Disney Plus: Everything to know about Disney’s streaming service

Disney Plus, the entertainment giant’s online hub for streaming almost everything it produces, has become a mega hit. Disney Plus broadcasts shows and films from Disney’s franchise companies including war of stars, wonder and Pixar and all of the family-friendly films and animations from Disney itself, as well as new originals and programs acquired through the Fox acquisition The simpsons.

In less than six months, the service quickly increased to 54.5 million subscribers as of Monday, which coincided with the fourth fan day in May when Disney Plus started streaming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker three months earlier than planned
. Disney First, it was predicted that the streaming service would reach between 60 and 90 million subscribers after about five years. Now Disney Plus is only six months after launch in the immediate vicinity of this area, the company said on Tuesday.

Disney also said Tuesday that the service should start in Japan in June; in the Nordic countries, Belgium, Luxembourg and Portugal in September; and in Latin America towards the end of the year.

Rise of Skywalker is the latest movie whose streaming release date was on Disney Plus during the Corona virus Pandemic. As containment measures, cinemas have closed and forced families to do so chat at home Disney has optimized the role of Disney Plus more than ever, making it a larger and earlier part of the release cycles of its large-screen films.

For one, Disney has accelerated how quickly other previously released films are streamed. Disney released both animated hits Frozen 2 and Pixars Continue on Disney Plus early. Frozen 2 came into service in mid-March, three months before the original streaming date. And It continued with Disney Plus April 3, less than a month after its premiere in cinemas.

Disney is also beginning to change its movie list to skip theaters in favor of Disney Plus. So far, this has only happened with one film: Artemis poultry, a science fiction fantasy based on a popular series of books for young adults. It was last released on May 29th. Instead, the company turns it into an original Disney Plus film that airs on June 12.

But the coronavirus and the respiratory disease that it causes COVID-19, disrupted Disney Plus in a negative way. The biggest disruption was the original live action series – like productions everywhere, Disney said Production put on hold for Disney Plus originals. This includes the much anticipated original Marvel shows. The hawk and the winter soldier should be the first to debut in August, but now the release date is questionable. In addition, the second season of Disney Plus’ breakout hit The Mandalorian was due to enter service in October. Disney has yet to confirm whether this release schedule is still on the right track.

The fact that Marvel films are delayed for years is not a good sign of the show’s release dates, as the plot of Marvel films and series is knitted together. For example, the Disney Plus series WandaVision should be released in December and will be set up Scarlet witchThe action that you can move directly into Doctor Strange: In the multiverse of madness, which was originally planned to be released in early 2021. Now the publication of the Doctor Strange sequel has been postponed until 2022, questioning the fate of WandaVision.

At least work on it Season 3 of the Mandalorian is already preparing according to a report. At the moment, Disney Plus is still able to add new programs, like a special series that goes behind the scenes of The Mandalorian, also on May 4th. There are also new projects pending Star Wars series for women.

With the corona virus pandemic continuing, Disney Plus can take on new and different meanings. It was already the company’s big bet on streaming as the future of home entertainment Netflix and an emerging crop of rivals like peacock, Apple TV Plus and HBO max – also unconventional mobile short form services Quibi. It was one of the largest launches last year by a media analyst as “one of the greatest product launches ever. ”

Generally, Disney Plus in the U.S. costs $ 7 a month, or $ 70 if you prepay a full year. (International prices are listed below.) The monthly rate is half the HBO Now price and the upcoming price HBO max. This price is also a discount compared to Netflix at $ 9 a month.

So it is Disney Plus is it worth paying? You can find all the details about Disney Plus below, but basically: if you love war of stars or Marvel at films or if you have children, you may still have a subscription.

When are the release dates?

Disney Plus was launched in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, India, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Switzerland and France.

The service is scheduled to launch in Japan in June. in the Nordic countries, Belgium, Luxembourg and Portugal in September; and Latin America towards the end of 2020.

Worldwide, Disney is planning a progressive rollout worldwide over two years. The company provided a general schedule for extending the service to the major regions of the world.

