New Disney Streaming Service: Disney+

[Ben]

I'm not outraged.

I’m saddened by the beginning of the end of the big screen communal audience experience, and the further erosion of the kind of films we will be offered or be able to make in future.

[gaastra]

It's also a PAID streaming service that PROMOTED you pay one price and get all on it and now they are saying "sorry sucker. We lied. Pay up $30 more." That's what vudu is for. Disney plus is not vod. That's not what they promoted it as. Disney plus, netflix, hbo max, and boomerang are "pay and get all movies and shows for one price" and here we are with a paywall added. If they promoted it like prime and peacock did from the start it would be fine but they didn't. The ads all over tv were "get all marvel and disney films in one place for one price!" Now it's "get all movies but the ones we want to charge $30 for." Plus they just said it's a "one time thing" then right away said "we have more coming."

I get your fine with it but alot of people are not.

Again people are not mad mulan is going vod but are mad it's going on disney plus were it has no place being on and disney is adding a paywall to a netflix type app people aready paid for. If it went to itunes the backlash would not be as bad.

[Randall]

As far as D+ "changing" goes: "A lot of people" need to grow up and realize there's a pandemic that has happened since D+ was first advertised. Things change, release dates got missed, theaters are going to struggle for a while, further shutdowns are more than possible, and Disney is trying to evolve with what is happening. Studios are in a tough position, and they are experimenting. And Mulan WILL BE FREE LATER on D+ with a paid subscription, just as it would have been otherwise anyway, and probably in a similar time frame. No one is forcing anyone to spend 30 dollars. And no one is actually entitled to see Mulan for "free." Disney has an app that they can re-purpose and use for VOD, so they're using it. Was it planned all along? Maybe, but I doubt it. Disney would have much rather had a full theatrical release and made a billion dollars first. But covid happened. It sucks, but just about nothing about this pandemic has been good, aside from the Venetian dolphins and some fresher air. I have no issue with them using D+ for VOD for a short while before it goes to the regular service.

Should they have at least done a simultaneous theatrical release? Yes. Definitely. But things are very iffy right now, and I can understand Disney's reasoning to an extent. People need to look at the bigger picture here. There is no guarantee that ad money for a theatrical release will be put to good use, in case theaters in various countries end up having to close down again, or if attendance is poor. (Though that advertising could certainly have served the dual purpose of promoting theatrical AND D+, granted.)

Now, as far as eroding the film business: Yes, I get that part. It's a sad and worrying state of affairs. But that's not purely a D+ issue. That started with Trolls and Scoob, and will sadly expand elsewhere. Folks can be mad at Disney for their part in it, but they didn't start it.

[Ben]

Wow, I got dizzy from the circles there!

I have no problem with Mulan going to D+, though do agree with gaastra that they didn’t advertise the service as such.

But the thing is, no one was expecting Trolls or Scoob to make a billion dollars. Mulan was expected to be a lifeline to cinemas, and it’s been whipped away.

[EricJ]

But the thing is, no one was expecting Trolls or Scoob to make a billion dollars.

No, but Sony was expecting Vin Diesel in "Bloodshot" to.

Now that Trolls, Scoob and Invisible Man have just stomped their two boots indelibly on the entire Home Premiere industry, that'll be the rules of the game.
Meanwhile, if Marvel's Black Widow follows Mulan directly to D+ paywall, it'll be passed off as just another "Busted back to the minors" downgrade like Artemis Fowl now painted upon the entire genre, and "Magic Camp" and "One & Only Ivan" aren't exactly helping.

[Randall]

Okay, while I have tried to understand and rationalize the Mulan situation, and still cannot get worked up about the "changing" of D+.... can anyone explain why New Mutants still gets a theatrical release and not Mulan? Is it "okay" to "dump" a weak film into an uncertain market, as opposed to spending the big ad money that Mulan would have earmarked, or... dang. Disney really is trying to kill the film business for blockbusters, isn't it?

[Ben]

Because they don’t care if Mutants "fails". It’s getting minimal marketing spend. Minimal theatrical exposure. It’s a write-off. Giving it a theatrical gives them more value in the TV deals they already had in place from pre-Fox takeover. Mulan bypasses that as it goes and stays on D+. Plus Mutants is a test. Will it do the meagre numbers Disney thinks it might? If it does then they see that as rationale that theatrical is still viable. If it doesn’t, and it won’t, then they have their argument that, at least at this point, D+ is the better option.

