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China spectacle "Mulan" with leading actress Liu Yifei: A hit on Disney + - but extremely expensive
Photo: Jasin Boland / Disney / AP
The film industry looked fearfully towards Disney's investor conference, which was broadcast on Thursday from Burbank, California.
It was feared that the company could announce a strategy similar to that of the Warners Bros. studio, which will release 17 new films in the coming year - including mammoth productions such as “Dune” or “Godzilla vs.
Kong «- at least in the USA at the same time as the cinema release on his streaming service HBO Max.
But Disney is going a different way.
Disney is initially only planning a hybrid evaluation based on the Warner model for the animated film "Raya and the Last Dragon", which is due to start in March.
But above all Marvel productions such as
"Black Widow
", "
Eternals
" and "
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
", which all probably cost 150 million dollars and more each, are apparently to be exploited traditionally, so only exclusively in Run cinema.
This decision is surprising.
It was rather expected that Disney would announce that it would not bring any of its long-term films to the cinema at all, but instead show them on its streaming service Disney +.
A week ago Warner made Hollywood shake.
The film studio has been a rock of the dream factory for almost 100 years.
But because of Corona, the cinema year 2021 threatens to be extremely unsafe.
Nobody knows when the large cinemas will be allowed to open again.
It is also uncertain whether the audience will return immediately.
And even if: All studios are just waiting for the moment to finally bring their films to the cinemas.
The backlog is likely to be huge.
Warner threw in the announcement window
The announcement was so explosive because Warner finally throws in a window that parts of the entertainment industry have long aimed at: the evaluation window.
This means the period of around 90 days during which cinemas in the USA have the sole right to exploit films.
Only then are they allowed to stream for the various home cinema channels.
DVD, Blu-Ray - to be provided.
This evaluation window has so far been something like the Holy Grail of cinema owners; for years they have been fighting against efforts by Netflix, for example, to shorten it.
The fear behind it: That viewers will no longer get up from their sofas and stream into the cinemas when they have films delivered directly to their home flat screen TV.
Warner immediately felt the resentment of the industry.
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan was disgusted that the Warner bosses made their decision to go without consulting with creative people and called HBO Max the worst streaming service of them all.
The production company Legendary Pictures, which among other things had co-financed »Dune« and was also not informed in advance of the streaming plans, is considering going to court.
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Disney boss Chapek at the investor conference on Thursday: What would Walt have done?
Photo: Disney
Bob Chapek, on the other hand, initially relied on reassurance for his investors during the presentation.
The CEO, who has been in office since February, faded in huge photos of the company's founder, Walt Disney.
The message was clear: we are following in the tradition of our founders.
But the word that Chapek used much more often was: innovation.
The fact that Chapek sticks to the cinema and classic exploitation has nothing to do with sentimentality.
He and his people believe that cinema can still be damn good business.
In 2019, Disney made over 13 billion dollars with blockbusters like "Avengers: Endgame", "The Lion King" or "Frozen 2" - around a fifth of what the company, which also operates TV stations, theme parks and cruise ships, overall implemented.
The good mood that Chapek and his managers wanted to spread at the investor conference could not hide the fact that 2020 is a catastrophic year for the group because the pandemic is causing massive slumps in almost all business areas.
Streaming services such as Disney +, on the other hand, are posting enormous growth rates.
For this reason, Disney decided in the summer not to bring the live-action adaptation of its cartoon classic »Mulan« to theaters in most territories.
Forbes magazine has calculated that the film on Disney + could have made a little more than $ 100 million.
From the cinema box office in countries like China, there is another 70 million.
However, this is offset by a production budget of allegedly 200 million dollars plus marketing costs.
The similarly expensive "Aladdin" had brought in over $ 350 million at American box offices alone.
"Mulan" was a pretty big losing deal either way.
So far, the blockbuster machinery has been running like clockwork
The blockbuster machinery, which Disney continued to develop and perfect by buying up companies like Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar and 20th Century Fox, ran like clockwork until the pandemic began.
Why should she stop walking after it ends?
Disney makes branded products and makes a lot of money doing it.
But these products are so expensive that they only pay off if they are evaluated several times, when people first go to the cinema and then watch the film again at home months later.
It was announced at the conference that there would be a new "
Indiana Jones
" film.
Also, Patty Jenkins is said to be the first woman to direct a "Star Wars" film: "
Rogue Squadron
" is due to hit theaters in 2023.
The director's latest work, "Wonder Woman 1984", will be launched by Warner in hybrid form in many countries next week, but will initially be shown exclusively in theaters in Germany.
At the same time, Disney announced that it would develop ten new series that take place in the "Star Wars" universe, including "
Obi-Wan Kenobi
" with Hayden Christensen.
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Disney production "The Mandalorian": Gigantic network of narrative threads
Photo: Disney +
One recognizes a mastermind behind these plans: Kevin Feige, head of Marvel and one of the most powerful men at Disney.
He wants to tell never-ending stories, spin a gigantic web of narrative threads that run between cinema and television, screen and screen, back and forth, back and forth.
He seems convinced that one medium should not be played off against the other, but that both will continue to boom if they complement and challenge each other.
Nevertheless, Disney's commitment to the cinema should not be set in stone, but rather depend on the further course of the pandemic.
Should the cinemas in states like California still be closed in a few months due to the lockdown, Disney would probably also switch to Warner's line.
The example of the agent thriller "Tenet", which Warner brought to the cinema in August, showed that box office earnings in the USA collapse if the regions of the country with high numbers of visitors fail.
Californians don't go en masse to Nevada to see films.
But you would probably like to have them in your home theater.
Icon: The mirror