What Strong SVOD Ratings For ‘Lightyear’ Mean For Disney’s Theatrical Future

Well, I suppose we can add Pixar’s Lightyear to the recent list of movies that bombed at the box office but were (at least for a weekend) successful in the streaming afterlife. The Nielsens are out for the week of August 1 through August 7. There are quite a few major ‘opening weekends’ for several high-profile movies on Netflix, Disney+, Hulu and Prime Video. Second, Lightyear is tops for the movies, with 1.306 billion minutes viewed in its first five days (it dropped on Wednesday, August 3). That translates into around 13 million complete viewings of Pixar’s 105-minute (or about 100 minutes minus the credits) theatrical release. In raw minutes (differing runtimes aside), that’s in the same ballpark as the 1.26-billion-minute launch of Sing 2 on Netflix and the 1.33 billion minutes earned by Ryan Reynolds’ Netflix original The Adam Project on its opening weekend.

It’s below Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (1.43 billion minutes or 11 million viewings) and the year’s biggest streaming debut, Disney+’s Turning Red (1.7 billion minutes or around 18 million viewings), among recent SVOD biggies. Lightyear stumbled partially (but not entirely) because some moviegoers waited until streaming. However, I’d still argue that releasing Lightyear in theaters at all, even for a massively underperforming run ($118 million domestic and $226 million worldwide on a $200 million budget), was a boon to its eventual streaming performance. Turning Red posted a sky-high Disney+ debut, but so did Encanto (2.2 billion minutes for the 107-minute musical last Christmas) after an arguably compromised 31-day theatrical window. So we’re still dealing with high-profile Disney titles that either played in theaters or were supposed to play in theaters. These figures help the notion of Disney movies playing theatrically.

There was always a concern that the miserable theatrical showing for Lightyear would cause Disney to lose money on marketing and distribution while making the film less of a big deal when it came to Disney+. We know that box office success doesn’t prevent streaming success, but what about box office failure? While the Chris Evans-starring Toy Story spin-off/origin story/etc. may fallen off a cliff after the first five days, we cannot yet argue that its poor theatrical performance prevented a top-tier streaming launch. If a tentpole bombing in theaters does not hurt its streaming value, then why not roll the dice on something like (and, yes, I know it’s too late to change course here) Hocus Pocus 2 or Amy Adams’ Disenchanted? If they succeed theatrically, that’s revenue. If not, I’d argue their existence as theatrical releases may still increase their streaming value.

Comparatively, despite rave reviews and sky-high buzz, Prey debuted on Hulu with ‘just’ 585 million minutes. That’s for a launch Hulu claimed was their biggest opening weekend ever, translating into around six million viewings of the terrific Amber Midthunder-starring Predator prequel. That’s not bad, especially considering that the subscriber base isn’t as large as Netflix or as brand-specific as Disney+. It’s also around 63% of the viewings for Sony’s Uncharted (1.104 billion minutes of the 116-minute Tom Holland/Mark Wahlberg actioner) in its Netflix debut. That’s after $400 million in global grosses on a $120 million budget. Likewise, Ron Howard’s 147-minute Thirteen Lives got a week-long theatrical window before its Prime Video debut and nabbed just 323 million minutes. Either theaters would have helped, or the kind of films nobody watches in theaters has quickly become the kind of films nobody watches on streaming either.

Would the never-commercial real-life rescue film, closer in tone to Flight 93 than Apollo 13, have played better at home with the publicity of a full theatrical release? It couldn’t have hurt. Nor do I pretend that Prey would have been a theatrical hit, not on a reported $65 million budget for a star-free, period piece entry in a franchise that has never really broken out beyond B-movie success. However, a modest theatrical release might have made it a more significant streaming title. If a studio prioritizes streaming over theatrical, spending some money to market a theatrical release might qualify as an acceptable business expense to boost the streaming value. Save for Netflix, most SVOD successes were theatrical or intended-to-be theatrical features. If Robert Zemeckis’ Pinocchio pulls Pixar/Walt Disney Animation-level opening weekend SVOD numbers, that’s a different conversation. For now, it’s still Mulan > Lady and the Tramp.