Mic Drop #12: Kevin Feige Confirms Kevin Mayer's Flywheel Died
Feige's press junket interviews confirm my hypothesis was right about Disney's planned theatrical-to-Disney+-to-theatrical flywheel
I connect the dots across the OTT streaming marketplace for your competitive edge at PARQOR.com. Here, I will be highlighting and celebrating “mic drops” on my predictions from past PARQOR Member mailings.
I published PARQOR's "Learnings from OTT streaming in 2020, Predictions for 2021" presentation just before the holidays. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can view the PDF here, or the SlideShare here.
This week, Marvel Boss Kevin Feige, on a press junket for the release of WandaVision, had this exchange with Deadline (emphasized text in italics):
DEADLINE: Do you think Black Widow will stick to a theatrical release or go to Disney+? And what is your take on sending certain movies to streaming? Does it damage the brand, or do you think the audience is smart enough to decipher that we’re in the exception of a pandemic and that eventually, we’ll come back to the movies?
FEIGE: If I had a crystal ball, I’d look into it and tell you. I don’t. All I can tell you is that for the past three years since Bob Iger brought me into his office and talked about a streaming platform that would become Disney+ and asked us to start working on programs for it. Our long lead plan was to have the MCU and the storytelling woven between weekly episodic big swings on Disney+ and into the feature big swings in theaters. It’s my great hope that that continues. Don’t ask me week by week what is going to happen in this world, I have no idea and don’t want to guess. Everything we’ve done at Marvel Studios has been based in “Ok, if everything goes perfectly, here’s what we’d like to do.” And until this past year, things have gone remarkably well. And it’s my hope that the world gets back on track and we all get back into theaters, and that people will see and experience week by week for the low monthly fee of Disney+ of what we’re bringing there, and then be excited to get together with people again in real life and sit with strangers and share an experience on the big screen.
The exchange was the first time my hypothesis from May 2020 was confirmed. After then-Chairman of Disney’s Direct-to-Consumer International Group Kevin Mayer had departed for TikTok, I wrote in an exclusive Member Mailing that “Kevin Mayer's Disney+ Flywheel is Dead”.
In the Mailing, I tested the following hypothesis with available box office and Disney+ subscriber data.
…does the box office “aggregate” an audience to convert Star Wars or Marvel theatergoers to Disney+ users for related brand content? And, if so, how big is that audience? How could it work? [NOTE: I believe I have seen versions of this argument before, but none backed by box office data or target audience estimates]
Existing PARQOR Members can download the PDF of this exclusive Member Mailing from May for free, or if not a Member, at the same link with the coupon code SUBSTACK (automatically appended to this link).
Feige’s interviews with Deadline and Variety confirm the flywheel was the strategy, and that it set up “big swings” to drive blockbuster-sized audiences across theatrical and Disney+ and back again.
Mic Drop #1: The Flywheel Game Plan Is Confirmed
Our long lead plan was to have the MCU and the storytelling woven between weekly episodic big swings on Disney+ and into the feature big swings in theaters.
Feige here is mirroring the logic of my hypothesis:
…does the box office “aggregate” an audience to convert Star Wars or Marvel theatergoers to Disney+ users for related brand content?
His answer is, it does (…did?) aggregate those audiences, and Disney saw itself as uniquely positioned to move those audiences between “big swings” (meaning, tentpole, blockbuster titles) between platforms.
That was the game plan for the original “flywheel” for pre-COVID Disney+ under Kevin Mayer.
Of course, the storytelling flywheel for Marvel has been oft-discussed, including some background on the strategy in Robert Iger’s The Ride of a Lifetime. Feige is adding a bit more detail here than we had before showing how intricately constructed it was.
Mic Drop #2: Box Office Audiences Correlate to Disney+ Audiences
I also wrote:
Box office and Disney+ growth data showed there is a near- perfect negative correlation between how audiences consume a Disney hit in theaters, and how they sign up for Disney+ service. Without theatrical distribution, there is no correlation, and without that correlation, no flywheel.
This is why the phrase “big swings” is also notable. In other words, the available data suggested Disney was building out a strategy where it could drive 21MM ticket buyers for Marvel movies in theaters, and then drive those same audiences to watch a “big swing” of a Marvel show on Disney+ a few months later. Disney would then progressively tighten up the timeline of "big swings” to a month or two between theatrical and Disney+ releases.
Here is what that original release schedule looked like for 2020:
May 1, 2020 Black Widow (theatrical)
August, 2020 The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Disney+)
August, 2020 Morbius (theatrical)
October 2020 Venom: Let There Be Carnage (theatrical)
October 2020 The Mandalorian (Disney+)
November 5 2020 The Eternals (theatrical)
December 2020 WandaVision (Disney+)
December 2020 Black Widow (Disney+)
February 2021 Loki (Disney+)
It was a pretty straightforward flywheel strategy, with MCU Phase 4 momentum launched by Black Widow as a tentpole, maintained with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and then culminating in a big Q4 for Disney+ with The Mandalorian, WandaVision, and Black Widow all released on the platform.
It was also effectively a Marvel flywheel, with episodic “big swings” between MCU titles - and initially aided by Star Wars title The Mandalorian - to drive audiences between theaters and Disney+.
The question I was asking was: what could this have looked like?
