Gina Carano won’t be part of the Star Wars universe moving forward, and for some in the culture war that means it’s time to cancel their Disney+ subscriptions. But if a boycott really is on the way, Disney would certainly have a lot of subscribers to lose after a record-setting 2020.
Disney announced on Thursday that, as of January 2, the company had passed more than 90 million subscribers in the month of December, another indicator of the huge growth the streaming platform has seen that’s surprised even Disney.
The streaming service notched 94.9 million customers worldwide as of Jan. 2, 2021, the company announced.
That’s up more than 8 million in just one month, from 86.8 million paid subscribers as of Dec. 2. It also now tops Disney’s original projections of landing up to 90 million subs for Disney Plus within four years.
Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but the news of the big December (and 2020 overall) for Disney+ comes just hours after social media movement toward a Disney+ boycott after news of Carano’s departure from The Mandalorian was made official. That came on the heels of yet another cycle of social media backlash about insensitive posts Carano has made on social media about a number of topics, including gender and mask usage to stop the spread of COVID-19.
We’ll see how big an impact any potential boycott of Disney+ actually has on Disney’s subscriber base, but it’s unlikely there will be an immediate 1:1 comparison possible to make in this case. Pricing for the platform will go up in March, which may scare some people away. Though as WandaVision‘s first season continues and other Disney+ shows grow closer to release on the platform it certainly would have to be a significant movement to counteract the increased interest Disney has seen in the platform’s first two years, and the growth it saw in 2020 has already put it on a pace well ahead what the company predicted it could see ahead of its launch.
[via Variety]
