Presuming this is accurate, it's about tied with the film's projected $80 million-$90 million domestic debut tracking back in March, since Disney doesn't have to split ticket sales 50/50 with theaters. That's good. 1/11 https://twitter.com/Great_Katzby/status/1303452836529930243

But it can be argued that the majority of folks who were going to lease MULAN between now and December 4 (when it becomes free on Disney+) did so last weekend. If I'm wrong and the film has a normal 3x multiplier, then it gets 3.36 million rentals at $30 for around $101 million.

That would be the equivalent of $200 million in domestic theatrical grosses, which was a plausible endpoint ($80 million x 2.9x = $232 million) and on par with CINDERELLA and OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL. That would be a win. However...

If the majority of folks that were going to lease MULAN actually did so in the last weekend, then this isn't exactly a barn-burning result for the $200 million action movie. That said, if everyone who signed up for Disney+ over the weekend sticks around, that's a win too.

No, this probably isn't a number so big that they race SOUL and BLACK WIDOW onto the same path, but nor is it immediate egg on the face. The film still has conventional theatrical releases in various overseas territories, including China, although it's not tracking huge anywhere.

That being said, TROLLS 2 earned $95 million in rentals in the first 19 days, which by itself was about on par with the $93 million 17-day cume earned by TROLLS just in domestic theaters in 2016. More importantly, it stuck around at/near the top of the VOD lists all summer.

Presuming the majority of viewers accessed MULAN straight through Disney+ (100% of the profits) versus other VOD platforms (80% of the platforms), Disney gets most of the profits and viewership data, which itself is pretty valuable for the future.

The release was never about "We're going to get ten million people to rent MULAN on opening weekend and completely negate the need for theaters!" It was Disney trading less money now instead of more money later, in exchange for a look at how this kind of PVOD release might work.

Global theatrical release, as it existed prior to COVID, is still the distribution system that allows $150-$250 million movies to make lots of money in that first and still most important window. Again, if studios could afford to ditch theaters, they would have 15 years ago.

Could this PVOD system be viable for a lower-budget release like HAMILTON? I suppose, but the catch 22 is that MULAN (or SOUL) was/would be a big deal as a PVOD title *because* it was a destined-for-theaters $200 million tent pole. Otherwise, it's just LADY AND THE TRAMP.

Barring variables, Disney isn't going to walk away from movie theaters, a distribution outlet where MULAN likely would have earned around $450-$850 million worldwide, anytime soon for a PVOD platform that likely netted an opening weekend of around $35 million. 11/11