Disney Loses $600 Million After Fans Pirate Marvel Film

Comments for Disney Loses $600 Million After Fans Pirate Marvel Film

black widow holding rifle

Credit: Disney

59 Comments

  1. I loved the movie. I hated to see the character die. But no one actually dies in the comics. Maybe she will return from the multiverse?

  2. May

    Piracy: one of the many reasons why Disney+ will never become profitable.

    1. Rigid

      Disney+ is making more money than Disney theatrical distribution. In fact, their revenue doubled from 2020 to 2021. Next time research before you comment.

      1. Chris

        Well for starters it’s potential loss, as there’s nothing to even hint that those viewings translate into a sale on a legit platform.

      2. Jacob

        I just love how they cry piracy when they don’t even know how many “pirates” are Disney+ subscribers.

  3. ChipBoundary

    This is a load of malarkey. People that pirate things were never gonna pay in the first place. So, they lost exactly $0. It is absolutely ridiculous when these companies try to claim loses due to piracy.

    1. Marvin

      This!

    2. Terry L Fry

      Truth I did download the film but after seeing it and enjoyed it I bought it. So they didn’t lose money but gained it. And since the movie was purchased from Disney themselves they got most of the money. (joy of being in the Disney movie club).

    3. Me

      Hey Jerome… I see you insulting people ask over the comment section. How about you actually make a logical argument… or is that too hard for someone of your obvious intellect?! 😂

    4. Jalyn

      Hey, you wanna go fool around later?

    5. Stan Cooper

      Yes! People who pirate are not traditional consumers. They were never gonna pay, just bored & watched a flick. Being extremely generous, they may have lost 5% of their gross over-estimate.

    6. Charles

      Hear hear! The truth is, it isn’t “lost” revenue, it unrealized revenue. There is an enormous difference. Would some of those downloads become attained revenue if such an option wasn’t available? Most certainly, but not even close to the level that is being tauted, this is not a 1 to 1 scenario. As it is, the same underlying technology (computer networks in this instance) as a whole has enabled many companies, Disney included to make more money than they have ever made before. This “unrealized” revenue is just one of the costs to newer business models that enable more monetary gains than have been realized before. I don’t feel sorry for them.

      And just to be clear, piracy is not stealing, it is copyright infringement, which the whole Hollywood industry is guilty of at so many different levels. Hollywood itself wouldn’t even exist without copyright infringement.

    7. Dan O

      The whole equation is insane.

      The movie was trash and everyone knew it. The vast majority of those who pirated it weren’t going to pay $10 for a movie ticket to see it, let alone get a $30 Disney+ subscription to see this flop.

      Disney knew they had a dud, so they released to day one day streaming with the intent of claiming ludicrous lost sales numbers to piracy. This is how Disney gets a big insurance check instead of this thing making even less money with a theatre only unpirated release.

  4. Joe

    That is avsolute bs. How do they know that they lost 600M on this movie due to piracy? Black Widow was never going to make even that in the best case scenario. They are passing the blame to the fans, as always, for their own stupid decisions.

    1. Mike

      Says the guy insulting someone on the internet… actual moron.

    2. Josh

      Ya Jerome you really ought to explain yourself to be considered in the conversation.

      1. Jared Gillenwater

        What’s to explain? Jerome is a corporate boot licker who can’t understand the concept that the majority of pirates either would not pay for, or could not afford, $30 for a movie.

        I am a former pirate, myself. After 16 Cease and Desist letters, I finally gave it up about five years ago.

        The “losses” they claim to take over piracy are always overblown, based on what they would make if every download equaled the most they might have paid for it. But the reality is, if piracy wasn’t a thing, the majority of those people would have paid $2 to rent it from Redbox, watched it when it became free to Disney+ subs, or skipped it. That is the reality. They lost very little. Relative to what they made in profits, anyway.

        Piracy has led to a lot of technical advancements. The creation of the Cassette, CD, DVD, MP3, and even contributed to the advancement of streaming, leading to Disney making the profits they did.

        Most people with half a brain understand this concept. But people like Jerome, who are deprived of oxygen from having their head rammed up corporate backsides, don’t have half a brain to spare.

        1. Michael Patton

          Piracy did not lead to the creation of the cassette, cd, or dvd. Those things were in place before pirating.

    3. They have to claim out the revenue as being zero fault on their behalf so they can use insurance money to pay off the broken contract. Otherwise, the money the owe her for the contract break would have to come out of the gross profits and the movie would total out as a net loss, which would be detrimental to the future of marvel, the stakeholders, the financiers, etc. It was the only logical move.

  5. Dan

    Decision to create extensive variety of streaming services makes finding and watching the show you want less convenient than piracy, resulting in previously fading popularity of movie piracy seeing dramatic up-tick. Small but real group of pirates would have legally watched the film if it had not been made inconvenient to do so, while the rest would never have paid for it regardless.

  6. Dekay

    What lost Disney 600 million was making a movie about a character that was no longer relevant in the MCU, Her movie should have been made years ago.

    1. Robert Miller

      I agree 110% with that statement.

