Following the absolutely insane success of their fourth Marvel film, the record-shattering Avengers: Endgame, the Russo Brothers sat down for a keynote presentation at the 2019 Milken Global Conference in Los Angeles. There, the pair discussed the future of the streaming landscape as they see it, claiming that two heavy hitters are destined to square dance for dominance.
"The closest race to watch is Disney versus Netflix,” says Joe Russo, citing a quality-and-volume based metric. "Netflix is at volume, and they have to get their volume to quality. Disney is at quality, and they’ve got to get volume. It’ll be interesting to see who achieves their goal first, because that will determine market dominance.” While that's a fair assessment, we can infer that it's much easier to get volume than quality, especially when the House Of Mouse all but sweats money at this point.
Despite his prediction, Joe Russo also speculates that Apple could wade into the fray, depending on a single contingency. "Apple [would have to] throw their hat at the content game much more significantly than what they’ve already done," he explains, before revealing how streaming and theatrical drops co-exist better than you might think. "We’re talking about trillion dollar companies using content as a branding tool. Some say the death knell for theatrical is streaming, but [“Endgame”] is proof that they are supercharging each other."
For more, check out the full report over at Variety. Are you considering trading in Netflix for Disney+?