Disney Plus is to be introduced in:

• Eastern Europe in the course of one year from summer 2020.

• Asia Pacific over a two-year period, starting with the Japanese launch in June.

(Read: Disney Plus en español.)

The service first started November 12 in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands. Disney Plus was launched less than two weeks later Apple TV Plus rolls. Disney Plus arrived in Australia and New Zealand on November 19. Then, on March 11, Disney Plus started unexpectedly early in India when Disney renamed its existing hotstar streaming service there to Disney Plus Hotstar and added a plethora of new titles to stream. The company completed its launch in India in late March.

On March 24, Disney Plus launched in parts of Western Europe, including the UK, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Disney Plus had originally planned to launch in France at the same time, but because European officials feared that the internet traffic associated with the rollout could do so burden the country’s networksDisney held back its French launch until April 7th. When Disney originally launched in the U.S. in November, demand for signing up and using the service on the first day caused widespread crashes, although that launch occurred during much more routine patterns of bandwidth demand.

In the UK and Ireland, Disney Plus replaces the existing Disney Life service, but the switch is not automatic for Disney Life subscribers. If you were a Disney Life subscriber, you must sign up for Disney Plus. Disney Plus also agreed to launch the Pay TV operator supported by Comcast sky via the Sky Q service and the Now TV app in the UK and Ireland. In France, Canal Plus will be the exclusive Disney Plus pay-TV distributor, and its traditional channels aired the first episode of The Mandalorian on March 24 as part of an advertising boost.

How much is it?

In the U.S., Disney Plus service costs $ 7 a month or $ 70 a year.

In Canada, Disney Plus costs CA $ 9 a month or CA $ 90 a year. In countries that are part of the euro zone, it is € 7 or € 70 per year. In the UK it’s £ 6 a month or £ 60 a year. In Australia, the price is AU $ 9 a month or AU $ 90 a year, while New Zealand subscribers pay NZ $ 10 a month or NZ $ 100 a year. In India, Disney Plus Hotstar costs 299 Indian rupees a month or INR 999 a year.

The U.S. price undercuts the $ 13 monthly fee for Netflix’s most popular U.S. plan, which allows you to stream to two different devices in high definition at the same time. With Disney Plus, however, all subscribers can stream four devices and access 4K content at no additional cost – features that Netflix includes in its premium $ 16 level.

Christine M. McCarthy, Disney’s chief financial officer, hinted that prices for Disney Plus could increase as service progressed, and referred to the $ 7 per month fee as the “initial” price.

The company also bundles Disney Plus Hulu (with ads) and ESPN PlusIf you subscribe to all three streaming options, you’ll get a $ 5 discount. At $ 13, it costs as much as Netflix’s most popular plan in the U.S.

Back in 2017, Disney’s then CEO, Bob Iger, found that the price would “reflect the fact that the volume will be much less” than its main competitor, Netflix. Over the months and years, Disney will be collecting a larger catalog of exclusive and originals on Disney Plus. In this case, it’s a good bet that the company will push its price up.

There are also offers to get Disney Plus for free.

In October, Disney and Verizon announced a contract that will offer a free Disney Plus year to all network operator customers with an unlimited 4G LTE or 5G account and new customers of Verizon’s Fios and 5G home internet services from day one. Those who pre-purchased a Disney Plus plan like the three-year discount plan that has just expired can stack up a free year on top of it, according to a Verizon FAQ.

How does Disney Plus compare to competitors and match other Disney streaming services like Hulu?

Disney Plus is a competitor of Video streaming services like Netflix, HBO Now and Apple TV Plus. It’s a paid, non-advertising subscription, giving customers access to an extensive library of Disney’s and Fox’s legacy content as well as new, exclusive TV shows, films, documentaries and short films.

Disney’s other streaming services – Hulu and ESPN Plus with a focus on sports – run on the same technical platform. Disney plans to have all three single subscriptions, but offers a triple service bundle up for $ 13 a month.

The main diDisney Plus contains all of Disney’s family-friendly content and much of the mass audience – basically everything that is made for an audience up to a PG-13 rating. It contains content from Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm (meaning Star Wars), Pixar and National Geographic. Outside of these traditional categories, it also features all 30 seasons of The Simpsons, a feather in the cap from Fox’s takeover.

