A few weeks ago, my colleague wrote about how the future for show business and the silver screen was now mainly in the hands of the internet and its streaming services, mainly Netflix, and quite rightly so. However, who would have thought, that since that article came out, Netflix would have at one point lost $8 billion in value? Well, one company definitely knew this, Disney…
The Mouse is in the house, well, in the On-Demand house. Almost a week ago, Disney announced that later this year, the will launch their own On-Demand streaming service named “Disney+”. This service will be offered at around a cost of $7 a month or $70 a year in the US, almost half the price of Netflix most popular payment plans. Disney has seriously dented Netflix’s stance at the top and is bringing all the guns out, which mainly includes their vast array of content to choose from.
Initially, the service will include over 500 movies and around 7500 TV episodes, all through one service. To add to the heavyweight sucker-punch, the service will include special exclusive series, including “Star Wars: The Mandalorian”, several Pixar shorts, and will also become the exclusive streaming site for the MCU and Fox’s “The Simpsons”.
The most anticipated series of these, “The Mandalorian”, will feature the first proper step of Star Wars into live-action TV (if one forgets the travesty that is the Holiday Special or the Ewok Adventures). Pedro Pascal has been cast as the lead character to which the series is named after and the whole operation is being steered by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, two directors who have already worked well with Disney. Another exclusive is a series based around the story arc of High School Musical. Till now, description is vague, but it will be about 10 episodes centring on a group of students in the high school completing a project of their own.
So how does this bode for other services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime?
Well, with the acquisition of most of 21st Century Fox’s assets, and including its own plethora of content, Disney has the advantage here, but Disney isn’t the only massive media corporation in this list. Both Netflix and Amazon have the needed experience and resources to produce new content strong enough to challenge their competitors. Even others like CBS All-Access will probably continue to gain power, but the mountain they have to climb is hard and difficult, meanwhile the Mouse is most probably already up there on his golden animated throne…
