Black Widow opens in theaters and on Disney Plus simultaneously, for a fee, in July, and this movie feels like it's been out forever. The first trailer dropped back in 2019, and the pandemic has pushed the next Marvel Cinematic Universe movie back on the release schedule for nearly 12 months. Black Widow feels this will be the biggest test of the Disney Plus Premier Access model yet, something that has been tested with Mulan and Raya and the Last Dragon, but not with the blockbuster. -Office as an MCU title. Essentially, though Disney framed the move as "serving the public's changing preferences," that's exactly how the company will know if it can make the same amount of money releasing its movies theatrically as it can through its own business. transmission. This could have a big influence on future decision-making, even if the decision appears to have been made only because cinemas are still closed in many countries. But what do you think of a future where you could pay €30/€20 per movie at home instead of going to the cinema? What should the future of cinema look like? We don't think so. But at least for now, the option is really welcome.
The advantages and disadvantages
(Image credit: Disney/Marvel Studios) Marvel and Disney were destined to reach a point where they finally had to release Black Widow. In fact, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is making progress primarily on television this year through Disney Plus, and the entire business depends on keeping in mind a series of interconnected stories and characters. Every delay or change presumably has a ripple effect on a massive Marvel production schedule.
Black Widow probably had to be released sometime this year, before other shows and movies could be released. This seems especially true of the TV show Hawkeye, which would feature an appearance from Black Widow's Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, and is slated for release later this year. Obviously, the intention is that this character is meant to be introduced to Black Widow before she starts showing up elsewhere.
Not all MCU projects are so intimately linked - not that WandaVision needed Black Widow for any of their stories to make sense - but a possible overlap was a bit inevitable, even though Black Widow is technically defined after Captain America. :Civil War. From a storytelling standpoint, the film's July release probably makes sense.
Now, what about the price of Disney Plus Premier Access? As it is, Raya and Mulan cost $29.99/$19.99/$34.99/$21.99 on top of a Disney Plus membership, and we'd be surprised if Black Widow deviates from that, though Disney has yet to reveal a price.
The value of this will largely depend on the size of your Marvel fan base and how many people you are likely to see the movie with. Families feel like the biggest beneficiaries of this price, and the easy comparison here is the price of theater tickets, which varies wildly depending on where you live. For TechRadar's UK office in Bath, it's over €10 for a single adult ticket at peak times. So two people watching Black Widow together seems pretty reasonable value in comparison, especially since you can rewatch it as many times as you like; and for the whole family, she offers better value for money.
At the end of 2019, the price of theater tickets in the United States was on average just over €9, although again that depends entirely on where you live. If you want to go see The Courier at AMC Porter Ranch 9 in California today, for example, it costs €15.49 for an adult ticket and €12.49 for a child ticket. Compared to that, Black Widow's price doesn't look too bad.
Of course, there are some factors that go beyond simple price comparisons. Paying €30 for Black Widow may seem arbitrary when Pixar's Soul or Hamilton are implemented as part of your basic membership, not to mention WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which are also included and are MCU-quality cinema. shows that it clearly costs a fortune, just like Black Widow.
The logic that Disney would charge more for a movie it spent hundreds of millions of dollars to produce, hoping to recover possibly more than a billion dollars, clearly makes sense.
However, from a consumer perspective, that's a pretty big price difference when the content appears to be of similar quality.
Our opinion? It is not the future that we ultimately want
At the moment, we think it's a very good choice; we would have preferred the chance to see Black Widow last year, when we were particularly bored indoors after theaters closed. It's a solid compromise, though, and fans will still have a chance to see it in theaters. In the long run though, the ritual of going to the theaters is very valuable to us, and while we're happy with the flexibility in this case, the MCU is all about the big screen. Disney referenced the resurgence of the theatrical market in its Black Widow announcement, and while its strategy with Disney Plus releases appears to continue to fluctuate for the foreseeable future, it remains the world's biggest studio in the box. The theatrical experience is also vital here. While we've loved the Disney Plus Marvel shows so far, the big screen is absolutely at the heart of the MCU experience. €30 for Black Widow is fine with us, but that's what we ultimately want to get back to: A streaming service gives you a choice, but it can't.