There was already so much upheaval in 2020 before Disney announced a drastic shift in its Disney+ programming. The streaming service would now be home to certain new big Disney movies…but they wouldn’t be streaming for free like every other title on the service. Instead, they would now be available for $30 as video-on-demand titles collected under the Disney+ Premier Access banner. It’s been almost a year since Disney last tried this style of digital releasing with the July 2021 title Jungle Cruise, which begs the question of what happened to this once prolific part of the Disney+ experience?

Premier Access began as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic continuously shutting down movie theaters. Projects like Mulan got repeatedly delayed and Disney opted to no longer wait for theaters to reopen. In July 2020, the studio announced that Mulan would be the first Premier Access title from the streamer and would drop over Labor Day weekend that year. The lack of concrete data about viewership from Disney+ means it’s impossible to tell just how many people this title attracted. However, the few figures that have emerged from third-party sources indicated that Disney didn’t make nearly enough to render Mulan profitable, with The Atlantic calling the release “a disappointment.”

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Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina in 'Raya and the Last Dragon'
Image via Disney

It would take another six months for Disney to try out the Premier Access approach again, though this time it would be an additive to the theatrical experience rather than a substitute. The March 2021 Walt Disney Animation Studios project Raya and the Last Dragon received a Premier Access bow in addition to a global theatrical release. Over the next five months, Cruella, Black Widow, and Jungle Cruise would all go this exact same route. Disney wanted to further boost Disney+ subscribers but forgoing the Mulan tactic and maintaining a theatrical release showed that the studio recognized it needed the big screen to make a big profit.

After Jungle Cruise, Premier Access went away for a variety of reasons. For one, users just never turned out in much force for Disney+ titles they had to pay extra for. The Wrap noted, for instance, that Raya exploded in viewership once it was available to stream for free in June 2021. By contrast, the same site noted that Raya wasn’t even one of the ten most-watched streaming programs the week it first dropped on PVOD. Similar fates befell other later Premier Access features, with Black Widow and Jungle Cruise reporting opening weekend PVOD grosses noticeably smaller than their respective theatrical box office opening weekend haul.

These shortcomings tie into a problem Premier Access was always going to have; it was an aberration in the streaming marketplace. No other streamer was making subscribers pay extra to access specific movies. The various 2021 Warner Bros. titles like Dune that were dropped on HBO Max, for instance, were all available for no extra cost while Peacock made projects like Halloween Kills accessible for similarly zero further dollars to subscribers. Families and other customers just weren’t super interested in spending further money on a service they already got charged a monthly fee for, especially when that was so out of the norm in the streaming marketplace.

Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer in 'Luca'
Image via Pixar/Disney

It didn’t further help that the Premier Access initiative was causing strife with key figures of Disney’s media empire. A report emerged in 2021 alleging that unnamed PIXAR employees were disgruntled that Walt Disney Animation Studios titles like Raya and the Last Dragon got splashy PVOD drops through Premier Access while PIXAR titles like Soul and Luca went out on the streamer for free. In an ideal world, Premier Access was supposed to offer further options for Disney+ users and even more money for Disney executives, not cause potential strife between the two animation powerhouses at the Mouse House.

This alleged squabble was a walk in the park compared to a lawsuit filed at the end of July 2021. Scarlett Johansson alleged in a lawsuit against Disney that releasing her Marvel Cinematic Universe title Black Widow on Disney+ cost the film untold millions in box office revenue and, by proxy, cut her out of extra box office residuals. The lengthy legal battle ended up getting settled out of court and things would eventually be, at least publicly, cozy between Johansson and Disney again. However, this was yet another way that the Premier Access approach had turned into a headache for Disney rather than a miraculous way to generate even more cash.

But possibly more impactful than anything else has been the shifting business priorities of Disney+. In March 2022, a little over seven months since the last Premier Access title had debuted, Disney made the announcement that it would be taking a cue from HBO Max and Peacock and delivering an ad-supported version of Disney+. The goal here was to make Disney+ even more accessible to the general public. Now there would be a cheaper option to ensure that, in theory, people of all economic classes would have access to the Turner and Hooch TV show whenever they wanted.

Natasha Romanoff Wearing the Arrow Necklace in Black Widow

The aim to make Disney+ as financially attractive as possible to people of all walks of life runs counter to the notion of charging people an extra $30 to watch a movie. Disney initially saw the instant presence of titles like Cruella and Black Widow as instrumental in boosting its subscriber base. The aims to reach that goal have shifted over to making the price point of Disney+ more flexible. Disney+’s image as a reasonably priced member of the streaming marketplace gets complicated by the presence of Premier Access.

On top of all these factors, there’s also the simple fact that the theatrical box office has come roaring back to life in the last 12 months, especially for movies given releases exclusive to the big screen. The financial disparity between titles that commit to playing in theaters and ones that attempt to please two masters at once is remarkable. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Eternals stayed only on the big screen for months and, as a result, both catapulted above the worldwide gross of Premier Access feature Black Widow.

Shang Chi standing in front of a temple in his village

Meanwhile, Illumination title Sing 2 has more than tripled the worldwide gross of Raya and the Last Dragon. Save for Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong (whose HBO Max bows were restricted only to the United States of America in contrast to the largely global reach of Premier Access titles), all the 2021 movies that cracked $400 million worldwide were exclusive to movie theaters. If Disney still wants to be a competitive player in the domain of worldwide box office, it’s clear that giving its blockbusters simultaneous Premier Access releases will not do.

The attempt to inject premium-video-on-demand content into the Disney+ platform through Premier Access titles was an interesting experiment that reflected how Disney sees its streamer as nebulous enough to do anything. Much like with the live reality show Dancing with the Stars shifting over to Disney+ for the foreseeable future, Disney wants this platform to be home to anything and everything. However, for a wide variety of reasons, the Premier Access initiative just didn’t work out. While the unpredictability of the Mouse House means it could return in the future, for now, the Premier Access method of release appears to be on the backburner.