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'Mulan' for $30? Disney Makes Big Premium On-Demand Bet - Hollywood Reporter
Aug 12, 2020 1 min, 35 secs
4 said it would release the live-action remake on Disney+ beginning Sept.

Like Universal, which signed an unprecedented pact with AMC Theatres on July 28 to create a 17-day PVOD window, Disney is experimenting with top-tier pricing for home viewing as the pandemic wears on.

While Chapek told investors Mulan is a "one-off," he also said it's a prime opportunity to test the appetite for PVOD.

LightShed media analyst Rich Greenfield questions how many people will shell out a premium to watch Mulan upon release, especially since the film, which has a PG-13 rating, "skews older" than other Disney titles, so it mighty not appeal to families with young kids.

After Disney said Mulan was headed to the streamer, interest in seeing it among a nationally representative sample of 2,200 adults shot up by 11 percentage points compared to early June, when the film was still planned for a theatrical release.

About 19 percent of Disney+ subscribers surveyed in the poll said they'd be "very interested" in purchasing Mulan, with another 23 percent saying they'd be "somewhat interested" in buying the title.

One benefit to debuting the film on the Disney+ platform for PVOD is that Disney can bypass marketplaces like iTunes and Amazon Prime to keep more of the profits.

Figuring out how Mulan needs to perform on PVOD to break even is a complicated calculation given a number of factors, including the fact that the film still will play in some markets on the big screen — including China.

Greenfield suggests that Mulan, if it were only a global PVOD release on Disney+, would need to sell 29 million units to equal $1 billion in global box office grosses.

That estimate, however, excludes theatrical revenue from the markets where it can play in cinemas; the benefit of drawing new Disney+ subscribers; and the potential to monetize by windowing Mulan on third-party PVOD platforms.

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