Disney To Consolidate Marvel, Star Wars Film On One Streaming Platform
by Erik Amaya
Breathe a slight sigh of relief, true believers!
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed the company’s plan to bring Marvel and Star Wars films to its upcoming streaming platform. Iger made waves during the summer when he told investors Disney would not renew its distribution deal with Netflix in favor of starting its own service.
He subsequently terrified fans of Disney, Marvel and Star Wars by suggesting the three libraries would be tiered off into their own separate services. “We want to be mindful of the Star Wars fan, the Marvel fan, and to what extent those fans either overlap with Disney fans or are completely separate and incremental to Disney,” said Iger last month. But this morning’s update to the plan indicates the company saw the folly in trying to dupe customers into three services which, no doubt, would have all been $14.99 a month.
While speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2017 Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference in Los Angeles, Iger also announced that the company will produce four or five original films for the service; which will be backed by 500+ films and 7,000 episodes of television from its various libraries. Hopefully some of that will consist of more classic Disney fare like dramas Walt Disney produced for his Sunday night ABC series, The Wonderful World of Color.
The service is set to debut in 2019, just as their deal with Netflix ends.