But D+, and any streamer, is not a sustainable blockbuster generator. Eventually those budgets will crumble under the amount of subscriber numbers they have. We will not see the likes of Avengers and Mulan's scale on these services within a few years: the pandemic is an outlier that’s shifting the release pattern for a finite amount of time, but after that it’s a return to Noelle and Magic Camp level films. And if there’s no theatricals, then that’s pretty much all we get...

[Daniel]

Another possibility is that Fox likely had contracts with the cast and filmmakers to release it theatrically. Amending it would doubtlessly cost a pretty penny, and with revenues down because of the virus, probably cheaper just let it run.

[EricJ]

One of my favorite universally quotable Monty Python quotes is from the "Scott of the Antarctic" sketch, where the big Hollywood star can't understand why he doesn't get his big lion-fighting scene in their South Pole picture, and wins the argument with:
"The lion is in the CONTRACT!!" ("...He fights the lion.")

In this case, Marvel's Black Widow might settle for a VOD downgrade, but New Mutants was Fox, and their theatrical lion was IN THE CONTRACT!!
And in Warner's Wonder Woman's too.

[Daniel]

I don't see Black Widow going the premier access route. It's part of a major franchise of Marvel Cinematic Universe, which pretty much guarantees a higher success. Plus, it might have some clues on what to expect in the new saga, so sending off to streaming might confuse and alienate some fans.

[Randall]

I expect that Black Widow, while being touted as a "standalone" film, will in fact do something major to set up the next phase. (Like showing that Natasha is a Skrull at the end, or introduce a new villain/threat.)

The Digital Bits today listed a rumour that a new adult-friendly tier may be added to Disney+, to include Touchstone and Fox product. Sounds good to me. It certainly makes good sense, as has been noted previously.

Now, will anyone complain that "Disney+ is changing, it isn't what was promised!"?

[Ben]

No, it’s what I've been arguing for since the start! And I’d expect that it will have a filter that keeps it exactly the same as was advertised...

[gaastra]

Disney plus kind of has something like that. You can turn off pg-13 films for starters. Works better then hulu that has hunger games in the family films sometimes (????) and hbo max that puts some not for kids films in theirs. It's more for stuff like the simpsons movie and x-men. We never use it.

They have some touchstone films on there but kind of surprised we don't have the 4 ernest films they did (or did disney lose the rights to them?) or fox films like snow white and the three stooges and other pg-13 under fox films. Found out disney did the super mario live movie! That would be great for disney plus if they still own it.



Here is the story from whats on disney plus.


https://whatsondisneyplus.com/could-mor ... to-disney/

"Earlier this year, Disney+ got lots of negative attention over its decision to move “High Fidelity” and “Love, Victor” to Hulu, in addition to a major backlash to how the production on the upcoming “Lizzie McGuire” series was struggling to fit within the family-friendly mandate. It’s been noticeable in the past few months that Disney has been pushing the boundaries a little more, with the inclusion of hits like “Hamilton”.

Only recently there have been surveys about potential new family-friendly library shows coming to Disney+ such as “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, “How I Met Your Mother”, “Modern Family”, “Firefly” and others.

Many might point to the existence of Hulu as a reason why Disney+ doesn’t have more general entertainment shows and movies, as it would make more sense for this content to be made available there. Only earlier this month, Disney CEO Bob Chapek announced another streaming service called “Star” would be launched internationally, which would offer general entertainment shows and movies from its brands ABC, Touchstone, FX, Freeform, Searchlight Pictures and 20th Century Studios. He also said that “Star” would be “fully integrated into our established Disney+ platform from both a marketing and a technology perspective”.

In the next few months, Disney is going to be outlining its future plans for its streaming platforms at an Investors Day event. Where it will be revealing more details on its new international “Star” streaming service and its plans for Disney+ and Hulu.

At last years Investors Day event, Disney announced the launch date and price of Disney+, along with lots of other details including their predictions for how many subscribers they wanted for the new streaming service. Disney has already within its first year of launching, hit its 5-year target for global subscribers, so Disney will want to continue to expand on those numbers and more importantly, with the Coronavirus changing everything, Disney is more committed than ever to the world of streaming.

Also just weeks prior to last years Investor Day event, Disney had only just closed the deal to purchase 20th Century Fox. So it was very clear that the main focus was pushing the Disney branding and they needed time to work out what to do with those Fox brands. Over the past year, they’ve removed the “Fox” from everything and sorted out what these brands will be.