      1. Thor

        “ended up losing Disney $600 million this year alone due to over 20 million pirates of the film. It is uncertain on how the total was calculated however with Disney+”

        its not a loss, it’s what they didn’t get

        1. Niko

          Please actually give a logical reasons instead being a retard lol

  7. John

    There’s a difference between losing money, and not making as much as they could’ve.

  8. Gorillahands

    The people in these comments get it. It was a flop idea to do her origin story after her death. It was a turd in the bucket to give her her own movie anyway. Pirates never would’ve went and watched this movie, and d**n sure wouldn’t have paid $30 to watch it at home.

    Disney and Marvel dropped the ball all over the place with this, and then wanna blame the fans??

    I don’t see too many movies making 600mil in the time that black widow has been out during this craptastic pandemic to begin with. Then you add the character that’s niche and the horrible timing of the movie and blamo!

    My favorite part of the claim for sure though is , “were not sure how these figures were counted, but it could be said that it was lost revenue on Disney plus alone”….. Seriously?!? You really think that many people cared about this stupid character and stupid movie enough to pay $30 to watch it at home like that?

    Stop….. You guys screwed the pooch in every way possible and are now looking for a scape goat. Just stop….

    1. Pablo

      Jerome big mad cause people make bad words about his Disney. U on the payroll or something? Hahah

  9. Epharian

    If anyone can prove that the people pirating the movie would have paid for it if they couldn’t pirate it, I’ll be shocked. Maybe 10% pirate because it’s easier, but most would probably just not watch the movie given no way to pirate it.

    Studios need to stop acting like piracy is about people with disposable income being cheap. It’s not. It’s really mostly about people who want to be see if but can’t afford it, especially outside the USA.

    Because pirated movies are almost always worse quality than even properly streamed movies.

    1. Phoebe L Ho

      Yeah they are. And guess where’s a great place to get pirated movies? Amazon.com. You order something and you never know what you’re going to get. I’ve been deceived at least 4 times with bootleg discs. So pissed off and I had to hunt around for legit replacements.

    2. RB

      I just want to know how beef gets squandered lol

  10. John

    I pirated it and also pay for Disney+. Do a story on how much money Disney failed to pay contractors. They’re known for being legal bullies.

    1. Kyleleft

      What theft? It’s a digital copy. Which there can be an infinite number of. You see the problem here?

  11. James S Krisvoy

    Sure that included pirated 3D blu rays..as Disney made it close to impossible to find lehit copies.

  12. Thatdudewiththebeard

    Somehow I’m not sad about this after the raw deal they gave scarjo.

  13. Akshat

    This article is good besides the math. The movie made almost $400 million in box office and we have to believe that $600 million was lost due to piracy. Sorry no

  14. Cap

    I don’t have time for this
    Disney and marvel should have given us the movie before A:IW and endgame their shouldn’t complain

  15. Rob

    Interesting how Disney releases and claims this now after Scarjo’s lawsuit had settled. If they truly believed this than by doing day and date they really did cost her 10s of millions.
    Considering that number is more than the movie actually made, almost double the box-office it’s delusional to think it’s even vaguely accurate
    What is the excuse for Shang-Chi and Eternals? Again that number is 150+ million more than either box office

  16. CatsHero

    Wow Disney…
    Screw over a fan favorite star….
    Put the movie behind an over priced paywall on top of Disney+ subscription…
    Whine like a baby…

    I waited over the months until it was brought out from the stupid paywall scam onto Disney+. But since the big D has no other whining over movie piracy of the other marvel releases, this is telling me it was hacking/pirating activists. If it’s not fairly accessible at a reasonable price, this is what happens. It’s been this way for decades now. Hit them in the pocketbook protest.

    I’m surprised nothing was discussed about WW1984. The on demand rental never came to sub $10. It was either rent at $25 /buy it at a higher price, or now buy it at $20. Any other release started that way in price but came down to a fair price after a couple months and we’d pay to rent it on demand. there’s a dvd rental business still going in our city, we rented WW1984 for $3. So they got pennies to the dollar from us from their corporate greed.

    Back on topic. As for black widow relevance, we didn’t care, it was a really good movie and set up Yelena as the black widow going forward. It was a great time in to Hawkeye.

  17. John

    There’s just such a big difference between the sheepish people inexplicably paying 30 dollars to stream 1 mediocre movie on their 7 dollars a month streaming service and people savvy enough to get to do whatever they want for free without any viruses, glitches or other repercussions. Saying they lost money is ludicrous. Can you by extension imagine all the losses they make on cinema employees seeing it for free or people watching other movies that could have been Black Widow!

  18. Kevin Bates

    If the people wanted to pirate it instead of seeing it in theaters, Disney didn’t actually lose that money. They never had it, bc the people would have never seen it in theaters. There’s been lots of studies that have shown piracy doesn’t actually reduce sales, and there’s some data that suggests due to hype/reviews/etc it actually increases sales.

  19. Jeremy Roney

    This is incredibly stupid. If they charged $4,000 per viewing of the movie on Disney+ would they then have lost 80 billion dollars?

