We have no idea how consumers will react to Mulan arriving on PVOD, and Disney’s theatrical event films still aggressively over-perform in U.S. theaters compared to their rivals.
Even before the pandemic caused movie theaters to close worldwide for much of 2020, we didn’t know for sure how well the Disney action drama was going to perform in China. Yes, conventional wisdom suggests “Hey, it’s Mulan, of course it’ll crush it in China!” But as we’ve seen with from (offhand) Crazy Rich Asians, Abominable and The Farewell, films starring Asian actors and telling stories set in and around China don’t automatically catch fire in China. For North American moviegoers, Crazy Rich Asians was a watershed Hollywood moment for onscreen/offscreen representation. For China, it was Tuesday. Under conventional circumstances, it likely would have done “well” but “well” could have been anywhere from $95 million (Detective Pikachu and Wonder Woman) to $155 million (The Great Wall and Kung Fu Panda 3) to $220 million-plus (Ready Player One, Warcraft, Jurassic World, etc.).
Prior to the pandemic, the only hard information we had as to Mulan’s possible global performance was North American box office tracking, where the live-action remake of the 1998 Disney animated feature was expected to open with an $80-$90 million Fri-Sun domestic debut at the end of March. It shows that, if only for massive tentpole flicks like Mulan, movie theaters, even domestic movie theaters, are still of prime importance to Hollywood as a prime revenue generator. For all the talk about overseas box office overtaking the industry, North America is still the key territory. Even when a big movie makes “only” 35% of its global gross in North America, that’s still 1/3 represented by a single territory. With a few exceptions of late, the movies that score overseas (including China) also score in North America.
But otherwise, generally speaking, America still leads the way even when it leads from behind. The three mega-hits I’ve been trotting out as examples of global blockbusters that opened in America well after they opened overseas well in advance, Zootopia ($341 million domestic/$1 billion worldwide), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($417 million/$1.308 billion) and Aquaman ($335 million/$1.148 billion), all still earned their biggest single-territory haul in North America. Yes, Warner Bros. and friends were thrilled when Aquaman earned $298 million in China, but I’d wager they were more thrilled with the $335 million earned in North America since they get to keep 50% of the ticket price instead of 25%. Ditto Sony’s Venom, which earned more in China ($262 million) than North America ($214 million) but was already a huge hit on a $90 million budget before it even opened in China.
The only Transformers movie that was “saved” by China was Bumblebee, the acclaimed, female-centric spin-off flick that earned $171 million of its $467 million cume in China after earning “just” $127 million domestic. Star Trek Beyond earned $60 million in China, which wasn’t enough to make the $185 million sci-fi sequel profitable after earning just $278 million (including $158 million domestic) elsewhere. The $125 million Skyscraper and the $150 million Pacific Rim: Uprising each earned $99 million in China. That wasn’t enough considering the respective $68 million and $59 million domestic take and $305 million and $290 million global grosses. The idea of a big Hollywood blockbuster being “saved” in China is almost non-existent, and it’ll get less likely as Chinese audiences continue to flock to home-grown blockbusters like Wolf Warrior 2, Ne Zha, The Wandering Sky and Monster Hunter.
One big reason why Disney has begun to rule the global box office over the last four years is that their big event flicks tend to vastly over-perform not overseas but in North America. Yes, the Avengers movies are huge in China, with Infinity War earning $359 million in 2018 and Endgame earning $671 million in 2019, but they first earned $679 million and $867 million in North America alone. When you have big movies that earn ridiculous amounts of money in North America, think Finding Dory ($486 million), Beauty and the Beast ($504 million), Incredibles 2 ($608 million), Black Panther ($700 million) and The Force Awakens ($937 million), you’re less likely to be feverishly waiting on an overseas rescue. Would Disney rather have the $190 million that Captain America: Civil War earned in China or the $409 million it earned domestically?
If the revenue earned by a global box office smash could be replicated without movie theaters, Hollywood would have kicked multiplexes to the curb 15 years ago. Theatrical revenue is still the driving factor for big movies. When the studios talk of shorter theatrical windows, whether that’s a good idea or not, they aren’t talking about replacing theaters. They are talking about a theoretical happy medium whereby a movie makes as much as it otherwise would have earned in theaters and still pops up on VOD much sooner than the current 75-105-day gap. That was the “plan” when Universal threatened to offer Tower Heist for $60 after a few weeks of theatrical play in 2011. That’s the play now with Universal’s “we can put this theatrical feature onto PVOD after 17 days if we so choose” deal with AMC.
That Universal went and delayed No Time to Die (which they are distributing overseas) from April to November and then pushed F9, Minions 2 and Halloween Kills a full year implies that they still want those films to play in global theatrical release. Ditto Disney pushing Jungle Cruise a full year and Warner Bros. doing likewise with In the Heights. Ditto Paramount pushing Top Gun: Maverick from June 26 to December 23 to now July 2, 2021. It’s not out of loyalty or respect for the theatrical experience. That Disney twice pushed Mulan with the intent of a full theatrical release before sending it to PVOD (in participating territories) implies that they are looking at this Disney+ release as a temporary solution to a hopefully temporary problem, since their dominance in domestic theaters was until recently their biggest commercial advantage.
Or… I guess they could just buy them outright.
I’ve studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an emphasis in box office analysis, for nearly 30 years. I have extensively written about all
I’ve studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an emphasis in box office analysis, for nearly 30 years. I have extensively written about all of said subjects for the last 11 years. My outlets for film criticism, box office commentary, and film-skewing scholarship have included The Huffington Post, Salon, and Film Threat. Follow me at @ScottMendelson and “like” The Ticket Booth on Facebook.