Film Industry: Black Widow

 Conglomerate

Most major media companies are conglomerates that own a range of smaller companies (called subsidiaries). An example of this is Disney owning Marvel.

Vertical integration
Vertical integration is when one conglomerate owns different companies in the same chain of production. E.g Disney owns film studios, CGI specialists, film distributors and TV channels such as the Disney Channel. This gives Disney the chance to make money at every stage of production. Complete ownership = more profit.

Horizontal integration

Horizontal integration is when one company buys other companies at the same level of distribution. E.g Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 (at a cost of $1 billion) so that they could cancel out the competition by making money from both. Horizontal integration allows companies to widen their audience and find other ways to make money.

Convergence, branding and synergy 

Convergence refers to the way we can now access everything about a film - reviews, trailers and even watching the film itself - using our phones. Branding and synergy is when a company creates a brand that can be used across different media products and platforms. E.g Disney makes movies but then also has related stage shows, theme parks, merchandise, soundtracks and events.

Black Widow notes

Black Widow is the 24th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It raises many industry issues surrounding the production, distribution and exhibition of film in the digital age.  

Film franchise

A film franchise is a series of films or multi-picture stories, often including some of the same characters from film to film.

Franchises have become even more important than individual stars. They consist of connected universes (e.g. Star Wars, Marvel's Cinematic Universe, DC Extended Universe etc) and many sequels (or prequels).

Blockbuster movies

Black Widow is a blockbuster movie. A blockbuster is a major studio movie that's made with a large budget, big stars and often involves a franchise. 

A true blockbuster is extremely popular and brings in a lot of money. Typically, a blockbuster is a summer movie that audiences line up to see the first weekend it's released (which coincides with the school holidays and more family time).

Disney and Marvel

In 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment for US$4 billion. The Walt Disney Company now owns Disney Pictures, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm and Pixar.

Walt Disney Studios are one of Hollywood's major film studios and generated an income of $2.4 billion in 2017.  This means that they can afford to make more expensive films, market them around the world at great expense and ensure that they are hugely profitable.  

Marketing and promotion

Star Power implies that people will want to see a film with a certain star in it. Most mainstream films and blockbusters will use Star Power to attract audiences to their film. The main star in Black Widow is Scarlett Johansson who is very well known and has established fans. 

Walt Disney Studios had a huge budget to make and market Black Widow although the success of the film was badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic closing cinemas. Some of the strategies used included:

• Traditional methods such as posters and teaser trailers on TV and in cinema.
• Stars of the film appeared on a range of TV chat shows and press events. 
• Film trailers were released on YouTube and in cinemas. 
• Specific IMAX promotions with 22 minutes of the film shot in 1.90:1 aspect ratio especially for IMAX cinemas. 
• Section of the Marvel website with gallery, story synopsis, character posters and opportunities to buy or stream the movie.
• Social media profiles on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Social media and YouTube advertising was also heavily used by Marvel to promote the film including using tweets from audience members on massive billboards.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the film industry and changed the release strategy for many films. While cinemas are still the primary way of making money for the film industry, some movies are being released to streaming services alongside cinema - or bypassing cinema altogether. 

Social media marketing

The film used tweets from audience members to help promote the film:

Was the film a global box office hit?

Black Widow’s success is difficult to judge due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Black Widow’s budget was $200m and it only made $379m at the worldwide box office due to the pandemic. Marvel would have spent well over $100m on marketing the film globally so the profit level is very low. Most Marvel films have made around $1 billion at the box office. 

However, this doesn’t take into account revenues through Disney+ so Black Widow may well still make Marvel and Disney a profit in the end.

Film industry: Regulation

Films in the UK are regulated by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).

Black Widow was awarded a 12A by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).  It was deemed to have “moderate violence, injury detail”, yet was not too graphic.

With a 12A, no-one under the age of 12 can see the film unless accompanied by an adult. It is quite a new classification (1989)  and was introduced due to the large gap between PG and 15.

