The Walt Disney Company’s 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders was held today. Among the topics approached was, once again, the possibility of Marvel’s Black Widow being made available to its global audiences through Disney+ Premier Access in the coming weeks. Following the Mulan‘s and Raya and the Last Dragon’s simultaneous theatrical and Disney+ release, the idea of the first MCU movie since Spider-Man: Far From Home, which debuted over 20 months ago, being made available through Disney’s streaming service has been gathering fans ever since it’s first release date wasn’t met, back in May 2020. Now, Disney CEO Bob Chapek had the following to say on its upcoming release:
Next up is Marvel’s highly anticipated spy thriller Black Widow featuring an All-Star cast that includes Oscar nominee Scarlett Johansson currently set for release in theaters on May 7 I know Marvel fans have been looking forward to this film for a long time and I promise you it’s well worth the wait it’s absolutely fantastic.
As such, Disney has made no changes to what is still expected to be a theatrical-only release, this coming May 7th. With theaters planning on reopening in several cities across the US, even if at a lower capacity rate than before, Disney seems confident that audiences, perhaps driven by the growing number of COVID-19 vaccines being administered, will show up. They hope that it will make the nationwide theatrical release a success. This news doesn’t mean that we will be returning to business as usual, as the movie’s run may probably be shortened, being made available at home earlier than movies of this magnitude usually are.
We still have a couple of months until Black Widow is set for release, and as with almost everything these days a lot can change in eight weeks. We’ll see if this bold strategy pays off.
Source: Walt Disney Company
