Disney looks like it has a production problem. Two highly-anticipated original Marvel series are not going to happen on time. The company announced today the WandaVision will be delayed till 2021. Earlier this week Disney announced that Falcon and The Winter soldier would not launch in August.
Disney+ is not alone in this boat but its problem is other streaming services already had more in the pipe. Plus the Marvel/Avengers related content was a major selling point on the service to begin with along with new Star Wars content.
It’s lack of a large group of new content options rolling out monthly had to be part of the reason that features like Frozen 2 debuted earlier than was initially planned. It’s pushed to bring in other features like Hamilton helps the service but it will not have a Hamilton up at sleeve every month.
Disney does have some aces up its sleeve that could change the whole story of course. That would be two major unreleased movies that should’ve been summer hits. Black Widow and Mulan would have been shown in thousands of theaters across the country where people could escape from the heat and sit in recliner‘s watching an IMAX 3-D and so on. Instead we’ve all been home.
Black Widow to Disney+ rumors have been hot for months but are genuinely unfounded. Sure various YouTube channels will claim that they got the tips from a person who has gotten some other information about one movie last year very accurate and blah blah blah. But that doesn’t make it a legitimate source anymore than so many people who pretended to know the future of Apple TV being integrated it into a television set.
We would argue that Disney+ already has a sweet spot with its content library and the appeal it has with families with kids. But if the network/service wants to be buzzworthy over the next couple of months it might have to take some calculated risks that could affect the box office. The studio has a major pictures scheduled seemingly every single month of the next year but with all of these delays it would mean that Black Widow might have to compete against something like Doctor Strange 2 and I doubt Disney wants to deal with that. The release of even one of the two previously mentioned films would certainly capture the attention of many people and could drive customer growth.
Imagine being told you could pay $20 to watch this movie on Amazon or for 5.99 you can get it and oh nearly all the rest of the Marvel movies. That’s not a bad selling strategy especially if it leads to many many many more subscribers. With sports maybe or maybe not happening, their parks operating at minimal capacity and the box office looking like it’s going to be closed until sometime in 2021, Disney really may have to get creative to keep things going in a positive direction.
