Disney reportedly lost over $600 million from piracy on Black Widow, with its Disney+ Premier Access release making illegal distribution of the film much easier.
Disney reportedly lost $600 million on Black Widow due to piracy. Black Widow was the first new film in Marvel Studios' Phase 4 plans. Originally set to open in theaters on May 1, 2020, the film was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film takes place between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War and fleshes out Black Widow's history as well as introduces new characters to the MCU, like Yelena Belova.
After a year-long delay, Black Widow finally hit theaters on July 9, 2021, as well as hitting Disney+ Premier Access on the same day. Black Widow scored the biggest opening weekend of the pandemic at the time with $80 million domestically and an additional $60 million on Disney+. However, the film had a massive second-weekend drop at the box office of 68%, and just two weeks after its release was reportedly the most pirated film of the pandemic era.
According to Deadline, Disney reportedly paid a very heavy price for putting Black Widow on Disney+ as it became easy to put clean pirated copies in several languages online. Sources close to Deadline informed them that by August Black Widow had reportedly been pirated more than 20 million times. With the Disney+ Premier Access cost being $30, that is an estimated $600 million in lost revenue from PVOD alone.
Making Black Widow available to stream when it was still in theaters was a controversial move, one that resulted in Scarlett Johansson filing a lawsuit against Disney. Johansson claimed that the studio sacrificed the film’s box office potential in order to grow Disney+ streaming service numbers, and now it seems there was a lot of truth to that claim.
As a new year begins, many of the major studios are returning to a theatrical exclusive release plan for their films, but now with a shortened 45-day theatrical window. While piracy has been a major concern of the film industry for years, 2021 may be the ultimate proof that the short-term benefits of a big release in theaters and PVOD may not outweigh the long-term financial benefits of keeping a film exclusively in theaters.
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