--- title: Mulan's $30 Disney+ Release: What It Means for Other Movies description: Disney announced it would release Mulan on Sept. 4 on its streaming service for an extra $30. Here's what the move signals about future blockbusters. canonical: https://time.com/5876062/mulan-30-disney-plus-impact/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-08-05T21:56:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:55:50.204Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: What Disney's $30 Mulan Price Tag Might Mean for Other Blockbusters og:description: Disney announced it would release 'Mulan' on Sept. 4 on its streaming service for an extra $30. Here's what the move signals about future blockbusters og:url: https://time.com/5876062/mulan-30-disney-plus-impact/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6c1325376337522d/698a110b97cdff41c66bb04c/AP20178660004796.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Film Mulan release og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Disney's $30 Mulan Price Tag Might Mean for Other Blockbusters twitter:description: Disney announced it would release 'Mulan' on Sept. 4 on its streaming service for an extra $30. Here's what the move signals about future blockbusters twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6c1325376337522d/698a110b97cdff41c66bb04c/AP20178660004796.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Disney Wants You to Pay $30 to Watch _Mulan_ From Home. What Does This Mean for Other Upcoming Blockbusters?  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Aug 5, 2020 9:56 PM UTC  This image released by Disney shows Yifei Liu in the title role of "Mulan." This image released by Disney shows Yifei Liu in the title role of "Mulan."Disney Enterprises, Inc. via AP  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Aug 5, 2020 9:56 PM UTC Audiences are finally going to get to see the live-action _Mulan_ remake. But it won’t exactly be cheap. The film was originally scheduled to release in March but was repeatedly delayed as Disney hoped to wait out the worst of the COVID-19 crisis. Many prognosticators (including this one) assumed that Disney would never drop such a highly-anticipated, potentially lucrative release on its streaming service, Disney+. But we are living through desperate times, and it’s clear that theaters in major American markets will not be opening in any significant way in the coming months. So now Disney has become the first studio to release a truly massive film originally set for theaters onto a streaming platform. Families will need to have a Disney+ subscription ($6.99 per month) and pay $29.99 on top of that to watch the movie when it drops on Sept. 4\. The film will debut in theaters outside of the U.S. in countries where cinemas are open, including China. In the past several months, some studios have abandoned plans for a theatrical rollout and put lower-budget films like _King of Staten Island_ (which cost $20 million) and _Trolls: World Tour_ (which cost a still significant $90 million) on streaming services for $20\. For many, $30 sounds relatively steep in comparison. But _Mulan_ cost $200 million to make and was [likely to be](https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2020/01/03/wonder-woman-mulan-james-bond-fast-and-furious-minions-eternals-conjuring-venom-birds-of-prey-biggest-box-office-2020/#5fea633c1810) one of the biggest grossers of 2020. Disney CEO Bob Chapek said on an earnings call Tuesday that Disney is “looking at _Mulan_ as a one-off,” not a new business model. But if the pandemic wears on and theaters remain closed, it’s hard to imagine studios holding onto films indefinitely. At some point, they will need an income stream, and Disney has now set the possible price for movies like _No Time to Die_ and _Wonder Woman 1984_, should their studios decide on a streaming release. That’s bad news for movie theaters who are already in [dire straits financially](https://variety.com/2020/film/news/movie-theaters-debt-coronavirus-amc-regal-1234697721/). Here’s how to make sense of the _Mulan_ news, and what it could mean for the future of movies. ## $30 sounds outrageous. But the math makes sense  lou Yifei in Mulan Disney Doing some back-of-the-napkin math, that hefty price tag is actually pretty reasonable. The average cost for a single movie ticket in America is $9.26—and that’s before parking and popcorn. Charging $30 for a family of four to watch a new big-budget film an unlimited number of times from the comfort of their own home is, relatively speaking, a deal. And then there’s Disney’s own internal calculus. _Mulan_ reportedly cost about $200 million to make. A recent not-very-scientific but still helpful [_Variety_ poll](https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1290763398045564929) asked Twitter users how many people would actually pay $30 for the live-action _Mulan_ movie on top of their Disney+ subscription. Only 14.7% answered yes. That doesn’t sound like a lot of people. But let’s say that about 15% of Dinsey+’s 60 million subscribers pay $30 each to watch _Mulan_. Disney grosses about $270 million from those purchases alone. Add to that theater ticket sales in countries where movie theaters are actually open. That’s not exactly an _Avengers: Endgame_\-level victory for Disney, but the studio will almost certainly recoup on its investment at a time when most studios are bleeding money. Disney could really use that win right now. The announcement about _Mulan’_s Disney+ debut