With the acquisition of the film studio 20th Century Fox in 2019, Disney managed a coup similar to that of 10 years ago, when Lucasfilm and its Star Wars license were incorporated. Although the company brought franchises such as Alien, The Simpsons and the X-Men including Deadpool into the Mickey Mouse group’s rights pool, it also cost a lot of money. Lucasfilm only paid 4.05 billion US dollars, while the film studios, which have since been renamed 20th Century Studios, cost a whopping 71 billion US dollars. One of the main reasons for investing such a large amount was probably the rights to the most successful film of all time and the possible successors.
Disney wants to double the income from Avatar 2
The acquisition of 20th Century Fox allowed Disney to quickly add additional, numerous and popular content to their streaming service. Film series such as Planet of the Apes, Die Hard, Ice Age or series such as the X-Files are now included in the Disney Plus subscription.
Future productions by 20th Century Studios, such as Deadpool 3, will also be available immediately on Disney Plus (and not on Sky) after they have been evaluated at the box office. Of course, this also applies to James Cameron’s new masterpiece Avatar – The Way of Water. However, it may be a few months before that happens.
When is Avatar 2 coming to Disney Plus?
One thing is for sure: Disney will not offer Avatar – The Way of Water for streaming until the sequel to the highest-grossing film of all time has done its due at the box office. The productions of the 20th Century Studios have to recoup the high investment sum of 71 billion US dollars in the long term. And this should not be possible with subscription fees for Disney Plus alone.
The Avatar brand has to justify the unbelievable production costs through sales of merchandise items, as well as implementations as video games for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch or on mobile phones and with classic television rights. However, the most important factor in profitability is likely to be box office sales. Here you can make a lot of money very quickly in a short time.
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Avatar – The Way of Water is one of those blockbusters that don’t necessarily start with records in the cinemas, but can maintain a high level over a longer period of time. In general, the rule of thumb applies: the faster a movie runs out of air, the faster it ends up with a streaming provider. This often happens just a few weeks after the theatrical release. In the case of Avatar 2, it remains to be seen how stable the number of visitors will be in the second and third weeks. In industry circles, however, it is assumed that Avatar – The Way of Water will not be released on Disney’s Plus before May 2023.
