Black Widow Allegedly Lost $600 Million to Piracy

Disney was adamant in keeping Black Widow’s theatrical release, but they eventually folded by having the movie coming out on Disney+ on Premiere Access. One lawsuit from Scarlett Johansson later, we are now discovering the ramifications of not releasing Black Widow exclusively on cinemas—and boy was Disney at a loss.

According to Deadline, the release of Black Widow on Disney+ has resulted in the film being pirated 20 million times—estimating a loss of $600 million on Disney’s part. Ever since Johansson’s lawsuit came up, fans speculated that a lot of money was at stake, at least now we have a good estimate of how much.

Then again, we can’t really blame Disney for their decision. The pandemic has twisted the arm of the industry, and multiple studios have been opting to try and test out which methods work best when it comes to the release of their multi-million blockbusters. Black Widow was supposed to launch Phase 4 of Marvel, and if they just kept delaying the movie, hype would have died down, and we would have to wait longer for properties like Shang-Chi, Eternals, or Spider-Man: No Way Home.

If anything, Disney isn’t alone in the struggle, as WB had burned a lot of bridges when they decided to release their big films like Dune and The Suicide Squad on HBO Max the same day they premiered in theaters. Say what you will about digital releases, they still get pirated faster than a film that gets the traditional theatrical release; and we can only imagine how much WB had lost thanks to that model.

We don’t know what the future holds for cinema as the Omicron variant is causing delays in cinemas again, but hopefully some people have finally learned their lesson when it comes to wearing masks and getting vaccinated.

For now, the big Marvel property is Spider-Man: No Way Home and you can catch it in theaters today.