What’s Up With Mulan and Disney+ Premier Access

Next month Disney Plus is launching Disney+ Premier Access with their live-action Mulan movie. Due to the pandemic, Mulan’s release has been delayed for over 5 months. The Hollywood premier was held on March 9, 2020. The film was slated to go into a theatrical release soon after, but then theaters closed, and Disney had to hold back to the film’s release. Instead, Disney+ is experimenting with releasing Mulan under a new concept called Disney+ Premier Access. This article will explain everything you need to know about Disney Plus Premier Access and the upcoming Mulan release.

What is Disney+ Premier Access

It’s best to view Disney+ Premier Access as an early access Pay Per View for Disney Films. Disney is using Mulan to experiment with this new pricing model. Instead of having a theatrical release, on September 4, Disney+ Subscribers can pay $29.99 and watch the film in their homes on the service. You can sign up for Disney+ and watch the trailer on Disney +’s Mulan Page.

For more information, also see our guide to everything you need to know about Disney+.

How Long You Can Watch Mulan

While $29.99 seems steep, it’s essentially early ownership of the movie. Once you purchase Premier Access for Mulan, the film will be available to watch through Disney+ just like any other movie on Disney+, as long as you are a Disney+ subscriber. 

Mulan Will Eventually Be on Regular Disney+

On Disney’s last earnings report, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said that buying it on Premier Access means “you can watch Mulan before it’s available to all Disney+ subscribers.” This implies that Milan will be on the standard Disney+ like other Disney films on the service. We are assuming that the timeframe will be 3-6 months as films are generally released to Blu-Ray and streaming somewhere in that timeframe. 

Will Other Movies Be on Premier Access

This is a big point of confusion for people deciding on paying for Premier Access. Is it just for Mulan, or will other movies be available in the future? I contacted Disney customer support to get to the bottom of this. The representative indicated that, currently, when you pay the $29.99 for Premier Access for Mulan, it is ONLY for Mulan. The important parts of the chat log are in the images below.

Will Other Movies Be on Premier Access

I wanted to confirm that if other movies are available under Premier Access, would I have to pay another Premier access fee. The Disney representative explained, there is currently no information on any future movies being released under Disney+ Premier Access aside from Mulan. However, it’s possible that if other movies are released as Premier Access, they may require another fee.

So, as it stands, you are just paying your $29.99 for Mulan. There may be more movies available with a Premier Access in the future, but they would also come with a charge for the early viewing. This is in line with what CEO of Disney Bob Chapek said on Disney’s Q3 earnings call:

We are looking at Mulan as a one-off as opposed to saying there’s a new business windowing model we are looking at. That said, we find it very interesting to be able to take a new offering to consumers at that $29.99 price and learn from it and see what happens not only in terms of the uptick of the number of subscribers we got on the platform, but also the number of transactions we get on that PVOD offering.

Whether Premier Access continues to be a service offered at Disney+ seems to depend on how many people take advantage of Premier Access for Mulan. If it’s successful, it’s easy to imagine Disney going this route with The Jungle Cruise movie and Marvel’s Black Widow.