Take this with a pretty hefty amount of salt, but Disney might’ve scored huge by releasing Mulan on Disney+. It was a huge risk to take a sure-fire blockbuster and offer it as a PVOD option for $30, with many complaining about the cost and that it will be free after only a few months. But according to analyst data reported on by Yahoo, Disney will be very happy with the results and it could lead to more.
Based on analyst data, Mulan was purchased by 29% of U.S. households that subscribe to Disney+. This is during the period of its release on September 3rd until September 12th. About half of Disney+ subscribers reside in the U.S., which equates to about 30 million people. That means about Mulan was bought by about 9 million people overall, and if you do the math that equates to about $261M.
That’s a lot of cheddar for the Mouse House.
This looks SUPER UGLY for Warner Bros. and the release of Tenet. Ignoring the worldwide grosses and just looking domestic, that gigantic film has only done $29M of business since opening in theaters. Sure, it’ll hang around forever and should be available widely in the two biggest markets soon, but if Disney can boast doing $261M on Mulan through digital, meaning they reap virtually all of the revenue with no theater split, well, it’s just an embarrassing comparison.
Keep in mind these numbers aren’t official, though. They could be way off in either direction. It’s possible Mulan did even better, too. But analysts do what they do for a reason and we can probably guess the data is somewhat accurate.
Just think, though. If Disney can draw money like this for Mulan, what’s keeping them from doing the same for Black Widow?
