Disney+ Disney+ Streaming Service (Official Thread) (2 Viewers)

[Cranston37+]

I don’t like the precedent this could set. Disney+ is suppose to be an all inclusive subscription service but, not anymore. Send it to Vudu or iTunes if you want to charge $30 extra.

If you were wondering why subscriptions for Disney + were so cheap, this is your answer.

Keep in mind, we don't yet know if a subscription is necessary to pay for the rental. They might just be doing it through their app so they don't have to give 30% to iTunes. I'd imagine if a non-subscriber wanted to pay $29.99 for a rental Disney would happily take it.

 

[Jason_V]

Disney+ never promised first run theatrical films without the theatrical window on its service. This is an outlier, right now. I’m sure they’d very much prefer a traditional theatrical release. Look at it from a money perspective. Selling three tickets for a family of three to the theater generates $45 of ticket sales. Even a rental for as many people as want to watch in your home is a flat $30.

They simply have to have new product out there. I’ve said it this whole time: you can not push every movie to 2021. It’s simply impossible. So we’re seeing new kinds of experiments in the distribution model right now.

 

[Tino]

I would pay $29.99 for a purchase I cared about, but not a rental.

A digital purchase? I would pay that for a physical disc but my limit is $20 for a digital purchase.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

A digital purchase? I would pay that for a physical disc but my limit is $20 for a digital purchase.

I'm even cheaper. My limit for a 4K stream is $10, and $20 for a UHD 4K/UHD disc. This move by Disney isn't for me -- but then I probably wouldn't have watched this new version of Mulan even when it hit Disney+ for free. I haven't seen any of their other live action remakes.

 

[Ejanss]

A digital purchase? I would pay that for a physical disc but my limit is $20 for a digital purchase.

That's part of what ultimately sank Digital Purchase--That, and the fact that if you pay $20 for a movie, you want an Amazon BOX to arrive on your doorstep. Anything else is an app-game purchase.

Universal started the whole "exclusive" thing, but that's because they'd been repeatedly trying to get their foot in the door for "PPV In-home Premieres, day/date with the theater!" for literally 37 years. (Points for whoever can remember the first one, back in 1983.)
They've been slapped with boycotts by the theater chains every time ever since, but that hasn't flagged their optimism, and all that Pandemic-trending interest over Trolls: World Tour gave them a false sense of security.

Disney, OTOH, says they don't want to go Universal's blindly optimistic route, but they do need to get that ticket income to recoup the budgets on Mulan and Marvel's Black Widow.
At least we can be glad they ain't gonna get it from China.

 

[Tino]

That's part of what ultimately sank Digital Purchase--That, and the fact that if you pay $20 for a movie, you want an Amazon BOX to arrive on your doorstep. Anything else is an app-game purchase.

Huh? I don’t get your point.

 

[Ejanss]

Huh? I don’t get your point.

Never mind that the studio Digital industry was starting to get a little too greedy--and never sold us one $15 movie when they could sell us a $49 3 or 6-movie bundle)--most customers agreed that they wouldn't pay $20 for something imaginary that existed somewhere on an Internet server.
For that much money, you want something solid to put on your shelf, or no deal.

(Hence the "App-game" joke, ie. why no one ever pays $40 for "Bonus coins".)

 

[Cranston37+]

A digital purchase? I would pay that for a physical disc but my limit is $20 for a digital purchase.

For a regular release sure, but what we're talking about here is a theatrical release like Mulan. I think it's reasonable to be asked to pay more for that. It would have to be a purchase though, not a rental.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Universal started the whole "exclusive" thing, but that's because they'd been repeatedly trying to get their foot in the door for "PPV In-home Premieres, day/date with the theater!" for literally 37 years. (Points for whoever can remember the first one, back in 1983.)

Pirates of Penzance.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I don’t want to pay $20 for a rental so I won’t be paying Disney’s $30. This is just one more example of the company’s greed.

 

[TravisR]

I don’t want to pay $20 for a rental so I won’t be paying Disney’s $30. This is just one more example of the company’s greed.

To be fair, the movie had to cost at least $100 million to make and they also spent at least tens of millions on a marketing campaign for its abandoned March release. It's not unreasonable for them to want a return on that investment since they, like every studio in history, are only in it for the money. Giving the movie away on DIsney + isn't going to make that money back.

