One thing that could account for low numbers too is people who usually see Marvel movies twice. When you get the Premiere Access on D+, you have access to the film on the platform for repeated viewings. So for example, I usually see a Marvel film 2-3 times in the theater, I would go once or twice with friends, maybe once with my Dad. Now I could just say “oh you haven’t seen it yet? Come on over to my place” or go to their house and login on my app. All of the sudden that could have been 12-14 tickets they lose because of PVOD for $30.
That's true, which is why i've always been skeptical on if day and date could work. You're literally just giving people pristine copies of the movie to watch as many times as they want (HBO Max and Disney+ is at least). I mostly think this was a pandemic-era thing and we'll see it fade away, but who knows. I do think it's telling that Disney didn't brag about their Premiere Access numbers again this week and Black Widow actually isn't even in the top 25 on Disney+'s trending. You know what is though? Loki, WandaVision, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
And when it comes down to it, much like Ant-Man and the Wasp, this isn't a movie I would have seen again anyway and I think that, more than people being able to rewatch BW or share it with others, the bigger thing hurting Black Widow is Disney+ itself as I said. BW had a big debut weekend, Disney bragged, and then three days after that weekend it was the Loki finale and just like that, everyone has already moved on from Black Widow. I really wonder if Disney is going to be able to figure out how to make the MCU work both theatrically and on Disney+ because it's way more accessible and popular on a weekly basis on Disney+ right now.
But really, at the end of the day, we can try and look for things here and there on why Black Widow may not be doing as well as it was hoped to, but I mean, I personally think it's as simple as
Black Widow is the
Solo: A Star Wars Story of the MCU. No one was asking for it and maybe if we went 2+ years without MCU content it would've had more pent up demand, but it didn't even have that going for it because of the MCU series. With WV, FatWS, and Loki all having aired, there was no pent up demand, and no one cared about this movie, so why is the media acting shocked it had a bad second weekend?
Think about it, a female-led movie like this doesn't open to $80M (or anywhere close) if the MCU name isn't attached. Comparing it to
Atomic Blonde (which had a 79% RT score compared to BW's 81%)
, Atomic Blonde had Charlize Theron in the leading role of an spy/action thriller and only opened to $18.3M. It was an extremely fun movie... that few people saw. I'm not saying women can't star in action movies, far from it. What i'm saying is audiences don't generally seem to flock to these types of movies. They did for the opening weekend of Black Widow because those were the hardcore MCU fans wanting to see an MCU movie. I think the huge dropoff from the opening Friday to Saturday should have been an indication to all that this movie was going to have a large fall. Everyone who wanted to see it saw it quickly and then there was very few people left for a second weekend because they are either like me and don't care to see it again, or they are watching it some other way.