Last weekend Black Widow was the talk of the town after its $80 million opening weekend. Disney also reported its Disney+ Premier Access numbers which came in at $60 million. While the film was lauded for helping rejuvenate the box office last weekend, its week two performance has it under the spotlight for a completely different reason.
Black Widow suffered a steep -67.3% drop from the previous weekend when it smashed the pandemic-era domestic box-office record with an $80 million opening. The film is also available on Disney Plus for a $30 surcharge, where it did very well in its first weekend but numbers for this week have not been reported by Disney. In the wake of its second-weekend drop, theater owners on Sunday blasted the Walt Disney Co. for making the film available simultaneously in homes and on the big screen. Their position is that the release strategy has undercut the film's theatrical box office potential and there might be some truth to what they're saying. Here is what NATO, the National Association of Theatre Owners, had to say about the matter:
"Despite assertions that this pandemic-era improvised release strategy was a success for Disney and the simultaneous release model, it demonstrates that an exclusive theatrical release means more revenue for all stakeholders in every cycle of the movie’s life."
When announcing opening weekend box office results during the film's opening weekend, Disney made pandemic-era history when taking the unusual step of adding Disney+ Premier Access revenue to Black Widow‘s total number. That pushed the film’s total global opening past the $218 million mark thanks to $60 million generated from households choosing to watch the film at home for $30. While the move seemed to be praised by many, theater owners were seething behind the scenes. NATO went on to say, "The many questions raised by Disney’s limited release of streaming data opening weekend are being rapidly answered by Black Widow’s disappointing and anomalous performance. The most important answer is that simultaneous release is a pandemic-era artifact that should be left to history with the pandemic itself."
There are some that say that the second-weekend drop is similar to other tentpole releases that debuted during the pandemic such as Fast 9. NATO's argument is that the film could've opened to $92-110 million without the Disney+ release. Their narrative is that, despite pulling in $60 million on the platform, the move severely cut into its box office total during a time that the industry really needs to prove that the box office is alive and ready for a return after the pandemic. NATO also believes that piracy affected the second-weekend performance of Black Widow as well.
"Piracy no doubt further affected Black Widow’s performance and will affect its future performance in international markets where it has yet to open . Pristine digital copies became available within minutes of release on Disney+. Black Widow was the most torrented movie for the week ending July 12. It is also available on myriad illegal streaming sites all over the Internet."
NATO does have an argument here. Despite the perceived success of the film last weekend, many will look into this second-weekend drop and wonder if the simultaneous release strategy was the right decision. A lot of these choices were made when it was unclear how moviegoing would be as restrictions from the pandemic cleared up and now the industry has to wonder if some of those choices were made too prematurely.