    The overwhelming majority of those that pirated the film would never have paid the $30 even if pirating it wasn’t an option. They would have waited a month to watch it on regular D+, or not at all.

  20. Andy

    Writer/Editor: what on earth does “squandered their beef” mean?

    If you’re going to write in public… learn what words mean.

    1. Me

      Squandered: 2 : to cause to disperse : scatter.

  21. Duh

    They didn’t lose anything;

    Piracy does and never has equaled a lost sale

  22. Jelly

    Over 900 million in profit in one quarter this year but you’re right….a company that makes movies and has a huge catalogue is better off letting those movies collect dust than have subscribers pay a monthly fee for access. maybe look at financials before making ridiculous claims.

  23. David J

    You guys saying nobody who pirated would have gone anyway are being a bit naive.

    I bought it on D+, but to support the day and date practice.

    I like marvel, so I have D+ and support what I like.

    But I don’t have HBO, and I did watch suicide squad, and dune etc day of.

    …. And I did go to the cinema to see spiderman day of.

    I’m impatient.

    But if I don’t care enough about the property and I haven’t got the service… Then if I’m given the option, I’ll find a way to see the film.

    That said.. I wouldn’t have seen black widow at the cinema, I would have waited and not paid at all, if given that option.

    Hype matters. But even spiderman would have made far less day 1, if it was instantly on stream. People have home cinemas and can find a way.

  24. Isa

    Sounds bogus to me. Where are they getting those numbers? That movie was going to lose money on regardless as soon as they chose to ignore her contract and bring it out on Disney plus and theaters at the same time. You know that people were going to pool their resources and watch it together at their friends houses. Everything they brought out separately has made it’s money ever since. Spider-Man hasn’t had any problems cashing in. Don’t blame a few software pirates for a poor business decision made by Disney during the pandemic. There’s way pirating cost that movie $600,000,000. Pooling cost that movie $600,000,000 and it’s their own fault for ignoring Scarlett’s contract.

    1. Isa

      Sounds bogus to me. Where are they getting those numbers? That movie was going to lose money regardless as soon as they chose to ignore her contract and bring it out on Disney plus and theaters at the same time. You know that people were going to pool their resources and watch it together at their friends houses. Everything they brought out separately has made it’s money ever since. Spider-Man hasn’t had any problems cashing in. Don’t blame a few software pirates for a poor business decision made by Disney during the pandemic. There’s NO WAY pirating cost that movie $600,000,000. Pooling cost that movie $600,000,000 and it’s their own fault for ignoring Scarlett’s contract.

  25. Jared

    Yeah, blame it on the pirates, not the simultaneous online release.

  26. Steev

    Disney didn’t lose $600m to pirates: they didn’t get $600m that they feel they were entitled to.

    I would say a reasonable proportion of piracy, conservatively at least 50% happens because people can’t afford to subscribe to a dozen different streaming platforms, or don’t have the money for a pre release fee.

    I’m sure a lot of you are thinking that poor people shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy their lives at all and should exist only to find and perform menial labour jobs and sleep in their unfurnished one room apartment, but regardless of that, people who don’t have the money would have never been capable of paying for the movie under any circumstances.

    So we can wipe out $300M of “losses” right off the bat, since there’s no way Disney could ever have made that money.

    If they’re willing to overblow their losses by at least half, then how can we possibly act on what they say. BOTH sides are highly dishonest and sneaky and neither can be trusted to tell the truth, maybe we should forget about policing intellectual property laws for the movie industry until they stop lying.

  27. Molsen

    I think Disney made a mistake in trying to sell the movie for a $30 premier fee. $30 is what you spend for two people at a movie theatre, and watching it at home doesn’t compare. Disney should have cut their losses, knowing it was a pandemic, and just resolved to sell it for $12.99. That may have avoided the mass piracy of those who didn’t want to fork out $30.

    1. If you think the movie is overpriced, then don’t see the movie. If you see the movie and don’t pay for it, Disney is out the money.

  28. I think it’s fair to say that Disney lost revenue due to piracy. We can make all the rationalizations we want (they wouldn’t have paid to see it, etc), but the bottom line is they got something from Disney without paying for it. They got to see the movie, and Disney is out the money. That’s lost revenue.

  29. Dave

    Does anyone actually give a rats ass about Disney, half the franchises they grab they end up butchering.

  30. Me myself and i

    I’ve pirated about hundred films that I haven’t watched .. this includes black widow.

    I pirated it even though I had Disney+ when it was premium.. never watched it and still haven’t watched it while it’s free… Same for the Mandarin movie (whatever it’s called).

    I did watch Hawkeye though (non-pirate) on Disney+

  31. Ligma

    I pirate all the time. Burn Hollywood, burn

  32. Dally

    The black widow movie is not her origin story. She deserves better then Disney and marvel put together.

  33. Clarkey

    If these so called actors didn’t get paid so much your Local cinema wouldn’t have to charge £12.50 entry fee and more people would go
    long live Pirate Bay

  34. ZAK

    With the globalist vaccine and boosters killing “80%,” of the world’s population, why is Disney still crying about lost revenue? Send the far-left the bill.

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