Disney Investor Wants Upcoming 'Black Widow' To Skip Theaters

Many big movie releases have been affected by the global health crisis. Although many movie theaters have reopened, movie audiences aren’t flocking to the theaters as they once were.

Black Widow ©Disney

One of the movies affected by this crisis is Marvel’s Black Widow, which was initially scheduled to release earlier this year. However, the film’s theatrical release was delayed until November but then delayed again until May 2021.

MovieWeb reports that at least one Disney investor, Dan Loeb, believes that Disney should forego a Black Widow theatrical release altogether, and instead, put the film on Disney+. Loeb believes this would assure more subscribers to Disney+ and put the streaming service in a better position to compete with Netflix.

Black Widow @Marvel

He said, “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. If they don’t get critical mass in their subscriber base, they will be permanently disadvantaged versus Netflix.”

©Marvel Studios

Loeb previously made a statement about how Disney should cancel its dividend and go all in with its streaming service, and his new remarks double-down on why he thinks that streaming is the future of the company’s entertainment model.

Black Widow ©Marvel

Loeb also believes that movie theaters will become nothing more than a “novelty experience” after the global health crisis passes, especially now that many movie theater chains are reporting huge losses. He believes that the future of entertainment lies with online distribution.