Duncan Lay: Cinema will pay ultimate price for Disney ploy
Disney’s plan to release the much-anticipated movie Mulan on Disney+ — as long as you sign up for a monthly subscription and then pay an extra $US29.99 — will only cripple the movie industry even further and we shouldn’t fall for it, Duncan Lay writes.
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This week I have been battling an eye infection that has seen my eye running faster than a Chinese swimmer when the drug testers come calling.
So obviously I have to be careful about what I watch.
And that motto is especially true when it comes to the news that Disney has a plan to extort even more money out of families.
It has been sitting on the live action remake of Mulan for months now, thanks to COVID-19. This was supposed to be released in March, then in July, then in August and now … well, now they have a different plan.
The idea is to release the movie on Disney+ first. But there’s a catch. Not only do you have to pay the Disney+ monthly subscription but you have to pay $US29.99 (and probably more in Aussie dollars when they finally tell us the regional pricing) to see the movie.
I know that families are starved of content, that nobody knows when the cinemas will be back in full swing and the price of popcorn is extortionate.
But, on behalf of movie-lovers everywhere, I implore every parent not to get sucked in and pay the extra to see Mulan.
Disney is saying this is a one-off and not all of its movies will be released this way. That it’s more likely that you’d see an elephant fly than Disney abandon the traditional movie release model.
Who do they think we are? A load of Dumbos?
Disney just has to get half of its worldwide subscribers to buy Mulan and the movie makes about a billion dollars.
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And that’s not like making a billion at the box office, where you have to share the money with the cinemas. They get it all. Plus a likely bump in subscriber numbers as non-subscribers jump on board to watch this much-anticipated movie.
That’s a river of gold running straight into Disney’s pockets. Their accountants will be rolling in the stuff like Scrooge McDuck on payday.
And, if it works for Mulan, why not do it for all their subsequent Marvel and Star Wars movies? Why put something on at the cinemas at all? By using Disney+, they make more money and force more of us to buy the subscription service at the same time.
Naturally every other movie house is going to want to jump on board, either by starting their own subscription service or partnering with an existing one. In next to no time, the cinema will be dead.
And while they will initially tell us: “It’s less than the cost of a family trip to the movies!” that’s about as realistic as a bunch of talking animals that do the housework for you.
We’ll be paying out for so many subscription services that it’ll cost us far more in the end.
Disney movies often portray plucky bands standing up to powerful bullies. It’s time to act that out in real life. We have the power to stop them. Don’t pay the extra for Mulan.
Force them to put everything back into the cinemas with the only thing that they care about — the bottom line.
Otherwise we’ll be getting the bum deal.
Originally published as Duncan Lay: Cinema will pay ultimate price for Disney ploy