#Everything That Went Wrong With Disney+ Day

In easily the most questionable decision of Disney+ Day, the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” featurette and all the first look footage from Marvel Studios shows was released exclusively on Disney+ — meaning it was locked behind a paywall.

This is particularly significant because earlier this week a Disney Q4 earnings call revealed that Disney+ had its slowest growth since its launch two years ago, adding just 2.1 million subscribers (short of the 10 million expected by Wall Street analysts). The news precipitated a sharp drop in Disney stock, but Disney+ Day was just on the horizon and had the potential to bring with it a much-needed subscriber boost. The decision to advertise upcoming Disney+ content exclusively to existing Disney+ subscribers, therefore, is rather baffling. 

Together with a promotional offer of one month of Disney+ for just $1.99, it seems the intended result of putting the Disney+ Day Specials behind a paywall was that people would be willing to pay two bucks for a first look at “Moon Knight” or “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and their hastily-bought subscriptions would just keep rolling (with the price upping to $7.99 thereafter). However, it’s fair to say that most people who are big enough Marvel fans to pay $2 to see a few seconds of Oscar Isaac playing Moon Knight are probably big enough fans to already be subscribed to Disney+ (whose library includes almost every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie released so far and three original shows set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe).

Putting trailers behind a paywall is kind of like baiting a fish hook with a note that says “IOU 1 worm.” The actual meat that’s supposed to lure people in (Moon Knight leaping from building to building, or a first look at Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk) is missing and what’s left on the hook is, well…

IOU 1 worm.