It is important that all MCU films are 12A at the most as the major film companies want to keep the young audience for:

• Merchandising opportunities.
• Better potential box office.
• 47% of cinema audiences were aged 7-24 in the UK in 2014.  Word of mouth and peer influence is important in generating interest.

Black Widow: blog tasks

1) List the companies involved in the creation of Black Widow. You may wish to use Black Widow's IMDB entry to help with this - see the company credits page - but the answers can also be found in the notes above.

Marvel studios

Blitz

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

PixStone Images

The Third Floor
SSVFX
Industrial & Light and Magic

Stereo D

Virtuos

Digital Domain

Cinesite

etc...

2) What is conglomerate ownership and how does it link to Black Widow?

A Conglomerate is a large umbrella company that owns multiple smaller companies, Disney made Black Window using the companies it owns like different studios for CGI and general production.

3) Analyse the film trailer for Black Widow. What aspects of the trailer tell you this is a big-budget blockbuster movie? 

The costumes and props are high quality, the CGI is also well done and there's a lot of it which shows a high budget, multiple well known actors that require high pay and a lot of different locations. It's also part of a franchise which shows that it has a returning audience that provides a lot of money.

4) How was Black Widow promoted to an audience? List at least three different methods used by the film's marketing campaign and why they were effective in promoting the film.

Disney used places like Twitter to promote their movie, having audiences post about billboards for Black Widow to promote the film. They used traditional methods like posters and teaser trailers on Tv and in cinema. Film trailers were also released on YouTube, these were effective as they stirred some excitement among fans, these are also mainstream apps which means they most likely reached a lot of people across the world which gave them a better profit and larger audience.

5) What was the production budget for Black Widow and how much did it make at the box office?

Disney spent around $288.5 million, which was 44.3% more than its estimated budget which was only $200 million, it got back around $379.8 million in the box office.

6) Would you consider Black Widow a successful Hollywood blockbuster? Why?

I'd call it barely a success as advertisement and production altogether grossed above $300 million, and the movie only made just about $379 m at the box office, which compared to the previous $1 billion from past movies, it isn't much. However, this does not count the money from public streaming services and other platforms, so it still might've made a decent amount of money.  

7) Who regulates the film industry in the UK?

Films in the UK are regulated by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), which help determine  how movies are suited to each audience, some having ratings for older or younger and for which demographic it'll be better.

8) What age rating was Black Widow given? Why?

The BBFC gave the movie a pg12 rating, meaning nobody under 12 could view the movie as it had moderate violence and injury detail.

9) Read this feature on Marvel using a fan's tweet to help market the film. Why is audience interaction such an important aspect of modern film marketing? 

A lot of reason for the success of films is the spread of information through word of mouth, a movie will have a larger impact if more people are talking about it. We often tend to trust the opinions of others so audience interaction is incredibly important as it provides important feedback to distributors and producers.

10) What other interesting details can you pick out of the article about Black Widow marketing? For example, you may want to make a note of some statistics, ratings or how they used TikTok influencers to help promote the film.

Among the use of standard marketing practices, like taking advantage of pre-existing audience members and returning customers for movie star, Scarlett Johansson, and the fact that Black Widow was a blockbuster film, they also used other techniques. For example, due to the increasing use of TikTok, they used known influencers to spread word of the film, which helped build anticipation among new and returning audiences.

Grade 8/9 extension tasks

If you want a top grade in Media, you should also complete the grade 8/9 extension tasks once you've completed the basic eight questions above. Try the following:

1) Read this Guardian report on Scarlett Johansson suing Disney over the release strategy for Black Widow. Do you agree she is right to be angry with the multiplatform release strategy?

2) Read this feature on how Black Widow shot 22 minutes of IMAX footage to give viewers an incredible widescreen experience in IMAX cinemas. Why is IMAX an important part of marketing a blockbuster movie?

3) Look at this Guardian website page allowing Marvel fans to discuss Black Widow. What interesting opinions do you notice in the comments? 

Finally, you might want to read this feature on whether there are too many Marvel sequels and spin-offs. Do you agree that there are too many Marvel films?