The outbreak of COVID-19 fundamentally changed the moviegoing experience, but also the distribution model. No longer were major films guaranteed to be released in theaters, because people weren’t taking that risk. Instead, blockbusters were being dropped onto streaming platforms regularly. And one of the major problems to arise from this digital release strategy is that it’s a lot easier for piracy to occur. And boy, did Disney’s Black Widow take a hit.
According to Deadline, Black Widow, which was released both in theaters and streaming on Disney+ Premier Access for $29.99, was pirated approximately 20 million times. No, I didn’t make one of my typical grammatical fuck ups. That’s an actual 20 million. And if you factor that out based on the Disney+ cost, that equates to $600M in lost revenue.
Fuck.
Hey, who wants to pay $29.99 when you can go to some torrent site and get a clear-as-shit 4K version for free?
Of course, this is all an estimate and there’s no way to actually know. But if you took even half that number, $300M, and add it to Black Widow‘s lackluster $379M haul, that gives you $679M and that looks pretty damn good. Scarlett Johansson wouldn’t have needed to hit Disney with that lawsuit asking for her money, either.
So basically, don’t expect Disney to do that streaming shit again unless they absolutely have to.
