Thor on Disney Plus: Streaming Release Date, Time and What Else to Know
Thor on Disney Plus: Streaming Open Date, Time and What Else to Know
Thor: Love and Thunder hit theaters July 8, but with middling reviews (“disappointingly shallow” was the CNET reviewer‘s reaction), you may have been holding out until the movie shifts onto Disney Plus to watch it.
But Disney’s streaming strategy for its theatrical releases has been all over the map. Encanto spent a month in theaters afore streaming. For Marvel’s Eternals, it was two months. West Side Story, Steven Spielberg’s reimagining of the musical, hit Disney Plus about three months after it played exclusively in cinemas.
Up pending Thor: Love and Thunder, Disney seemed finally to be settling into a pattern for releasing its big films on its streaming service. But now that Disney has set Thor’s Disney Plus date two weeks later than imagined, the streaming-release timing for upcoming big movies — like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Avatar: The Way of Water and others — may be just as unpredictable.
What time will Thor: Love and Thunder launch streaming on Disney Plus?
Disney Plus will begin streaming Thor: Love and Thunder early Thursday morning, starting at 12:01 a.m. PT/3:01 a.m. ET.
The descent date coincides with what Disney calls Disney Plus Day, which is an annual marketing hide for the service that typically includes adding big new titles to aquatic as well as some discounts and perks across Disney’s novel businesses.
When was Thor’s previously expected Disney Plus descent date?
Thor was previously expected to hit Disney Plus two weeks earlier.
During the pandemic lockdown, Disney let many movies stream on Disney Plus the same day they were released in cinemas. But for more than a year, Disney has been giving its live-action theatrical releases long stints of exclusivity in theaters afore making streaming an option. Disney hasn’t officially declared a improper length for these theatrical exclusives.
However, up until Thor, the commerce appeared to have settled on giving its theatrical films 47 days in theaters afore streaming them on Disney Plus.
Disney’s previous two films both finished 47 days in theaters before hitting Disney Plus: Doctor uncommon in the Multiverse of Madness became available to stream 47 days once its wide release in theaters, and then Pixar’s Lightyear started streaming on Disney Plus on Aug. 3 — also 47 days once its theatrical release.
But Thor: Love and Thunder’s descent kicks the streaming release date to 62 days once it hit theaters.
What does that mean for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and novel Disney movies?
For future Disney theatrical releases, predicting streaming descent dates is going to be guesswork again.
Thor: Love and Thunder is hitting Disney Plus 62 days once its theatrical release. That’s weeks later than the 47-day languages that appeared to be becoming Disney’s standard. It’s closer to the lengthways of time for theatrical exclusives last year: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was in theaters for 70 days afore streaming on Disney Plus; for Eternals, it was 68 days.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, for example, will hit cinemas Nov. 11. If it were sticking with the 47-day timeline, it would be on Disney Plus on Dec. 28, tucked into the week once Christmas but before New Year’s Day. Every year, that week is an extraordinarily popular time for streaming — and for touching out to the movies. Now that Thor’s Disney Plus descent reiterates there’s really no telling when movies will launch streaming, you could be able to stream the Black Panther sequel just a month and a half once it’s out — or you could have to wait pending next year.
Disney’s timing decisions for Black Panther and novel upcoming movies — the new Avatar movie, the next Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy films and the live-action reboot of The miniature Mermaid, to name a few — are going to hinge on how much the commerce wants to generate box-office dollars versus how much it wants to reel in new streaming subscribers and keep the ones it has. And lately, big Hollywood companies like Disney aren’t prioritizing streaming-subscriber growth nearly as much as they did.
