Thor: Love and Thunder hit theaters July 8, but with middling reviews (“disappointingly shallow” was the CNET reviewer‘s reaction), you may be holding out until the movie moves onto Disney Plus.
But Disney’s streaming strategy for its theatrical releases has been all over the map. Encanto spent a month in theaters before streaming. For Marvel‘s Eternals, it was two months. West Side Story, Steven Spielberg’s reimagining of the musical, hit Disney Plus about three months after it played exclusively in cinemas.
Up until Thor: Love and Thunder, Disney seemed finally to be settling into a pattern for releasing its big films on its streaming service. But now that Disney has set Thor’s Disney Plus date two weeks later than expected, the streaming-release timing for upcoming big movies — like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Avatar: The Way of Water and others — may be just as unpredictable.
When will Thor: Love and Thunder start streaming on Disney Plus?
Disney Plus will begin streaming Thor: Love and Thunder early in the morning on Sept. 8, starting at 12:01 a.m. PT/3:01 a.m. ET.
The Sept. 8 release date coincides with what Disney calls Disney Plus Day, which is an annual marketing event for the service that typically includes adding big new titles to stream as well as some discounts and perks across Disney’s other businesses.
When was Thor’s previously expected Disney Plus release date?
Thor was previously expected to hit Disney Plus on Wednesday.
During the pandemic lockdown, Disney let many movies stream on Disney Plus the same day they were released in cinemas. But for more than a year, Disney has been giving its live-action theatrical releases long stints of exclusivity in theaters before making streaming an option. Disney hasn’t officially declared a standard length for these theatrical exclusives.
However, up until Thor, the company appeared to have settled on giving its theatrical films 47 days in theaters before streaming them on Disney Plus.
Disney’s previous two films both spent 47 days in theaters before hitting Disney Plus: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness became available to stream 47 days after its wide release in theaters, which was two weeks quicker than Eternals and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. And then Pixar’s Lightyear started streaming on Disney Plus on Aug. 3 — also 47 days after its theatrical release.
That’s why Wednesday was the expectation for when Thor: Love and Thunder would hit Disney Plus.
What does that mean for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and other Disney movies?
For future Disney theatrical releases, predicting streaming release dates is going to be guesswork.
Thor: Love and Thunder is hitting Disney Plus 62 days after its theatrical release. That’s weeks later than the 47-day period that appeared to be becoming Disney’s standard. It’s closer to the length of time for theatrical exclusives last year: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was in theaters for 70 days before streaming on Disney Plus; for Eternals, it was 68 days.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, for example, will hit cinemas Nov. 11. If it were sticking with the 47-day timeline, it would be on Disney Plus on Dec. 28, tucked into the week after Christmas but before New Year’s Day. Every year, that week is an extraordinarily popular time for streaming — and for going out to the movies. Now that Thor’s Disney Plus release reiterates there’s really no telling when movies will start streaming, you could be able to stream the Black Panther sequel just a month and a half after it’s out — or you could have to wait until next year.
Disney’s timing decisions for Black Panther and other upcoming movies — the new Avatar movie, the next Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy films and the live-action reboot of The Little Mermaid, to name a few — are going to hinge on how much the company wants to generate box-office dollars versus how much it wants to reel in new streaming subscribers and keep the ones it has. And lately, big Hollywood companies like Disney aren’t prioritizing streaming-subscriber growth nearly as much as they did.
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