Hamilton premiered on Disney+ Friday, July 3rd, and over the weekend it was a huge draw for the streaming platform.

According to Variety “From Friday through Sunday, the Disney Plus app was downloaded 513,323 times globally, including 266,084 times in the U.S., according to analytics firm Apptopia.”

That breaks down to mean that the total downloads on the Disney+ streaming service were about 72.4% higher than average of all the weekends in June 2020 (during comparable Friday-Sunday times.) Of course this doesn’t count the number of people who watched the film on smart TVs, like we did. So it’s likely a much higher number than 72.4%.

Worldwide Apptopia indicated that the Disney+ app downloads (in countries that offered the Disney+ app) were 46.6% higher than the average.

It seems that many people did in fact watched the film version of the hit Broadway musical over the holiday weekend. Which is a win for Disney who paid a whopping $75 million for the streaming rights back in February 2020.

The version on Disney+ was filmed with the original cast including: “Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Daveed Diggs, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jonathan Groff, Christopher Jackson, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos, and Phillipa Soo.” Filming took place with six-cameras back in 2016.

Tommy Kail directed both the Broadway stage version and the film version. It’s unclear whether or not Disney will still move forward with their plan to release Hamilton to theaters in October 2021.

But Disney likely won’t lose much, even if they only put it on Disney+.

In preparation for the event Disney even cancelled it’s 7-day free trial offer it had been using since the launch in November 2019. If you want to watch you need to at least pay for a month of service at $6.99, or a year subscription at $69.99.  How many people will stay after July is unknown. I’m sure many will just subscribe to see the film and cancel, and Disney gets $6.99 each time that someone subscribes just to watch Hamilton, however, that’s a far cry from movie ticket prices for a family to see it in the theaters. I am interested to see how this pans out for them.

The Walt Disney company has been struggling this year due to the closure of both the theme parks and the movie theaters. They are their two biggest revenue sources, but Disney+ has seen an increase due to the pandemic shut-downs across the globe. Of course it isn’t enough to stop the companies financial issues and losses from the months of closure, but it is enough to give them a bit of incoming revenue during this time.

What do you think? Did you watch the film?

Comment and let us know!

Source: Variety