Black Widow

[GA-MBIT]

I appreciated that this movie has the themes/analogy of survivors of sex trafficking. I'm pretty dense when it comes to context clues, but I got the point of the red room and Natasha not being able to attack her abuser.

Spoiler

Interesting themes and ideas like this make the dumb parts of the plot (Weinstein pheromones, "the resource the world has too much of: girls", "it all only made me stronger") all the worse. It's feminism on the same level as the female superhero that got the feminist marketing push being empowered by accidently getting caught in a nuclear jet explosion. It just feels lazy and thoughtless. Good ideas - honestly really overdue and needed ideas , but poor execution.

 

[HalfGlass]

I enjoyed it - but it’s definitely lower tier Marvel for me. Taskmaster was a massive disappointment and ranks as one of the worst villains in the MCU. With how much homage Feige usually pays to the various properties, this felt like a character fumble akin to what we would have expected back in the beginning days of the franchise or maybe an early 00’s comic book movie

Some positives - the movie has some touching emotional moments which was unexpected, and Pugh absolutely steals the show. Harbour is solid too.

I will agree with what others said as it felt so good to see a Marvel film on the big screen again. And even though I think this doesn’t rank as high as the other entries for me, it did confirm for me that I like these stories told in film format way more than TV. The epic scope comes across so much better with a large budget, big screen and Dolby Atmos. Not saying I don’t want the shows to exist, but these are the events I’m looking forward to more.

 

[Tristan]

Spoiler

Interesting themes and ideas like this make the dumb parts of the plot (Weinstein pheromones, "the resource the world has too much of: girls", "it all only made me stronger") all the worse. It's feminism on the same level as the female superhero that got the feminist marketing push being empowered by accidently getting caught in a nuclear jet explosion. It just feels lazy and thoughtless. Good ideas - honestly really overdue and needed ideas , but poor execution.

Yeah, it was pretty bad in terms of how they went about it. I still appreciated that they did it in the first place because I don't think many Marvel movies have any real-world commentary in them. The pheromones were just kind of gross too? Just was a weird plot device.

 

[jseal777]

I don’t like the marketing device of “watch a show you don’t care about so you can better understand things happening in movies you DO care about.”
Won’t quite call it sleazy, but I’m not a fan either.

 

[Nick]

Estimated opening for Black Widow. According to Variety, Black Widow actually came closer to $90M with $87.8M, but i'm sure Disney is extremely happy with the $60M on Premiere Access if that is correct as they keep 100% of that.

 

[RevFreako]

Estimated opening for Black Widow. According to Variety, Black Widow actually came closer to $90M with $87.8M, but i'm sure Disney is extremely happy with the $60M on Premiere Access if that is correct as they keep 100% of that.

Nearly half the domestic take is from D+, and they don't have to share that money with anyone. The argument is over: Day and date home release is here to stay, whether you like it or not.

 

[Nick]

Nearly half the domestic take is from D+, and they don't have to share that money with anyone. The argument is over: Day and date home release is here to stay, whether you like it or not.

I'd be surprised if Shang-Chi and Eternals aren't announced to take this same route, especially since it still opened to almost $100M despite D+ Premiere Access, although one could argue those that watched it on Disney+ may not have actually gone to a movie theater to see it otherwise and $90M or so was around the cap Black Widow was going to do in theaters anyway.

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

Nearly half the domestic take is from D+, and they don't have to share that money with anyone. The argument is over: Day and date home release is here to stay, whether you like it or not.

Deadline currently in shambles.

 

[Nick]

Nearly half the domestic take is from D+, and they don't have to share that money with anyone. The argument is over: Day and date home release is here to stay, whether you like it or not.

I do just want to clarify (as I forgot to myself in the box office post) that the Disney+ amount is not domestic, that is a projected worldwide total. Here's the Deadline article about it:

Disney Claims $215M+ WW Victory At The B.O. & Disney+ Premier With ‘Black Widow’ Weekend: Will Distrib Model Endanger A Movie’s Life Cycle? – Update

SUNDAY AM Final: The Walt Disney Company sent out a widespread announcement that Black Widow made $215M-plus WW this weekend: Broken down, that’s $80M at the domestic box office, $78M in international box office, and over $60M in Disney+ Premier Access consumer spend globally. I understand that...

deadline.com

 

[HalfGlass]

Disney+ is a huge take, but they do have to ask themselves if there is more money to be had domestically if it’s theatrical only. I’m sure plenty of families of 3+ and people who had their friends over to watch led to a loss of revenue overall. But like you alluded to, would those people have gone to the theater? Not sure…

I think once the pandemic is completely behind us though we will not see Premiere Access on Marvel anymore. Especially given reports that Feige doesn’t want these to be simul-release.

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

I do just want to clarify (as I forgot to myself in the box office post) that the Disney+ amount is not domestic, that is a projected worldwide total. Here's the Deadline article about it:

Disney Claims $215M+ WW Victory At The B.O. & Disney+ Premier With ‘Black Widow’ Weekend: Will Distrib Model Endanger A Movie’s Life Cycle? – Update

SUNDAY AM Final: The Walt Disney Company sent out a widespread announcement that Black Widow made $215M-plus WW this weekend: Broken down, that’s $80M at the domestic box office, $78M in international box office, and over $60M in Disney+ Premier Access consumer spend globally. I understand that...

deadline.com

I'm not sure why Deadline keeps on bringing up this term 'long term ancillaries'? Are they talking about potential cable revenue and DVD sales lost to Disney+? Because if so, those days are long over. If it's a Disney movie, it's either in theaters or on Disney+.

