Disney Studios stops theaters from screening Black Panther(cbr.com)
cbr.com
Disney Studios stops theaters from screening Black Panther
https://www.cbr.com/drive-in-show-42-disney-prevents-black-panther/
47 comments
Well, that is stopping theaters from screening the movie.
Ok, they do do that by policy, not by exception. But the title is correct.
Ok, they do do that by policy, not by exception. But the title is correct.
OP’s point was that while the title is technically correct, it’s a bit clickbaity
A bit, but not much.
A lot of people want to give Disney some money; Disney refuses. The title is an apt description of that, and not misleading. It's a bit hyperbolic, but only if you are interested on the Disney's side, for any other point of view it looks reasonable.
A lot of people want to give Disney some money; Disney refuses. The title is an apt description of that, and not misleading. It's a bit hyperbolic, but only if you are interested on the Disney's side, for any other point of view it looks reasonable.
No, they never stopped the theater from screening the movie.
They simply never gave them permission to do so in the first place.
They simply never gave them permission to do so in the first place.
Getting into a pedantic argument of the semantics of "stopped" is missing the point that Disney has a vault into which they put their movies so that they can extract more revenue from their IP by trickling it out on a seasonal basis, stopping anyone screening movies that Disney don't want on rotation.
It's especially pertinent here since the purpose of screening the movie was to commemorate the life of Chadwick Boseman, the lead actor of that movie. Disney didn't even make an exception by unvaulting a popular movie on the occasion of the lead actor's death.
But when it comes to the pedantry…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stop
… remember that "stop" used as a transitive verb means "to make impassable," or "to keep from carrying out a proposed action." There doesn't have to be an action in progress to stop it. The theatre proposed a course of action, Disney stopped that course of action by not giving access to the resources required to proceed.
There are eight senses of the word "stop" when used as a transitive verb, and your pedantic argument relies on choosing one sense of the word and ignoring the others.
If you are going to be pedantic, do it properly.
It's especially pertinent here since the purpose of screening the movie was to commemorate the life of Chadwick Boseman, the lead actor of that movie. Disney didn't even make an exception by unvaulting a popular movie on the occasion of the lead actor's death.
But when it comes to the pedantry…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stop
… remember that "stop" used as a transitive verb means "to make impassable," or "to keep from carrying out a proposed action." There doesn't have to be an action in progress to stop it. The theatre proposed a course of action, Disney stopped that course of action by not giving access to the resources required to proceed.
There are eight senses of the word "stop" when used as a transitive verb, and your pedantic argument relies on choosing one sense of the word and ignoring the others.
If you are going to be pedantic, do it properly.
Maybe so, but they could have made an exception.
I hate the term, "The Disney Vaults".
Am I right in thinking this policy started under Eisner, or has it been going on longer?
Nobody else locks their old content up like Fort Knox, Disney.
Am I right in thinking this policy started under Eisner, or has it been going on longer?
Nobody else locks their old content up like Fort Knox, Disney.
Disney has used the "vault" for theatrical showings since 1944, when they reissued Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, though the last film actually re-released in theaters was The Lion King almost a decade ago. (Nowadays, a film is "released" from the vault to a reissue of home media (like Bluray).
Eisner was mostly responsible for changing vault releases to home media sales (like VHS or DVD) instead of theatrical releases.
Eisner was mostly responsible for changing vault releases to home media sales (like VHS or DVD) instead of theatrical releases.
It's an interesting thing to me that I/we don't want to blame anything bad from Disney on Walt.
Can you elucidate the material difference?
Theaters require a license to show a movie.
Disney does not generally grant licenses to theaters to show its films second-run (meaning after their initial box-office run) except as part of re-release initiated by Disney. They make extremely limited exceptions to this policy; the Rocky Horror Picture Show is basically the only film in the Disney/Fox vault that they allow to show second-run.
In this case, the theater announced they were going to show Black Panther without actually bothering to get the license ahead of time, and Disney did not make an exception to their policy.
Disney does not generally grant licenses to theaters to show its films second-run (meaning after their initial box-office run) except as part of re-release initiated by Disney. They make extremely limited exceptions to this policy; the Rocky Horror Picture Show is basically the only film in the Disney/Fox vault that they allow to show second-run.
In this case, the theater announced they were going to show Black Panther without actually bothering to get the license ahead of time, and Disney did not make an exception to their policy.
Which is to say Disney stopped the theatre from showing the movie. The reason the theatre couldn't show the movie is because Disney wouldn't allow it to do so.
I think the point is that the headline makes it sound like a theater showing any random movie it wants is a normal, accepted practice, and that Disney was somehow doing something nefarious by stopping them from showing it. In essence, a clickbaity headline.
I know when I clicked on the headline, that's what I expected, and the article didn't actually say why Disney did what they did, but my impression continued to be that Disney was doing something shady. The top comment in the HN comments points out that this is just normal Disney policy, and is entirely a non-newsworthy, non-event.
If you had a different expectation, cool, but I think many people probably expected there to be shenanigans going on, when it's really just long-standing Disney policy.
(A policy I personally think is lame, but that's neither here nor there.)
(Seems like this post is now flagged, so I guess the HN hive mind agrees this is a weak article.)
I know when I clicked on the headline, that's what I expected, and the article didn't actually say why Disney did what they did, but my impression continued to be that Disney was doing something shady. The top comment in the HN comments points out that this is just normal Disney policy, and is entirely a non-newsworthy, non-event.
If you had a different expectation, cool, but I think many people probably expected there to be shenanigans going on, when it's really just long-standing Disney policy.
(A policy I personally think is lame, but that's neither here nor there.)
(Seems like this post is now flagged, so I guess the HN hive mind agrees this is a weak article.)
Which is to say Disney stopped the theatre from showing the movie. The reason the theatre couldn't show the movie is because Disney wouldn't allow it to do so.
No, theaters can't just use any copy of a film to show a movie; those copies are jealously guarded by the distributors and are subject to strict controls, especially by Disney (and Fox too, before the acquisition). Generally, each copy of a film reel must be acquired from the distribution company and returned to it after the theater's second-run showings have ended. (For digital projectors, they use an online check-in/check-out system.)
Disney never gave the theater the film (or file, depending on the theater's projection setup) in the first place. The theater could not have shown the movie without affirmative action on Disney's part.
Disney could have simply done nothing at all, and the theater would not have been able to show the film.
No, theaters can't just use any copy of a film to show a movie; those copies are jealously guarded by the distributors and are subject to strict controls, especially by Disney (and Fox too, before the acquisition). Generally, each copy of a film reel must be acquired from the distribution company and returned to it after the theater's second-run showings have ended. (For digital projectors, they use an online check-in/check-out system.)
Disney never gave the theater the film (or file, depending on the theater's projection setup) in the first place. The theater could not have shown the movie without affirmative action on Disney's part.
Disney could have simply done nothing at all, and the theater would not have been able to show the film.
I don't think you understand the meaning of "can". It's not a legal term. The use also occludes the active role Disney and other license holders play in the prevention of screening movies.
You described the semantic difference, not the material difference. Materially, disney is preventing screens of the movie.
I would assume it’s because the Mulan live action remake is also releasing that weekend. Black panther was extremely popular and they don’t wanna compete with themselves on the critical opening weekend.
My assumption was that they wanted to cash in on the renewed interest with Disney+.
It's not a first run theater. They don't typically block that segment based on the first run segment.
Mulan is straight to streaming though, so it does compete in terms of eyeballs. If folks are preoccupied with a BP screening they may not have time or want to also watch Mulan in the same weekend.
Read the room, Disney.
When you own everything and everyone, like Disney, you don't have to read the room.
This reminds me of the protests in Reedy Creek in Florida I've heard about. My wife was driving near Downtown Disney (now called Disney Springs) and saw the signs of the protests. They basically held signs saying 'Reedy Creek IS DISNEY' which is basically true as far as anybody is concerned. They're not allowed to have their own police department, but they employ police officers from Orange County. So yeah, if you live in Florida, you'd definitely see how Disney owns more than they probably should.
https://www.wesh.com/article/reedy-creek-firefighters-protes...
https://www.wesh.com/article/reedy-creek-firefighters-protes...
They do, their room is filled with shareholders.
To disney, they are the room.
I hadn't actually realized that Chadwick Boseman had passed away until yesterday.
Rest in peace.
Rest in peace.
It's long-standing Disney policy, and has effected films from the Fox film archives as well. (https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20...)