Since early June, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has been aware that director Craig Gillespie’s Cruella, starring Emma Stone, is being pirated on Blu-ray at multiple sites. How do we know that? We told them.
They don’t care. It has become painfully obvious that the studio is all-in on the Disney+ streaming platform. With 116 million subscribers, it’s hard to say that they are wrong … but is this the apex? What follows, 120 million … or the long decline?
Within hours of a major theatrical release rolling out to theatres nationwide and debuting on Disney+ — on a day/date basis — a pristine film master is literally available for certain online “retailers” (they don’t call themselves Black Beard or Long John Silver, but you get the idea) to begin serving up Blu-ray editions (and DVD, although Blu-ray manufactured on-demand seems to be the mainstay of such activities these days) of the latest big-budget theatrical release.
Black Widow, Jungle Cruise and Cruella (and more, many more) are all to be counted among the films that Disney fails to do due-diligence on in terms of stamping down the blatant piracy of these films. Exhibitors, producers and talent are all being sacrificed as “collateral damage” so that Disney+ can be the end-all for the distribution of the studio’s film and series productions. Period.
Just this last week, Warner Bros. announced that they would delay HBO Max day/date windows by 30 days to help struggling theatre-owners nationwide. Disney has made no such move.
Scarlett Johannson filed a high-profile lawsuit for $18 million in damages over the way the studio handled the release of Black Widow, they responded by calling her insensitive … that her lawsuit was nothing more than a publicity stunt. But the studio has done nothing to stop the piracy of Black Widow by the same online “retailers” that have nibbled-away at Cruella and taken a bite out of the Jungle Cruise.
This past week, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment announced that Cruella would be heading home as a three-SKU home entertainment packaged-media release on Sept. 21.
Since Cruella has been available since early June, it is pretty clear that Marc Platt (Marc Platt Productions) and Andrew Gunn (Gunn Films), the film’s producers, along with Emma Stone, can make a pretty good case that damages have occurred as a result of Disney’s less than stellar efforts to protect Cruella from outside forces.
But wink wink, nod nod, it is just a cost of doing business … talent, producers and exhibitors, who have a stake in the game, are all secondary to the Disney+ streaming platform. Prove that you’ve been harmed, good luck.
Enough with the rant, but you get the idea.
As for SKU configuration, there will be Combo Pack editions for the 4K Ultra HD (with Blu-ray) and Blu-ray (with DVD) formats, plus a DVD selection.
The ARR for the “official” home entertainment release works out to 116 days. Box office receipts currently stand at $85.7 million. How much would it have grossed theatrically with reasonable release windows? Pick a number, prove it, good luck ... Disney has the Covid-19 defense on their side.
Bonus goodies include a blooper reel, deleted scenes and five featurettes.
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