After waiting for more than a year, Black Widow was finally released this weekend across the world, except for China. The film was released simultaneously in both theatres and on Disney+, as studios gradually shift to streaming to make up for lost revenues from theatre closures worldwide.
Disney gloriously announced that the film made more than $218 million worldwide. But a closer look at the numbers reveals something different: Black Widow’s earnings from theatres were $158 million while Disney piled on $60 million from paid watching sessions on its streaming service, Disney+. Of the $158 million total theatrical revenue, $80 million came from the US while $78 million came from the rest of the world. It is important to point out that there is no release date for Black Widow in China as of today.
Black Widow’s box office comparison to other MCU features
Safe to say, Black Widow’s box office numbers are not at an Avengers level gross. They are neither Thor nor Guardians of the Galaxy level grosses either. Black Widow’s numbers are, in fact, more comparable to the Ant-Man films. Both Ant-Man and Black Widow had similar US opening weekends of between 70-80 million dollars. Comparing the film to Ant-Man, Black Widow is expected to have a similar final box office tally in the vicinity of 500 million USD.
The film is expected to decline around 65 percent in its second weekend. In addition, another cause for concern is that the film was simultaneously released on streaming as well. With people still not comfortable rushing to theatres, it can be predicted that most potential viewers will prefer to watch the film on streaming rather than on a large screen. Furthermore, the film’s release on streaming also results in piracy concerns. Pristine copies of the film hit the internet as soon as the film’s release on streaming and this may eat into the box office grosses of the film as well.
Black Widow Combining Streaming and Theatrical Revenue
Disney did an interesting thing with Black Widow’s opening weekend box office numbers. Normally, they would have reported the domestic total plus the international market total. However, this time, they also added streaming revenue to this list. Black Widow was available to all Disney+ subscribers the same day it was released in theatres for an additional fee of $30 and Disney pulled a fast one by including $60million from streaming revenue into the total as well.
Box office analysts were quick to point out that was cheating as Disney was trying to inflate the film’s performance for its stockholders. Arguments on the other end of the spectrum noted that these were unprecedented times and streaming had indeed replaced much of the theatrical experience so it made sense to include streaming numbers into the total as well.
However we may cut the numbers, what is clear is that Black Widow has made around $158 million from theatres around the globe and another $60 million from streaming. While this is on the lower side, even for Marvel movies, we must remember that the theatrical experience is not fully back. With a huge proportion of Asia and Latin America still closed to movies, Black Widow has easily had the best post-pandemic debut of all films released since March 2020. It will be interesting to see how this Marvel film performs in what are essentially unprecedented times for theatres and film studios.