In another potential blow for theaters comes the mounting proof that people did pay in vast numbers for a streaming delivery of a premiere movie directly into their homes.
Mulan was the sixth most streamed movie in the US, within seven days of it’s release, despite being the only movie in the top ten that had an additional fee payable. The quite hefty fee of $30. All the other entries were included in the subscription price of the service they premiered on.
This is according to Variety reporting data to VIP by ScreenEngine/ASI. With the theater landscape looking bleaker by the day this is sure to make already interested Hollywood studios sit up and take notice. The top ten most streamed movies of 2020 are as follows:
1. Hamilton: The Movie
2. Borat 2: Subsequent Moviefilm
3. My Spy
4. Extraction
5. Phineas & Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe
6. Mulan
7. The Old Guard
8. The Trial of the Chicago 7
9. Roald Dahl’s The Witches (2020)
10. The Lovebirds
The financial implications of this are fascinating with COVID-19 rumbling on.
Bear in mind this is the number of streams within 7 days of release in the USA alone. Hamilton was streamed around 2.5 million times, meaning the number of people who have seen it on TV far exceeds those who have seen it live.
When you go global and extend the time horizon the numbers become truly staggering. Number four on that list, Chris Hemsworth’s action thriller Extraction, was streamed an unbelievable 99 million times globally within the first 4 weeks of release. To put that into context Avengers: Infinity War sold an estimated 100 million tickets worldwide. A mid-budget, straight to streaming movie came within a hairs breadth of getting the same number of eyes on it as the biggest movie of all time.
Yet on the list above it’s only 4th. Run the math on this and you start to get an idea that those Mulan numbers could have been legit, that a premium price will be paid by customers for what they want to see, and make those No Time To Die rumors about the streaming price tag for the service provider seem legit.
