Black Widow cannot offer a closure yet as the Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 4’s first movie received multiple postponements.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe cannot begin its Phase 4 yet due to several cancellations its movies faced. However, a Disney investor suggested putting Black Widow on the streaming platform instead.
Currently, Black Widow will debut on May 7, 2021. This is more than a year compared to its original schedule. This pushed back the next films after the Scarlet Johansson-led film.
Disney decided to cancel its release for now due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, one of the company’s investors is not happy about the decision.
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According to Variety, Dan Loeb, the hedge fund manager for Third Point, suggested having high-profile releases on Disney+ instead.
“What Netflix has is this immense subscriber base that allows it to invest in an enormous amount of content and amortize that to get more subscribers. Disney isn’t there yet, but they need to get there as quickly as possible,” he said.
He further explained that not having enough subscriber base would be a permanent disadvantage of Disney against Netflix.
Loeb placed a $1 billion stake in the company. Thus, he believes that the only way to keep the story going is to release Black Widow on the streaming site instead.
That way, Netflix would not be able to continuously overshadow Disney.
Can MCU films be successful on Disney+?
As of the writing, Disney+ already became the home of several award-winning shows, including The Mandalorian.
The platform currently has 60 million subscribers — falling behind Netflix’s 193 million paid subscribers. For someone with a massive investment like Loeb, he wants to see such a number, as well.
“My understanding is that the old-line executives don’t want to go over the top with their big tentpole movies, which is why they announced they were pushing Black Widow and other movies to 2021,” Loeb went on.
He also predicted that movie theaters would soon become nothing but a novelty experience due to the health crisis. The world will also depend on online distribution to ensure their safety.
What are the Next MCU Films?
Aside from Black Widow, there are a lot of MCU films to look forward to in 2021.
Currently, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and The Eternals have released dates. Meanwhile, other films like the untitled Spider-Man 3 is already underway.
Featured image courtesy of Elen Nivrae, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons