Delaying Mulan Is More Expensive For Disney Than Tenet For WB

Disney delaying Mulan is a more expensive proposition than Warner Bros. delaying Tenet. Both films are among the ever-growing list of Hollywood titles affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The former was only a couple of weeks from hitting theaters when the health crisis took a turn for the worse in mid-March. As a result, Disney had no choice but to delay Mulan, rescheduling it for late July. In the case of Tenet, director Christopher Nolan’s latest remained in its original July 17 window up until a few days ago, when WB pushed it back to July 31.

Even though theaters are planning to reopen in July and screen the newest releases, there’s no guarantee that will be able to happen. The pandemic remains a fluid situation, and especially as cases rise in areas that are reopening, it’s impossible to predict where things will stand a month from now when Mulan and Tenet are gearing up for their respective premieres. It isn’t a stretch to suggest both will have to move again, and in that event Disney would be in worse financial shape than WB.

According to The Wrap, it’d be more affordable for WB to delay Tenet again than for Disney to delay Mulan due to marketing costs. Because of its initial March release date, Mulan was in the home stretch of a very visible promotional campaign, which included multiple trailers, TV spots, a Super Bowl commercial, and other materials. In contrast, Tenet’s advertising never really kicked into full swing. Prior to the latest Tenet trailer released in May, the film only had a teaser that premiered last December.

Major studio tentpoles don’t just cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce, it’s also an expensive process to market them. That’s why the general rule of thumb is if a film is to break even at the box office, it needs to gross twice its budget. For example, Mulan cost $200 million to produce, meaning under normal circumstances it’d need to earn at least $400 million worldwide to make its money back. But if Mulan is pushed back further, Disney would likely have to invest even more money into Mulan promotion. That would make it more difficult for the movie to break even, especially since theaters will limit attendance and people may be leery of going to the theater in the aftermath of the pandemic. Movies aren’t going to see the types of box office revenue they were used to before coronavirus.

It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. Previously, it was said WB would need at least 80 percent of the world’s theaters reopened to justify releasing Tenet (which is another $200 million tentpole). As unfortunate (and expensive) it might be to put together a second marketing campaign for something like Mulan, Disney isn’t going to release it unless they’re confident they can recoup their investment. Pouring more money into promotions won’t be cheap, but Disney doesn’t want to see Mulan bomb at the box office. That would be a worse turn of events for the studio, so delaying it again if need be comes across as the lesser of two evils.