Boxoffice Pro - December 2019

SOCIAL MEDIA
BY ALEX EDGHILL
NOW STREAMING
HOW DISNEY PLUS CAN
HELP THE BOX OFFICE
The launch of Disney Plus on
November 12 marked a watershed
moment in both online streaming
and theatrical box office. Content
is king when it comes to streaming,
and while the service began
with only 10 new original series,
the inclusion of family-friendly
entries from the Disney vault, the
Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)
films, the Star Wars franchise,
and the studio’s newly acquired
Fox content, makes Disney Plus
an attractive option in a crowded
marketplace.
PEDRO PASCAL
AS “THE MANDALORIAN”
>> Social media tracking reveals that
Disney Plus original programming has
the potential to become a new driver
for the studio’s theatrical offerings. This
would not only set it apart from the other
streaming giants, but pay off in more
than just monthly subscriptions. Disney
Plus’s flagship original series, “The
Mandalorian,” offers an instructive look
at the potentially symbiotic relationship
between Disney Plus and the box office.
The Disney marketing arm for the
Star Wars franchise has used its official
social media accounts to market the new
series relentlessly and to great effect. The
Instagram page for Star Wars has almost
12 million followers, with close to 20
million on Facebook and over 4 million
on Twitter. With Star Wars: The Rise of
Skywalker scheduled to release a month
after the launch of Disney Plus, the synergy
between them has been spectacular.
Instagram has already generated over 34
million likes since June 1 to lead all films
tracked on the service, handily beating
the second and third place of 23 million
and 20 million (both of which happen to
be Disney titles: Avengers: Endgame and
Spider-Man: Far From Home).
While Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
will not owe its ultimate success to “The
Mandalorian,” the series has generated
great interest and awareness among fans.
For any franchise, increased interest on
the eve of a release is always a good thing.
Consider a similar model for Marvel
movies, with a collection of web series
already in the pipeline, including “The
Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” “Wanda-
Vision,” “Loki,” and “Hawkeye.” All of
these will be more closely tied to the
successful MCU franchise than previous
Marvel series such as “Agent of
S.H.I.E.L.D,” “Luke Cage,” or “Jessica
Jones.” The audience for the MCU is
huge, garnering worldwide revenue above
$22 billion. Original content on Disney
Plus featuring these characters will not
only drive subscriptions but help drive
interest in further theatrical films. If we
consider a similar model for other popular
titles, Pixar films, the Fox catalogue,
or Disney animated releases—the sky is
truly the limit.
Disney owns some of the most popular
social media pages for movies on all
major platforms. And as they showed
in the lead up to the release of Disney
Plus, they were adept in leveraging those
pages to drive subscriptions. The banner
images for many of those pages were
used to promote Disney Plus in the lead
up to its launch. This is a luxury Disney
has that its competitors do not: access
to tens of millions of fans worldwide,
actively engaged across multiple social
channels. This is an invaluable resource
for the company to leverage, allowing it
to achieve a level of success none of its
streaming competitors can match.
Online streaming has been painted
as an existential threat to the theatrical
box office. Disney Plus might be the first
streaming service to show how the two
can coexist and thrive together.
60 DECEMBER 2019