 

[Cranston37+]

To be fair, the movie had to cost at least $100 million to make and they also spent at least tens of millions on a marketing campaign for its abandoned March release. It's not unreasonable for them to want a return on that investment since they, like every studio in history, are only in it for the money. Giving the movie away on DIsney + isn't going to make that money back.

Oh even worse than that - $200mil for production alone. They're not in profit mode here, they're in get-back-as-much-as-we-can mode.

That's not greed.

 

[TonyD]

They are in get back what they can mode but sometime you need to price to sell not price to sit on the shelf.

 

[Cranston37+]

They are in get back what they can mode but sometime you need to price to sell not price to sit on the shelf.

And maybe that comes after a few weeks if they don't sell as many as they hoped. But you don't start low. You start high and go down.

 

[justarandomstan]

Some of you guys are missing the point. This is not a 24 hour rental like Trolls 2 or Scoob. You get to keep it on your account and watch it whenever. Considering that it might take a while for it to hit the service as a library title, the price makes sense to me.

The movie was projected to make serious box office numbers globally and it's a first run blockbuster title, unlike Artemis Fowl which was 'eh' at best.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Some of you guys are missing the point. This is not a 24 hour rental like Trolls 2 or Scoob. You get to keep it on your account and watch it whenever. Considering that it might take a while for it to hit the service as a library title, the price makes sense to me.

The movie was projected to make serious box office numbers globally and it's a first run blockbuster title, unlike Artemis Fowl which was 'eh' at best.

That’s news to me. I thought it was rental only. One more thing: I dislike buying a movie for $30.

 

[Jason_V]

That’s news to me. I thought it was rental only. One more thing: I dislike buying a movie for $30.

This was clarified by Disney yesterday or the day before. It is not a rental.

 

[Cranston37+]

I just looked back at my e-mailed receipt for the last time I purchased a movie ticket and it was No Time to Die at the beginning of March, before all hell broke loose.

After fees, taxes, etc I paid $18.84 for the ticket.

You can't watch a movie like that without a few munchies, right? Now it varies depending on what you get, the size, etc. but let's budget for that $20.

Now I'm a Bond fan and I know I will want to own the movie, so I have to pre-order the iTunes copy. A 4K title from MGM could be $24 (the disc sure would be) but let's be generous and call it $20.

The total I'm at for one movie is $58.84.

Instead, what if I choose the $29.99 at home route? I'm sitting in my comfortable living room. I have friends over. I have one of those vintage popcorn poppers with oil, flavacol, etc. It's a Bond movie and I have everything you need for a Vesper so we would have to have some of those. And if they use a model of purchase not rental (and I don't mean a Mulan style purchase but I real purchase) I walk away with a 4K copy.

And that's not counting the fact that my friends aren't jerks and are probably going to Apple Pay me $10 to chip in whether I want them to or not. If 3 of us then only put in $10ea, that turned out to be a really great deal!

THAT is why if the movie interested me enough to not wait for sale pricing or even it to show up on a streaming service, $29 seems absolutely fine to me.

Now don't make me break down the costs for a family of 4 and a couple of their friends going to a Disney movie...

 

[Johnny Angell]

This was clarified by Disney yesterday or the day before. It is not a rental.

Ok, if it’s not a rental, I suspect after buying, you won’t be able to watch it without a Disney+ subscription. If that’s true, it’s not a full-fledged purchase.

Here’s a link to Time about this issue. It does make me a tik more sympathetic to Disney but a whole lot more sympathetic to theaters. https://time.com/5876062/mulan-30-d...he-brief&utm_content=20200806&et_rid=31825996

PS-there’s nothing political in the link.

 

[Jason_V]

Ok, if it’s not a rental, I suspect after buying, you won’t be able to watch it without a Disney+ subscription. If that’s true, it’s not a full-fledged purchase.

Here’s a link to Time about this issue. It does make me a tik more sympathetic to Disney but a whole lot more sympathetic to theaters. https://time.com/5876062/mulan-30-d...he-brief&utm_content=20200806&et_rid=31825996

PS-there’s nothing political in the link.

You are correct. If you buy, you'll have it as long as you have a D+ sub. In all likelihood this is a way for Disney to keep more of the revenue for themselves vs. having to share with iTunes or any other provider. Which I'm fine with, honestly. Everyone has to make money somehow and if Disney is smart enough to figure out how to do this through their own portal, so much the better. Having purchases across a dozen platforms has always been confusing at best.

As noted earlier, the national theater org knew about this plan and apparently has no problem with it.