By With theaters closed around the world, the film industry is in a precarious place. Now that numerous companies decided to postpone their releases or release their movies straight to digital streaming services, companies are scrambling to find some way to turn a profit. No company is currently hurting more than Disney, who had to reschedule their releases for both Mulan and Black Widow, while their early March release Onward went to digital storefronts for a whopping $20. With theaters vocally upset about this decision, through extensive journalism, we are able to confirm that Disney has decided to take a new, unorthodox approach to releasing their movies that is sure to please no one except Disney executives and stockholders.
Disney will announce tomorrow that they will be having door-to-door salesmen knock on people’s houses and offer to screen the movies in the comfort of your own living room. Now you may be asking yourself why Disney wouldn’t just release them on Disney+? I was able to determine this through carrier pigeon interceptions from the new Disney CEO, Bob Chapek, and some mysterious third party, most likely MCU head Kevin Feige. “While Disney+ continues to be a viable source of income,” the intercepted message read from Chapek, “we simply can’t make any more money from it. Once you buy it, that’s it! We needed to make more money because we’re incredibly worried about Disney going bankrupt during these hard economic times. We want to reframe ourselves as a small local business in danger of shutting down. That’ll rake up the sympathy!”
The plan, which was drawn on a napkin that had ketchup stains, states that a Disney World or Land employee, alongside two armed people dressed in Mickey Mouse outfits, will knock on every house in America asking if residents would like to have early access to screeners of either Mulan or Black Widow. Each screener will cost $29.99 per person and will be shown on a bootleg DVD labelled Mars Needs Moms to ensure that no one will steal it out of curiosity. The DVD version of the movies would be based on the cuts that were shown in Bob Chapek’s living room as he recorded them on his cellphone, complete with shaky camera, screen glare, uncomfortable shots of his feet, and a dog walking across hisliving room.
A word of caution though: once you have invited the Disney employees into your house, they will confiscate your phones and will only announce the total cost once the movie concludes. For Black Widow, they will pause the movie before reaching the post credits scenes. The employees will not be accepting debit or credit, but cash only. If you do not have cash available, the two hired Mickey goons will proceed to break your DVD player, force you to watch Mars Needs Moms, steal your toilet paper, and eat your fruit. For the record, pets will also count as a “person” and will be required to pay $29.99. God help you if you have an aquarium.
Now I’ve always been critical of Disney, but it seems like the company is taking several bold steps if these plans are to be believed. Not only will this harm theaters by missing out on two of the biggest movies of the season, but I take umbridge with them stealing my strawberries! Unfortunately, I can easily see Disney faithful welcoming this with open arms as long as they can maintain their daily requisite of Disney content and call Disney “progressive” as a result. It’s a dangerous precedent if this takes hold and I’m afraid to see what other companies would do if this catches on.
