What Comes Next?

As you are no doubt aware, we’re just a few days removed from the arrival of Hamilton on Disney+. Now that the hit Broadway show is accessible to millions of people in a way it never previously was, there’s been a large amount of chatter surrounding the film. Some of it is wholly unsurprising — people are now just chiming in to point out that, you know, many of the characters fictionalized in the show were slave-owners in real life. (Yes, I am aware of this. I am fairly certain Lin-Manuel Miranda is also aware of this, and is grappling with that complexity throughout, in ways moving beyond the color-blind casting.)

Some of it is odder than that — I appear to disagree with many of my film-critic colleagues in believing that a) Hamilton on Disney+ is a movie and b) Hamilton on Disney+ is not a documentary. (While I understand the latter claim that it’s like a concert doc, it’s…a filmed version of a fictional musical in which a series of actors play characters and work from a script.)

But all of the discourse I’ve seen elides a question that goes beyond the success or failure of Hamilton. That question, as Jonathan Groff’s snide King George asks, is a simple three words: what comes next? Disney has to be as sharklike as any other studio in the industry, which means that they can only spend so much time celebrating the presumed success of this film for Disney+. (We won’t really know how popular it is, though at the next earnings call, I imagine we’ll get an announcement regarding a boost in Disney+ subscribers. Maybe that news will come earlier. Either way, I can only speak to the number of non-Disney-obsessed relatives of mine who signed up for Disney+ this week precisely to see Hamilton.)

So once the celebration is over, the question remains: what comes next? Disney+ has a number of original films in the pipeline, such as a new Phineas and Ferb and a kid-friendly live-action adventure or two. But these are — sight unseen — not going to be massive hits the way Hamilton is. (Keep in mind: the above discussion re: whether or not it’s a movie, and/or a documentary, is due to early Oscar speculation.) So what comes next for a company that’s currently waiting for live sports to start up again, and for theme parks to open, and for new TV to air, and so on? What’s next?

I spoke with Steven Zeitchik of the Washington Post last week, in advance of the arrival of Hamilton, regarding this very question. I encourage you to read that article, but I do want to note that I mentioned a couple things that didn’t make it into the published work. Most importantly, what I noted is something that Disney would almost certainly only do in a true last resort. In the previous paragraph, I left out three films that Disney has in its coffers, and three films that would absolutely get a bigger amount of attention: Mulan, Black Widow, and Soul.

Does Disney want to release these to Disney+? That’s an easy question to answer, because the answer is no. Would they, if the industry accepts the reality surrounding the viability of opening movie theaters in an ever-expanding pandemic? I would say no, but then, a few months ago, we all thought Hamilton was going straight to movie theaters in October of 2021.

These may be the titles that come next. If they aren’t, then I hope they’ve got a trick or two up their sleeves. They may need it.