Disney+’s live-action “Mulan” seems to be skewing across a wider-demo than other PVOD releases. Take the Labor Day audience haul: 70 percent of users were between 13 and 34, per researcher ScreenEngine/ASI. That’s above the norm for a PVOD title, at 59 percent.
“Mulan” is available at Disney+ Premiere Access for $29.99.
Since the pandemic hit, family-friendly titles — “Trolls World Tour,” “Scoob!” — have done well. Those movies are geared to a younger demo, which saw a higher percentage of families with kids purchase the film. Conversely, the appeal of “Mulan” is cross-demo. It works for younger teens, but also millennials who watched the animated version as children.
“Younger adults were clearly planning on watching the movie for awhile,” Mark Orne, executive vice president of Screen Engine’s Cross Platform Group told The Hollywood Reporter.
Such is the film’s draw, that 54 percent said they would recommend it to friends, which parents, at 60 percent, especially big boosters.
Mulan was watched together on average by 3.5 people, reports Screen Engine. Females ages 13 to 34 viewed it with 4+ people.
Liu Yifei stars as the Chinese girl who, disguised as a man, fights an Imperial Army to save her community. The film, which ran a $200 million production budget, will need ample rentals and global screenings to recoup expenses.
However, PVOD has proved lucrative. “Trolls Word Tour” reportedly earned $100 million in PVOD rentals in its first few streaming weeks. And Disney says it’s pleased with results to date.
Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said the decision to release Mulan through Premier Access “was really based on the fact that…in the U.S. only 68% of theaters are open. We thought this was the best way to release Mulan into the public, not only in the U.S., but on a global basis.”
Asked about its first week at tech conference, McCarthy said: “We are very pleased with what we saw over the four-day weekend. I’ll leave it at that…we will talk more about that when we release earnings.”
In December, all Disney+ users can access “Mulan” as part of the service.