As much as they might like theaters, Deadline's insistence on these increasingly irrelevant post-theatrical revenue streams makes them seem naive, which in turn makes them inadept at advocating for a paradigm that could marry theatrical with streaming in a manner that is beneficial to all interested parties (like the Universal/AMC profit-sharing deal, or new agreements with the SAG and the WGA that accounts for streaming hours and revenue in the profit-sharing model).

 

[rageofthegods]

I do just want to clarify (as I forgot to myself in the box office post) that the Disney+ amount is not domestic, that is a projected worldwide total. Here's the Deadline article about it:

Disney Claims $215M+ WW Victory At The B.O. & Disney+ Premier With ‘Black Widow’ Weekend: Will Distrib Model Endanger A Movie’s Life Cycle? – Update

SUNDAY AM Final: The Walt Disney Company sent out a widespread announcement that Black Widow made $215M-plus WW this weekend: Broken down, that’s $80M at the domestic box office, $78M in international box office, and over $60M in Disney+ Premier Access consumer spend globally. I understand that...

deadline.com

Yeah that's an important distinction, and also estimates were dropping pretty much all throughout the weekend. They were projecting 90m DOM after the Friday numbers were in. Idk, I'm generally in the camp that says PVOD is additive, but the IM for Black Widow was pretty awful. Streaming viewership tends to decay fast so I'm not expecting that PA number to grow very much. Wanna see what the legs are like.

Movie itself was alright but it was definitely designed to be a side story and not The First Marvel Movie In Over A Year (TM). The "free will" theme was a little too esoteric to be humanly relatable and it makes the arguments when the family reunites weirdly boring. You can also feel the movie really straining to make you care about the characters; I think like a third of the dialogue is exposition explaining how people got to where they are. There are sweet scenes though. David Harbour doing the embarrassing dad routine is great.

 

[Nick]

I'm not sure why Deadline keeps on bringing up this term 'long term ancillaries'? Are they talking about potential cable revenue and DVD sales lost to Disney+? Because if so, those days are long over. If it's a Disney movie, it's either in theaters or on Disney+.

Not 100% true, Cruella is currently available for purchase on Amazon and Itunes (digital rental window - it'll be available for purchase after 75 days). However, you are correct that as far as physical discs go, that train has left the station, but there is a lot of money to be made in rentals and on people buying them on third party stores.

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

Not 100% true, Cruella is currently available for purchase on Amazon and Itunes (digital rental window - it'll be available for purchase after 75 days

Hmm, I checked on Amazon and it has a buy button for Cruella rather than a rent button. In any case, I doubt Disney actively wants people to know they can buy it on Amazon over Disney+.

 

[Nick]

Movie itself was alright but it was definitely designed to be a side story and not The First Marvel Movie In Over A Year (TM). The "free will" theme was a little too esoteric to be humanly relatable and it makes the arguments when the family reunites weirdly boring. You can also feel the movie really straining to make you care about the characters; I think like a third of the dialogue is exposition explaining how people got to where they are. There are sweet scenes though.

Over two years actually. Last movie was Far From home which released July 2nd, 2019.

I think Black Widow actually was buoyed by the fact that this was the first MCU movie in so long. There was very little excitement for this movie before crap hit the fan and I think it may have actually bombed like Solo: A Star Wars Story. It was the same sort of situation - both were prequels involving a character that we had already seen die on screen. The only major difference was that ScarJo actually continued to play Natasha and I think people trust the MCU to deliver more than people trusted Star Wars to at that time.

 

[Grabnar]

Over two years actually. Last movie was Far From home which released July 2nd, 2019.

I think Black Widow actually was buoyed by the fact that this was the first MCU movie in so long. There was very little excitement for this movie before crap hit the fan and I think it may have actually bombed like Solo: A Star Wars Story. It was the same sort of situation - both were prequels involving a character that we had already seen die on screen. The only major difference was that ScarJo actually continued to play Natasha and I think people trust the MCU to deliver more than people trusted Star Wars to at that time.

Spoiler: Loki spoilers through newest episode

Do we really expect her to stay dead given the hints towards another Secret War in Loki?

 

[Nick]

Hmm, I checked on Amazon and it has a buy button for Cruella rather than a rent button. In any case, I doubt Disney actively wants people to know they can buy it on Amazon over Disney+.

The real kick in the nuts is that you're paying the same price on Amazon or iTunes to Buy it and you actually OWN it along with the movie extras. With Disney+ Premiere, you don't actually own it (it's pretty much a 90 day rental until it's available to everyone) and you also don't get the movie extras with Premiere Access until it debuts to everyone 90 days later or so on the service at no added cost.

 

[Nick]

Spoiler: Loki spoilers through newest episode

Do we really expect her to stay dead given the hints towards another Secret War in Loki?

But that goes to my point again - Loki hadn't released yet and wouldn't have when this movie was originally supposed to debut. I remember feeling very ambivalent about it and now I was much more excited to see it when I did and since some of my family wanted to see it (but they don't like going to movie theaters), we got it on Disney+ too.

 

[RevFreako]

Disney+ is a huge take, but they do have to ask themselves if there is more money to be had domestically if it’s theatrical only. I’m sure plenty of families of 3+ and people who had their friends over to watch led to a loss of revenue overall. But like you alluded to, would those people have gone to the theater? Not sure…

I think once the pandemic is completely behind us though we will not see Premiere Access on Marvel anymore. Especially given reports that Feige doesn’t want these to be simul-release.

I think you may be right about the big finishers of each phase (The AVENGERS movies in the past) but Disney is still in charge, not Feige.

 

[HalfGlass]

I think you may be right about the big finishers of each phase (The AVENGERS movies in the past) but Disney is still in charge, not Feige.

I know Disney still is in charge which is why Black Widow went to VOD, but there were articles swirling saying Feige was pleading with them to make it theatrical only for a while behind the scenes. Eventually they had no choice but to do simul-release but I think they will be concerned about keeping him happy to some extent.