As Grace points out, the app would need to have more parental controls such as a pin code to keep the content away from younger audiences (and hopefully an option to disable this if you wanted to).

There are a few potential things I think Grace’s tweet could point too:

0th Century Studios/Touchstone Sections
When Disney+ launched, it didn’t have much content from both 20th Century Studios or Touchstone studios to warrant having its own section. Disney was trying to send a clear message about what Disney+ was and, it can’t be disputed that Disney got that messaging across clear, as Disney+ is a staple for families now. Over the past year, Disney has added more content from those brands, such as the X-Men movies, but more importantly, we could see more family-friendly content added in the future. Though because of Hulu and the upcoming “Star” international expansion, it can’t ever fully offer everything from these divisions. But adding R rated content like Deadpool or Logan within the basic Disney+ subscription might be too much of a step forward.

Disney has already said they want to launch a new streaming service internationally called “Star”, which will feature the following brands

ABC
FX
Freeform
Searchlight
20th Century Studios
With the success of Disney+, I wouldn’t be surprised to see “Star” to be an add-on to Disney+, with over 60 million subscribers globally already, it would make more sense to build on that success and make Disney+ the gateway into Disney’s library. Looking at the upcoming release of “Mulan” as a premium purchase means Disney is happy to start adding additional paid content within its app.

Disney+ Hotstar is a huge success in India and it offers a variety of tiers, much like many other streaming platforms such as Peacock, NowTV and Amazon. This also gets around the rated R and TV-MA content, because subscribers will have to opt-in and pay for this additional content.

As far as the US goes, things are a little more complicated with Hulu. Disney has been wanting to push its Disney Streaming Bundle, so fans get access to all three services, Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu. A third of Hulu is still owned by Comcast, which Disney has a deal to purchase within the next few years, but with Disney CEO Bob Chapek saying that Hulu isn’t a brand internationally and isn’t being expanded, Hulu is in a strange place. “Star” is going to be much simpler than Hulu, which offers live TV, ad-supported options, lots of licensed content and more.

Could “Star” be made available in the US at the same time as Hulu? Could Hulu subscribers just get access to the Disney owned content via Disney+?

Disney isn’t going to make its entire back catalogue available at the price Disney+ currently is, so offering different an additional tier would increase revenues and provide additional options to consumers. Adding these brands would give a huge explosion of possible franchises to explore such as Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, Aliens, Predator, Planet of the Apes, Die Hard and the massive back-catalogue of Fox movies. Along with the huge collection of ABC shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Good Doctor, Lost, Black-ish and many more. Plus Hulu Originals and FX shows.

Hopefully, we will find out soon enough at the upcoming Investors Day event, which will be taking place in the next few months. One thing is for certain, the Coronavirus has changed Disney’s plans, speeding them up, but also addressing that Disney+ is the future of the company.

What do you think of more adult mainstream content being added to Disney+?"



So maybe disney will have "star" "hulu" and "disney plus" as side apps?

[Ben]

I can see Star — which is actually expanding Fox's original Star TV brand that Disney also acquired in the buy — basically being the international version of Hulu, at least at the start, since Hulu is pretty much non-existent outside the US.

But...

Disney isn’t going to make its entire back catalogue available at the price Disney+ currently is

Um, wasn’t that the USP of D+ in the first place? "All of Disney, all in one place", and that kind of thing, with much pointing by Iger to "the entire back catalogue being made available" (sans Song Of The South, as it turned out, since that was the big question when he made that statement)...?

[EricJ]

I expect that Black Widow, while being touted as a "standalone" film, will in fact do something major to set up the next phase. (Like showing that Natasha is a Skrull at the end, or introduce a new villain/threat.)

Actually, they're trying to set up the "Dark Avengers" as another straw-grasp idea at Phase IV:
Norman Osborn (can they get him away from Sony?) in the print comics tried to set up a Marvel "Legion of Doom", with equivalent Avenger villains, and Natasha's jealous training "sister" Yelena as Black Widow's equivalent.

...Unless the director decides to go "chick-flick" and ruin THAT idea too, by making them Anna-&-Elsa huggy-sisters, like the Captain Marvel director gave us "good" Skrulls and ruined that studio strategy. (So, no, she won't turn out to be a Skrull.)