalog, available for broadcast at no extra cost. In the past, the two other Disney Plus films released on Premier Access entered the standard library three months after its release, but that does not necessarily mean that Black Widow will follow suit.

After the launch of Black Widow has been delayed several times, Disney planning a hybrid release in cinemas and streaming indicates that the company is not committed to further delays. The Black Widow was originally scheduled to launch in August 2020, before the pandemic. When it finally launches on July 9, two years will have passed since the Marvel Cinematic Universe was on the big screen. The last Marvel movie to hit theaters was Spider-Man: Away from Home, in July 2019, three months after Marvel’s megablockbuster, Avengers: Endgame.

The decision to stream Black Widow is Disney’s biggest bet on its Premier Access model, even as optimism has grown about the return of audiences to theaters in the coming months.

Disney’s theatrical release decisions are a significant sign of Hollywood’s faith at the box office, but they also emphasize the industry’s willingness to continue offering broader options for watching new films, even after the pandemic. Before coronavirus restrictions decimated theater attendance, Disney had accumulated more box office hits than any other studio in the past five years, so its approach to theatrical releases is a thermometer for the industry.

The decision by Disney’s Black Widow suggests that the company is pessimistic that moviegoers will actually migrate to theaters in the coming months, but other Hollywood studios have shown signs of optimism about putting their big films back on screen as vaccinations have accelerated in the USA. , one of the largest cinema markets in the world. Several postponed the release dates of supporting films, underscoring their expectation that cinema attendance may recover earlier than they expected. In January, Warner Bros. from AT&T rescheduled Godzilla vs. Kong from May to March 31. Then, in early March, Sony brought the release of Peter Rabbit 2 to May 14 from June, and ViacomCBS Paramount Pictures changed A Quiet Place II from September to May 28

Tuesday’s Black Widow announcement also signals that Disney was impressed by the response to its latest Premier Access release, its animated feature Raya and the Last Dragon. Raya left on Disney Plus for an extra fee of $ 30 along with its theatrical release on March 5. But making Black Widow, part of Disney’s driving force of Marvel box office hits, a hybrid streaming and cinematic release suggests that the company may be open to pursuing more Premier Access releases, even after coronavirus restrictions in theaters are lifted. relaxed.

Last week, Disney CEO Bob Chapek hinted that a streaming launch for Black Widow may be possible, after the company was silent for months about how and when Black Widow would be available for broadcast. At the time, Chapek emphasized that Disney would remain “flexible” about how it would launch films like Black Widow and warned that a decision was likely to come “at the last minute”.

Until the pandemic, Disney was adhering to theatrical release rules that kept movies exclusively in theaters for 75 days or more. But as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to disrupt cinema trips, Disney evolved Disney Plus‘role in its film release cycle.

At the beginning, Disney Plus simply started streaming movies that were released months earlier than planned. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker started airing three months earlier, as did Frozen 2 – and Pixar’s Onward was released on Disney Plus just weeks after its theatrical debut. Then, Disney began increasing new movie releases as well, such as the film version of the award-winning musical Hamilton in July and Pixar’s latest animated film, Soul, on December 25.

But Premier Access was the biggest change to Disney Plus so far. Mulan’s Disney live-action remake in September was the first released with this model, followed by Raya earlier this month. These are actions that would have been unthinkable a year earlier, but the long-standing norms for film release have not withstood the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic.

In the United States, the Disney Plus service costs $ 7 a month or $ 70 a year. As of Friday, it will increase to $ 8 a month or $ 80 a year.