Doctor Strange 2 arrives on Disney+ well before Spider-Man: No Way Home. Marvel Studios has officially announced that it opens on June 22.
When does Doctor Strange 2 premiere on Disney+? Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which grossed $450 million in its opening weekend, becoming the fifth-biggest post-pandemic theatrical release, will premiere on Disney+ on June 22 after passing the 60-year window. theatrical screening days that Marvel is applying to its movies. With Shang-Chi: The legend of the ten rings that window was extended to 69 days and in the case of Eternals it was limited to 60 days.
Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness thus arrives at Disney before Spider-Man: No Way Home, which depends on Sony and not on Disney, and for which there is no release date on the digital platform, although the rest of the catalog of Spider-Man is getting closer, poised to hit Disney+ in the UK first. Tom Holland’s film is available to rent or buy from March 15 through Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play, Microsoft Store and Rakuten TV. And no, there is no simultaneous release in theaters and Disney + of Doctor Strange 2.
Although Black Widow was released simultaneously in theaters and Disney + with premium access, Shang-Chi: Legend of the Ten Rings and Eternals, already available on the digital platform, were released exclusively in theaters. In the case of Simu Liu’s film, the idea was to stay in theaters for only 45 days before being released on the streaming platform. In the end, instead of 45 days, Marvel Studios chose to postpone the premiere on the digital platform to November 12, 69 days later to link it to the second anniversary of the platform.
In the case of Doctor Strange 2, it has been brought forward so as not to coincide the premiere with the addition of the Daredevil series to the Disney Plus catalog and precisely to distance it and give viewers time to enter this series and the rest of the fiction. from Marvel Studios coming from Netflix and premiering on June 29.
If the Disney + premiere of Doctor Strange 2 had been strictly adapted to the 60-day window, we would have put it around July 6, assuming, of course, that there is such a window. A leak already pointed out at the end of May that Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness would premiere on Disney + on June 22, 2022. Although the ‘official’ source was the Disney + Instagram account in Germany, the image that circulated on social networks it could perfectly have been a fake. Although it fit with the initial window of 45 days… Now it’s official: it opens on June 22.
Disney announced that both the Eternals and the rest of the Marvel movies would be released exclusively in theaters and there would be no 45-day window. His arrival on digital platforms would follow, he said, his usual course. In the end Marvel and Disney announced that Eternals would premiere on Disney + 60 days later. Disney first analyzed the evolution of the box office and the result of the premiere of Shang-Chi on Disney +. Shang-Chi took only two months to reach the digital platform. Eternals followed the same release model at 60 days. The box office, quite similar to that of Shang-Chi, always pointed in this direction.
This answer has to do with Black Widow and Shang-Chi’s box offices, obviously. Disney has been experimenting, trying to reach all channels and keep all stakeholders happy. The best proof that they didn’t know which was the best option is that the Disney movie Jungle Cruise, which has absolutely nothing to do with the MCU, which is supposed to have all the ingredients of a summer blockbuster capable of powerfully attracting attention of consumers who are, in principle, returning to theaters, was also released simultaneously in theaters and on the streaming platform Disney + with the same model as Black Widow.
This means that the model that has been followed with the films Mulan, Raya and Black Widow must not have gone so badly within the framework of the current social and economic situation, although the income that these films have obtained in the streaming platform. But the fact that it is returning to the traditional model after Shang-Chi’s good performance at the box office is that the income on the digital platform in the form of Premium Access still leaves something to be desired. If to this is added that, at least for now, part of the public is returning to theaters, it is clear that we are not going to see the hybrid model again.
Disney has tested three models to release their movies. On the one hand, the simultaneous premiere of Black Widow, the option to release only through its digital platform, as happened with Hamilton and Soul in 2020, and as happened this past summer with Pixar’s Luca, and the exclusive theatrical window of 45-60 days. And the question in each case was: how many viewers do they give up if they limit themselves to the digital platform? In other words: is only the digital release profitable for that particular film? In the case of Black Widow, which was still released in the middle of the vaccination process in practically all countries, it was clear that they could not take risks exclusively with a theatrical exhibition. Not only in the US domestic market, but also abroad. In the five months that separate Black Widow from Eternals, it was logical to think that there would be a change in the behavior of the spectators, as it was.
