What was once a landscape inescapably dominated by one powerhouse streaming provider has grown into an increasingly fractured entertainment field, where each major company stakes out its own niche and hopes for the best. Where once Netflix was the only show in town, it now finds itself competing against the likes of Amazon, Hulu, Crunchyroll and many others.
Disney shocked everybody back in August by announcing the creation of their own streaming service, to be released sometime in 2019. And with that, naturally, came the announcement that they would be pulling their beloved movies and series from Netflix (and other providers) sometime between now and then. And given that this is Disney we’re talking about, that’s actually a lot of content getting pulled.
Obviously, gone are all of their animated features: everything from Aladdin to Zootopia would disappear from streaming services overnight. The same goes for their live-action remakes, such as Beauty and the Beast and The Jungle Book. Even their extensive library of original live-action films — including theatrically released classics (Pirates of the Caribbean) and Disney Channel original movies (Brink) — would be subject to this pullout.
I don’t know why, but people seemed unsure of the fate of other properties that were bought out by Disney. These included the works of Pixar (Toy Story, Inside Out), Lucasfilm (Star Wars, Indiana Jones) and Marvel Studios (Iron Man, The Avengers).
Reports began surfacing that Netflix was desperate to keep Disney’s vast library of content on their streaming service beyond the 2019 launch of Disney’s own streaming service. However, it should come as not surprise to anybody what the ultimate answer to that plea was: no.
Disney CEO Bob Iger recently announced, in no uncertain terms, exactly what was going on with Marvel and its partnerships with Netflix and other soon-to-be competing streaming services. He stated that Disney had “decided that [to] put the Star Wars and Marvel movies on this app as well.”
It makes no sense for Disney to pre-emptively shoot themselves in the foot by continuing to split their highly popular content among their competitors. The streaming marketplace is starting to look pretty crowded, with many customers having to pare down their subscriptions to just one or two providers. I personally would love to subscribe to Filmstruck and Amazon, but I just cant justify that if I’m also paying for Netflix and Hulu.
And when Disney does launch their new service in 2019, they will have a tremendous library of content to offer customers right off the bat: from certified classics to obscure gems to the latest blockbusters. And you can bet that they will be the only service out there that will be offering these movies and shows. So if you like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Pixar film, princess movies or the MCU, you better subscribe to their streaming service, because you won’t find any of those on Netflix.
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