All the film studios have tried a variety of different methods to get their major theatrical projects in front of audiences during the global pandemic. Some have moved films direct to streaming platforms. Others have made movies available via Premium VOD rental option. Even a few have opened in theaters where possible, even if that has mainly meant drive-ins in recent months. Disney tried something thus far unique with Mulan, by basically doing all of the above. If you wanted to watch the movie in the U.S. you had to both have a Disney+ subscription and pay $29.99 for a premium VOD purchase. However, starting next week, anybody who wants to watch Mulan digitally will be able to do so without Disney+.
The digital film platforms FandangoNOW and Vudu have announced that beginning Tuesday, October 6, Mulan will be available for digital purchase for $29.99. This means that while the movie will still cost the same that it did as a Premium VOD offering on Disney+, you don't actually need to have Disney+ so technically that makes the movie six dollars cheaper. Vudu is also sweetening the pot by offering a three dollar credit on a future purchase if you pre-order Mulan.
Normally this would be a fast transition from the movie's initial release to the Digital release, it will have basically been just about a month, but really you can't call anything normal right now. Mulan is so far the only movie to have gone with the purchase price route on top of the paid subscription, so nobody knew how successful it would be.
Technically, we still don't, as Disney has yet to release any official numbers regarding the number of Disney+ subscribers who actually spent the additional money. Some estimates have been made which would indicate that Mulan, at least, wasn't a total failure, but more than likely anybody who was going to pay the Disney+ price has done so by now, and so it certainly doesn't hurt to make the movie more available and see if it can pull in some additional revenue.
Especially because it's already been announced that Mulan will be made available as a standard Disney+ title in early December, so there's only so much time before that happens. If you have Disney+ but didn't pay for the Premium Access film, just sit tight for two more months. It will be interesting to see if, given the compressed timeline, Mulan even gets any sort of physical Blu-ray release. Under the circumstances, it looks like it might happen after it hits standard Disney+.
While Disney+ subscriber numbers are pretty impressive, certainly there are a lot of people who don't have the service. This means there's at least a decent-sized audience who might be willing to go ahead and grab Mulan now that they have the opportunity. Are you one of those people? Let us know in the poll below.
This poll is no longer available.