largely overshadowed the other bombshell piece of news from Disney’s investor call: The company’s lucrative parks division has taken a $3.5 billion hit since the pandemic began. Overall, revenue at Disney fell over 40% in the third quarter. And the future does not look bright: Disney’s theme parks—their big moneymaker—are either closed or operating at an extremely limited capacity. It’s not clear when the parks can safely welcome massive crowds again. They need to find a shorter-term revenue stream somewhere. ## This could be a test balloon for future blockbuster streaming releases  Trailer for Pixar's Soul Pixar Studios like Disney depend heavily on the theatrical experience. Their franchise films, from _Avengers_ to _Star Wars_, are expensive spectacles designed to be seen on the big screen opening weekend, lest you overhear a spoiler in the office Monday morning or run across one on social media. Offering their most expensive movies on streaming services would undercut the very nature of an event film. Right now studios like Disney want to communicate to audiences that movies like _Mulan_ have value—more value than a Netflix movie. It’s unclear whether consumers will buy that argument. It reportedly cost $200 million to produce _Mulan_. Michael Bay’s _Six Underground_ [reportedly cost](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/6-underground-viewed-by-83-million-members-netflix-says-1271794) $150 million, but the action movie was included with the price of a Netflix subscription. Netflix has announced even bigger-budget movies for the future, including an [action flick](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a31260823/dwayne-johnson-netflix-movie-red-notice/#:~:text=Dwayne%20'the%20Rock'%20Johnson%20has,and%20Deadpool's%20Ryan%20Reynolds.) starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and a _James Bond_\-esque [franchise](https://deadline.com/2020/07/netflix-the-gray-man-ryan-gosling-chris-evans-joe-russo-anthony-russo-directing-1202987267/) starring Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling from the directors of _Avengers: Endgame_. Disney would argue that it creates, on average, better products than streaming services like Netflix, regardless of budget. But is the quality of _Mulan_ so much better than the quality of _Six Underground_ that it’s worth paying significantly more to see it? Consumers will have to take a chance to find out. It’s unlikely that Disney built the module that would allow users to pay for a movie within the Disney+ app for _Mulan_ alone. It’s possible that films like _Black Widow_ and _Soul_, which were supposed to debut in theaters this year, could see a similar rollout on the streaming platform. Other studios may follow Disney’s lead. At the beginning of the pandemic, it seemed ludicrous that movies like _Wonder Woman_ _1984_, _No Time to Die_ or _Dune_ might go straight to a streamer or VOD. But there’s also no obvious end-date to theater closures in the United States. _Tenet_, which Hollywood had [pinned its hopes](https://time.com/5869038/tenet-movie-theaters-reopening/) on being the first movie to reopen American theaters, will now release overseas in September and arrive in a limited capacity in the U.S. at the relatively small number of drive-in theaters that are currently serving small audiences. That doesn’t exactly paint a bright picture for the near-term future of the American theatergoing experience. We may end up watching some of these movies from our couches, and the cost will likely be determined by _Mulan’s_ success. ## It’s bad news for movie theaters  A hand-written letter by a Movie-Goer hangs on the window of an AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. movie theater in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., on Monday, June 8, 2020. Andrew Harrer—Bloomberg via Getty Images. Disney’s decision to release _Mulan_ on VOD at all is a major blow to movie theaters who were looking forward to selling tickets to that film in order to stay afloat, whether that meant selling relatively few seats in 2020 or a massive hit in 2021\. “Every exhibitor I have contact with feels like this is a sucker punch to the gut,” Doug Stone, president of Box Office Analyst, [told](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/mulan-skipping-theaters-is-a-big-blow-to-cinema-owners-bottom-line.html) CNBC. The _Mulan_ news comes on the heels of the announcement that Universal and AMC [came to a deal](https://variety.com/2020/film/news/amc-universal-deal-entertainment-industry-future-1234718942/) last week that will allow Universal to move their movies to VOD 17 days after they premiere in theaters, a much shorter timespan than the previously agreed-upon 75 to 90 days. The sooner movies end up on streamers, the less incentive there will be for audiences to leave their houses, even once the pandemic ends. Movie theaters have been losing major ground during the pandemic—and they just lost even more. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5876062/mulan-30-disney-plus-impact/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5876062/mulan-30-disney-plus-impact/"},"headline":"Disney Wants You to Pay $30 to Watch Mulan From Home. What Does This Mean for Other Upcoming Blockbusters?","datePublished":"2020-08-05T21:56:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:55:50.204Z","description":"Disney announced it would release Mulan on Sept. 4 on its streaming service for an extra $30. 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