Disney+ app and worldwide rollout plans revealed
In the fall of 2017 Disney announced plans for a subscription streaming service of its own that could compete with the likes of Netflix. Last fall, it revealed a name — Disney+ — and that it would launch in late 2019. Today we’re finally getting more official information about what it’s like as Disney makes a presentation for its investors explaining the company’s overall internet video strategy, including ESPN+ and Hulu, which will “likely” be offered as part of a bundle at a discounted price.
Update: After several hours, Disney finally revealed the price: $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year, launching November 12th.
We already know that the company’s plans include plenty of expansions on content it owns from properties like Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars, as well as the Disney vault of well-loved family films. But what people are hoping to find out today is how much it will cost, how it will work and what, other than exclusives, it might use to draw customers who are already shelling out for one or more video subscriptions.
Disney quickly revealed that all of the content on Disney+ will be ready for subscribers to download and view offline as long as they have a subscription. That’s a feature Netflix only added in the last couple of years, and still doesn’t apply to everything on its service. It’s also going to support 4K and HDR video.
Content
As we knew, Captain Marvel will be a streaming exclusive on Disney+ from day one, and the company said all of the Cars movies will be there also. Disney also showed off the Falcon & Winter Soldier spinoff show we’d heard about, and revealed a new show from Jeff Goldblum produced by National Geographic that’s in development. Frozen 2 will be a streaming exclusive by the time it comes home next, and the first one, along with the rest of Disney’s Signature movies will be streaming on day one.
Kevin Feige came out to announce Marvel’s plans, and also revealed another short series on the way, WandaVision starring Scarlet Witch and Vision, and an unnamed series that will bring back Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Meanwhile, Marvel Studios will also explore the MCU in “fresh and exciting ways” with animated series that use the same voices as the films, including one that explores what-if Peggy Carter had received the super soldier serum.
Lucasfilm exec Kathleen Kennedy announced that Star Wars live-action show The Mandalorian has finished filming and will be available at launch with the new service. She also confirmed another show starring Diego Luna, as well as the new season of The Clone Wars it’s making for Disney+.
Disney itself is also making several live-action entries for the service, including the holiday film Noelle starring Anna Kendrick, and a live-action version of Lady & the Tramp, with a cast that includes Tessa Thompson, Justin Theroux, Sam Elliott and Janelle Monae.
National Geographic will bring many shows from its library to the service from day one, and two exclusive new shows. One is The World According to Jeff Goldblum, as the actor goes in-depth with various items and ideas. The other one is called Magic of the Animal Kingdom, which is set at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Epcot Seabase Aquarium, providing an “all access pass” at the work going on there and around the world to protect the animals.
Even Disney Channel is getting into the act. There’s a new Phineas and Ferb movie on the way plus High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, to go along with 5,000 episodes of Disney Channel content and 100 Disney Channel movies ready to stream from day one.
Just to recap: In year one Disney is promising all of the Pixar library, everything Star Wars, a lot of the MCU, and much more. By year five, it expects 50+ original series, 10,000+ past episodes and 500+ movies in the library. It closed the content announce by revealing that The Simpsons will be a Disney Plus streaming exclusive when the service launches.
As far as where you’ll be able to watch, we saw the app running in a smart TV UI that looked like most Apple TV apps, as well as a tablet interface. The goal is to have it everywhere, and while Disney announced Roku and PS4 as partners by name, it plans to have availability on the usual list of TVs, set-top boxes, dongles and game consoles when it launches.
Disney revealed its plans for a “worldwide” rollout touching all of the “major” regions in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America over the next couple of years. It doesn’t sound like it will touch Netflix’s actual worldwide ability that skips only a few countries, but should reach most of the larger markets by 2021.
Disney execs confirmed that going forward, all of their theatrical releases will be exclusive to Disney+ in their streaming windows, which includes all of the big movies that have yet to debut in 2019, like The Lion King and Avengers: Endgame.
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