Is Disney rethinking the window?

And a possible 'Daily Show' host emerges

What to know

• We’re still waiting for Little Mermaid to hit streaming and that’s OK… It’s been 65 days and while the live-action Little Mermaid is available on demand, it does not yet have a Disney+ release date. Compare that to Strange World, which arrived on streaming after 30 days. Thanks to the pandemic, audiences got used to getting Disney’s theatrical movies quickly on Disney+. That learned behavior, let’s call it “I’ll wait for streaming,” might now be hurting the Mouse’s performance in theaters. So how does Disney get audiences to unlearn “I’ll wait for streaming?” By restoring lengthy windows, reverting back to the old 90-day norm. Elemental also has yet to come to streaming, which is probably part of why it keeps chugging along in theaters. It was nice for consumers to have movies appear so quickly on streaming, but if longer windows means keeping moviegoing experience alive. I’m OK with that. It’s going to take time for Disney to retrain audiences, and some people might never return, but it think it will work and the Mouse will once again eventize its theatrical releases. 🪟

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