In Hulu, on the other hand, Disney transfers more material for adults. For example, two series originally planned for Disney Plus – High Fidelity and Love, Victor – were moved to Hulu because of their more mature themes.

Hulu is now the official streaming home for FX networks. (FX became part of Disney after Disney bought Fox for $ 71.3 billion.) FX on Hulu will include all seasons of more than 40 FX series, and episodes of current and new FX series immediately after broadcast in traditional Offer network. FX will also produce original series exclusively for “FX on Hulu”.

At the moment, Hulu will continue to stream content from three of the broadcast networks as well as from its own original series such as The Handmaid’s Tale Castle Rock.

And Disney now has full control over Hulu’s direction. Hulu was only jointly owned by four parent companies in March. But in May, Disney said it would buy the rest of Hulu it didn’t already own. This gives Disney the flexibility to offer its bundle discount.

How can I stream it?

Disney offers extensive device support for streaming to phones, tablets, computers, connected TVs and streaming media boxes. In August, the company announced that it also has global distribution agreements with Apple, Google, Microsoft, Roku and Sony. Less than a week before launch, Disney expanded this to Amazon, Samsung and LG. This includes the makers of:

Executives have announced that Disney Plus should be supported by all major devices that stream videos.

What product features does the service include?

Disney Plus can stream 4K Ultra HD content in Dolby Vision, HDR10 and Dolby Atmos audio. You can view the available formats of a title in any of the Disney Plus apps by clicking the main page of that show or movie and then clicking the “Details” tab. The app for streaming boxes like Roku and Apple TV is also designed to briefly light up an icon that tells you the format you’re watching. It is displayed in the upper right corner of the screen for a few seconds when a video is played.

Each Disney Plus account can be streamed to four devices at the same time and seven user profiles can be created for different household members. Each account can select an avatar from a Disney, Pixar, Marvel or Star Wars character, with more than 200 avatars available.

Disney Plus also offers unlimited mobile downloads for offline viewing. Subscribers can download on up to 10 mobile or tablet devices with no restrictions on the number of times a song can be downloaded. The number of tracks stored on a device at the same time depends on how much space is available on the device.

The service is expected to support English, Spanish, French and Dutch at launch, including user interface, audio support and subtitles for library content. Additional languages ​​are available for Disney Plus originals.

The app also supports subtitles, descriptive audio and navigation support to help subscribers with disabilities.

Shows and films: what can I see?

Disney Plus is the exclusive home for streaming movies, shows and short films from Star Wars. wonder, Pixar, Disney’s own studio and National Geographic. There are also exclusive series and films, some based on the blockbuster franchises and others original. And Disney Plus also integrates Fox programming. Every 30 seasons of The simpsons are like on Disney Plus and titles The sound of music, The princess bride and Malcom in the middle are added in the first year. (Disney has also announced that it will remove the Fox catalog for new starts and reinterpret previous Fox franchises “for a new generation” – a new start from Home alone is on the one hand in progress.)

Disney Plus houses the entire film library of Pixar, Star Wars and its Signature Series and Disney Vault lines of classic hand-drawn animated films. (Think Bambi, The Lion King, Snow White, etc.) Due to previous license agreements, Disney Plus will take a long time to be a comprehensive library of all Disney films. CNET has a comprehensive list of the most important ones Shows and movies are still coming to Disney Plus. As of 2019 releases, all Disney movies will be streamed exclusively on Disney Plus.

Then there is the large selection of original, exclusive shows and films for the service.

Important originals are The Mandalorian, a big budget series with Pedro Pascal about a bounty hunter that takes place five years after the events in The Return of the Jedi. It is the original series of the service with viral sensation Baby Yodaand it became a phenomenon of pop culture. The Mandalorian was originally scheduled to continue its second season in October, but this schedule is currently unclear due to coronavirus disorders. Disney is investing heavily in The Mandalorian. The show’s budget has reportedly approached $ 15 million per episode. In comparison, Game of Thrones has only achieved this kind of spending last season.

