MCU Suffers As Black Widow Has Steepest 2nd Weekend Box Office Drop

Natasha Romanoff’s swan song for the MCU came with Black Widow’s release on July 9, after being delayed for more than a year due to the pandemic.

Black Widow was initially supposed to be the first project on MCU’s Phase 4 slate. However, Phase 4 began with the Disney+ series, WandaVision.

Disney decided to take a different approach for Black Widow by having a theatrical release as well as PVOD. This is a convenient move for people who aren’t willing to leave their homes to go to a packed movie theatre yet, but not so much for the box-office revenue.

According to Deadline, Black Widow had the biggest opening weekend of the pandemic with $80 million domestic. However, it had a massive fall on its second weekend at the domestic box office, down -67%, with $26.25M.

The film lost its No. 1 spot to Space Jam: A New Legacy, which opened to $31.65M. The 10-day box office for Black Widow is at $132M in the US, with $132M overseas and a total of $264M.

The film surpassed Ant-Man and the Wasp (-62%) to become the steepest second-weekend drop ever for a Disney-distributed MCU film.

Last weekend, Black Widow had a $60M worldwide debut on the streaming side, with a heavy percent leaning toward US-based purchases.

So naturally, one would expect that Disney+ Premier might cover for this huge drop, right? Well, we couldn’t possibly know as the studio did not report an update on Disney+ Premier results.

While Disney says that this theatrical & day-and-date strategy is due to the pandemic, many in the industry are concerned that this might widely influence how the movies will be distributed moving forward.

The Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt starrer Jungle Cruise, debuting on July 30, will also follow the same strategy.

Theater owners have also blamed Walt Disney Co. for this decision and the National Association of Theater Owners had a press release saying that Black Widow suffered a ‘collapse in its second weekend.’

Despite assertions that this pandemic-era improvised release strategy was a success for Disney and the simultaneous release model, it demonstrates that an exclusive theatrical release means more revenue for all stakeholders in every cycle of the movie’s life.

Another problem with having movies available for VOD and streaming so early on is that there’s a greater loss of revenue due to piracy. Black Widow doesn’t have a release date for China yet, but the piracy has cost the studios a $200M box office loss.

The report also mentions that Black Widow was the most-pirated movie last week and might be the most-pirated title during the pandemic, surpassing Wonder Woman 1984.

About Black Widow

Black Widow is an upcoming American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is intended to be the 24th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Directed by Cate Shortland and written by Eric Pearson, the movie stars Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff alongside Florence Pugh, David Harbour, O-T Fagbenle, William Hurt, Ray Winstone, and Rachel Weisz.

It will be the first film in Phase Four of the MCU, and was delayed three times from an original May 2020 release date due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Disney confirms Marvel Studios’ Black Widow will release on Disney+ for no extra cost to existing subscribers after its Premier Access release, October 6.

The film follows Natasha Romanoff as she confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

Source: Deadline