The only available data was Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker box office data from 2020 through 2021 on BoxOfficeMojo, and data from Disney on Disney+ sign-ups after The Mandalorian launched on Disney+ around the same. I found there was a near-perfect inverse correlation (-0.9962) between how The Rise of Skywalker audiences declined from its Month 1 to Month 4 and sign-ups for Disney+ grew from its Month 1 to Month post-launch. You can see both on of this Google Sheet on the tabs “Rise of Skywalker - 2019” and “Disney+ DTC Subs”.
I also tested this data against month-to-month decline in audiences for Avengers: Endgame from 2019, and found another near perfect correlation (-0.89). You can see on the “Correlation” tab of this Google Sheet how I did the math, and also see the assumptions below.
It’s an imperfect but valuable lens on how the flywheel could have worked between theatrical and Disney+ after Black Widow was supposed to premiere on May 1st, 2020.
Mic Drop #3: The Flywheel Is Dead
“It’s my great hope that that continues. Don’t ask me week by week what is going to happen in this world, I have no idea and don’t want to guess. “
Kevin Feige doesn’t sound optimistic that the “long lead plan” constructed under then-CEO Robert Iger and Kevin Mayer is going to come back with the release of WandaVision one month after its original planned launch date, and seven months after the original Black Widow launch date.
Now, the new theatrical and Disney+ release schedule for 2021 looks like this, with an asterisk (*) marking a flywheel turning point between theatrical and Disney+:
Jan 15, 2021 WandaVision (Disney+)
March 19, 2021 The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Disney+)*
May 7, 2021 Black Widow (theatrical)
May 2021 Loki (Disney+)
June 25, 2021 Venom: Let There Be Carnage (theatrical)
July 9, 2021 Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (theatrical)*
Summer 2021 What If…? (Disney+)
October 2021 Morbius (theatrical)
November 5, 2021 The Eternals (theatrical)*
December 17, 2021 Spider-Man 3 (theatrical)
[Late 2021 Hawkeye (Disney+)]*
[Late 2021 Ms. Marvel (Disney+)]
The one thing that stands out? There is no longer an obvious narrative flywheel between Disney+ and theatrical releases. And, Feige explicitly admits this in his Deadline interview:
DEADLINE: We know with Monica Rambeau in WandaVision, her character connects into Captain Marvel 2, and that the series connects to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Is WandaVision a ramp to the revival of X-Men you’re planning?
FEIGE: In hindsight, in five years if when we’re talking about everything that’s happened, everything can be a ramp to everything, specifically though, yes, Monica in Captain Marvel 2 and specifically to Wanda teaming up with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Notably Captain Marvel 2 is scheduled for November 11, 2022, and Doctor Strange 2 for March 25, 2022, suggesting that the original plans for the theatrical-to-Disney+-to-theatrical flywheel really are dead.
He also adds some additional detail in his interview with Variety:
The metabolism of TV is usually that a new season of a show comes roughly once a year or so. Is that something you’re aiming for with Marvel’s shows for Disney Plus?
It will vary. There are some shows that have been built to further expand our storytelling and then go into features. We’ve already announced Lizzie Olsen being a part of “Doctor Strange 2.” We’ve announced Teyonah Parris being part of “Captain Marvel 2.” There are some shows that, while always interconnected, are being built with multiple seasons in mind. So it’ll vary the way a lot of I think great TV now varies, whether it’s a couple of years between seasons of “Game of Thrones” or “Stranger Things,” or one offs like — what did I just watch? — “Queen’s Gambit.” One of the fun things about streaming is the rules are loose, which allows for you to just follow creatively, where you want to go.
The pre-COVID flywheel for Marvel is confirmed to be dead. There is no more flywheel.
Postscript: Assumptions for the Math
The data point of comparison I used was a monthly performance metric I pulled from domestic U.S. box office data on Box Office Mojo for the movies Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker and Avengers: Endgame. I correlated that data Disney+ subscribers from November 2019 through April 2020 using Disney’s quarterly announcements of Disney+ subscribers, and my guesstimates for total U.S. subscribers.
We know how box office performed week-to-week and month-to-month, but we only know how Disney+ subscribers in the U.S. grew quarter-to-quarter. That means we know that Disney+ subscribers had linear growth quarter-to-quarter, but we don’t know the numbers for month-to-month. So I made some assumptions on month-to-month growth (See “Disney+ DTC Subs” in Tab in the Google Sheet I pulled together).
I also made four assumptions:
According to a poll at the time, 19% of Disney Plus subscribers said they watched Marvel content, and 16% said they watched Star Wars content. I use it to get estimates of the type of volume of sign-ups for a specific title. But, otherwise, I correlate total box office to total estimated monthly sign-ups for Disney+.
Not every U.S. moviegoer to Disney+ is assumed to be signing up for Disney+ - additional sources of sign-ups are D23 membership, the Disney+/ESPN+/Hulu bundle, the Verizon promotion and, pure DTC user acquisition. So I have broken out those, too, in order to get an estimate for U.S. domestic sign-ups in early 2020.
Disney+ U.S. domestic subscriber estimates are inferred after reducing total Disney+ subscribers based on my assumptions in #2.
And, last, both an assumption and a disclaimer that correlation does not equal causation: Disney+ subscriber numbers increasing in the same pattern as Box office numbers decreasing may imply Disney has standard marketing practices across both DTC and theatrical that drive audiences in similar patterns.