During todays Disney Investor’s call CEO Bob Chapek was asked about their choice to keep ‘Free Guy’ and ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ as theatrical release only.
To answer the question Chapek indicated that ‘Free Guy’ came from another distribution source as it was part of 20th Century Films that they got with the acquisition of Fox so they can’t really move it much with the contractual issues around it.
It seems that they plan out their release strategy a few months out so they really can’t change the releases on either film.
In regards to ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ they are using it as an ‘experiment’ to see how a 45-day theatrical window ahead of streaming release impacts the box office and it’s performance when it hits streaming. Chapek said he wants to use it as a “data point” to make release decisions moving forward.
So it seems that Disney is using ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ as a guinea pig to see how a strategy works and to gather information moving forward.
Given that the demand doesn’t seem to be there for ‘Shang-Chi’ as other Marvel releases it makes sense they will use it to experiment with. Now it’s just a “data point.”
I just thought it interesting that they flat out said it.
What do you think? Comment and let us know!
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