Another live action Star Wars series, a Prequel to Rogue One, should start shooting this year. It will feature Diego Luna, who played Cassian Andor in the original film.

And Disney has planned seven live action series featuring the stars of his blockbuster Avengers films.

The first wave should be released as follows (before the corona virus turned the schedules upside down): the hawk and the winter soldier with Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan in August; WandaVision with Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany in December; a Loki series with Tom Hiddleston in spring 2021; and a Hawkeye series in the fall of 2021 with Jeremy Renner and Kate Bishop, which will be a second Hawkeye in the comics. These data were also planned before the corona virus malfunctioned.

In August, the company unveiled plans for three more shows based on the characters Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Moon Knight. In the comics, Ms. Marvel or Kamala Khan is a young protégé of Captain Marvel’s Carol Danvers and Marvel’s first Muslim character to overwrite her own comic book. The Ms. Marvel series was originally confirmed for release in 2021. She-Hulk or Jennifer Walters is Bruce Banner’s cousin, whose superhuman powers were transferred to her when she received a transfusion of Banner’s blood. (Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo is in talks to appear in the series.) The character Moon Knight or Marc Spector is a former mercenary and CIA agent who has multiple personalities and is infused with powers of an Egyptian god.

At Comic Con in July wonder The studio’s president, Kevin Feige, explained how the studio’s Disney Plus shows are essential for Marvel fans. The characters and narratives of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are put together between movies and Original series on Disney Plus.

Benedict Cumberbatch is accompanied by, for example Scarlet witch Actress Elizabeth Olsen in the theatrical version Doctor Strange: In the multiverse of madness – But to understand how Olsen’s character came about on the big screen, you have to watch the Disney Plus Original WandaVision.

On the other hand, Avengers: End Game includes an indication of how Loki returns from his death to appear in the Disney Plus original Loki.

Disney Plus is also planning a range of original documentaries, reality shows, contest series, behind-the-scenes features, nature and adventure titles, and animated programs – the list goes on. It could also be the place where Disney debuts live-action short films made through the Launchpad incubator program to offer more opportunities to filmmakers from under-represented groups.

Disney Plus even starts streaming two-dimensional versions of Disney’s virtual reality shorts.

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How will that affect Disney content on Netflix?

Disney will largely disappear from Netflix over the course of 2020 (with one limitation).

Netflix has been number one since 2016 Watching Disney’s films with a subscription. This deal meant that Netflix was the point of contact for the biggest US blockbusters in the past three years. The two best films of 2017 and the three best films of 2016 and 2018 were all Disney, and Netflix was the place where they were all captivated.

But Disney has decided not to extend this Netflix deal how his own competitors planned. Starting with Disney’s 2019 movie board, all of these movies are destined for Disney Plus. That means Captain Marvel, the first movie Disney released in theaters in 2019, is the first movie on Disney Plus instead of Netflix. It also means that Mary Poppins returns should be the last Disney movie that has some kind of release window on Netflix.

Licensing is complicated, however, and a report says Disney will temporarily return these films to Netflix from 2026 and remove them from Disney Plus. This affects films released between January 2016 and December 2018, including Marvel titles like Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War; Star Wars hits like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and The Last Jedi; and Pixar staples like Finding Dory, Coco and The Incredibles 2. It also touches family favorites like Moana and the live action Beauty and the Beast.

One consideration: Disney Plus will not lose these titles until six years after the service started. At this point, Disney Plus will have built a large permanent library of original content and will continue to forward all of its latest releases to Disney Plus and nowhere else. This will likely affect the loss of these films for a limited time.

Netflix’s Marvel Defenders shows are also complicated. Netflix has partnered with Disney to release five original series based on Defenders characters. In 2018, Netflix canceled three of them: Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. Then in 2019, Netflix has canceled the last two: The Punisher and Jessica Jones. Kevin Mayer, Disney Manager responsible for Disney Plus, said Disney Plus could potentially revive the canceled shows. But the terms of their original deal could stop Disney Plus from doing so Revivals by 2020after a report.