Disney+ could be just the magic we all need
With cinema-going in turmoil, the arrival of Disney’s streaming service is perfectly timed, says Tim Robey
The launch of Disney’s new streaming service, which becomes available across Europe on March 24, is almost suspiciously well timed. Cinemas everywhere are shuttering, major releases being indefinitely postponed, and blockbusters in mid-production being stalled. Schools are also closing down.
In bounds Disney+, with a wagging tail and launch offer equivalent to £4.17 a month. For that, you get
every Star Wars film, every Marvel film and every Pixar film, except
the currently-in-cinemas Onward.
But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Disney are opening the vaults to give viewers access to 350 series and more than 400 films from their back catalogue – so we’re talking
everything from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to both versions
of The Lion King (1994, 2019) to
Frozen (2013).
On a scan of their launch list, there doesn’t seem to be much missing. Want to revisit The Great
Mouse Detective (1986) or The
Rescuers Down Under (1990) or
Muppet Treasure Island (1996)? Or The Santa Clause 3 (2006), for some reason? They’ve got you covered.
Most importantly, there’s nowhere else you’ll be able to see these, quite possibly anywhere ever again – not even on terrestrial. Christmas TV schedulers will be in a state of panic. Disney are withdrawing their films and programmes from every other platform, with very few exceptions. Existing Sky subscribers, for the time being, will still have access to The
Simpsons, which Disney acquired in last year’s buy-out of Fox. But all 30 existing seasons will also be dropping on Disney+ at launch, as will season 31 this November.
The National Geographic channel will continue to exist on Sky, but much of its content, including feature documentaries like the great Free Solo (2018), about Alex Honnold’s astonishing rope-free ascent of the El Capitan rock face, is being ported to Disney+ as well. National Geographic will be one of five “pillars” of programming on the new service – the other four being Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars.
There may never be a better chance to explore the riches of Disney’s back catalogue – the Golden Age likes of Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941) and Bambi (1942), say – or to attempt a Star Wars marathon taking us right up to The Rise of Skywalker.
Although scheduled for May/june, this last part of the saga could well drop early on the channel as a public service during global quarantine.
The Mandalorian, the first liveaction TV series to spin off from
Star Wars, premiered when Disney+ launched in the US last November, and will be gradually rolled out on the European version, too. Disney aren’t missing too many tricks. While British viewers may have to wait until the theatrical window has fully closed on Frozen II, they just sped up its arrival on to the platform for US customers, undoubtedly boosting take-up: Disney reported 28.6 million subscribers in February, and that figure will have gone way past the 30 million mark by now.
Unlike Netflix, with its staggered subscription packages, the Disney+ offer is one-size-fits-all, allowing playback on four devices, and 4K Ultra HD streaming, assuming you have the right equipment, at no extra cost. Gaming consoles, streaming media players and smart TVS can all carry it.
Beyond films, there’s a wealth of TV and original programming which Disney will now be premiering here and nowhere else, including hours and hours of animated Star Wars content, the new High School Musical show and Natgeo’s documentary series The World According to Jeff Goldblum, in which the actor learns about everyday objects, from trainers to coffee.
Anyone tempted to try a Marvel cinematic marathon, in order of either release or story chronology, should look no further. Plus, Marvel’s fan-servicing TV spin-offs will be landing, too – not just the alleged final season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but their forthcoming The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Wandavision, What If...?, Hawkeye, Ms Marvel, She-hulk, Moon Knight and… well, that’s surely quite enough for now.
The impact Disney+ will have on existing streaming services – Netflix, Amazon Prime, NOW TV and so forth – is as hard to predict as everything else in the current climate. Back in November, when Disney+ launched Stateside, Netflix didn’t suffer too significantly – their downloads stood fast at a fairly typical 70,000 a day even through the first week of the rival service and its marketing hype.
It’s a sign that consumers are willing to set aside an extra portion of their monthly outgoings if it’s Disney, bearing in mind the value being offered: no more DVD or Blu-ray purchases of their titles will ever be needed. With the theatrical release window currently being shattered by coronavirus, and films such as Universal’s Trolls World Tour, which would normally have launched in hundreds of cinemas, dropping on streaming platforms instead, such affordable access to the Mouse House catalogue will be a no-brainer for many families.
The big question is how much viewing habits will revert to their previous norms when we eventually get back into cinemas. While Disney will certainly never turn up their noses at the vast profits cinema achieves for them – look at the $1.45 billion Frozen II has grossed to date, or the $1.67 billion haul of last year’s Lion King – they’re also giving these films a much more practical afterlife than ever before.