Walt Disney Studios has announced its highly-anticipated, live-action Mulan will finally be released in September, following a months-long delay due to theater closures resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Disney will release the film for Disney+ subscribers, with a simultaneous release in theaters where the subscription service is not available (assuming theaters are open in those areas).

However, there's a serious catch: Mulan won't be available as part of the regular Disney+ subscription. It has a $29.99 rental fee.

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Frankly, paying $29.99 to watch a movie at home is absurd, especially for what seems to be a one-time rental. According to the National Association of Theater Owners, the price of a movie ticket for one adult at a North American box office averaged $9.16 in 2019. That means the cost of streaming Mulan on VOD is actually more expensive than paying for three tickets to see the film in theaters.

Unless the studio is attempting to charge households per viewer -- which is presumptive not just in regards to household size, but also interest in seeing Mulan -- a $29.99 rental fee is completely absurd. In fact, even if Disney is attempting to charge per viewer, it's still absurd, because Disney movies are primarily targeted at younger viewers, whose ticket prices are much lower. To make the rental fee worth it purely by looking at the numbers, some households would have to rent the film for a family of 4+.

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Furthermore, adding that fee on top of the monthly Disney+ subscription fee -- $6.99 -- makes it even more prohibitive. Disney is offering Mulan on VOD as part of a new "subscription tier" called Star, but the studio also claims this is a one-time offer. At time of writing, Disney has no plans to offer other delayed films, like Black Widow, on Disney+.

The average cost of a movie on Blu ray is between $15 and $30, but those can be watched over and over -- and oftentimes even come with free digital downloads, to boot. Disney is actually charging more than what it costs to purchase some movies on Blu ray for what appears to be a one-time rental of a movie that's already prompted calls for a boycott. Even setting aside the controversy surrounding Mulan, it's impossible to make a $29.99 rental fee make any kind of sense.

To many fans, this decision will feel like Disney doesn’t actually care about making Mulan accessible in a safe way -- and may further prove how out of touch major corporations have become.

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