Long-awaited, Disney+ is Disney’s new streaming service that offers a range of blockbuster movies and TV shows
Image via Disney
Benefiting from its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, Disney is now able to offer audiences a large range of original content, scheduled to launch by late 2019, as announced by Disney CEO Bob Iger. Disney+ will offer new Star Wars and Marvel series.
Based on the popularity of its box office hits such as Infinity War and The Last Jedi, Disney is expected to offer strong competition to Netflix through its new streaming service, Disney+, attracting existing fans of its popular franchises. Disney is also pulling all of its own content out of Netflix, to be available through its own service, as reported by CNBC. Disney+ catalog of movies, TV shows and other content now also includes Fox content, after Disney bought Fox for $71.3 billion in cash and stock in July of this past year. Disney beat Wall Street expectations for its fourth quarter with $2.3 billion in net income on revenue of $14.3 billion.
With the new service, Disney will experiment with offering straight to streaming original series, bypassing television and box office distribution. Disney has already launched the highly successful ESPN+, a sports-centric streaming service earlier this year in April. Disney+ is built on technology originally developed by BAMTech, an arm of Major League Baseball Advanced Media that develops and maintains direct-to-consumer streaming technology.
Upcoming shows include a second Star Wars spin-off set before Rogue One: A Star Wars Series and another Marvel show featuring Tom Hiddleston as Loki for a new “Loki” series. Additional shows announced previously include Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian and shows based on Monsters Inc. and High School Musical. Disney will also host original animated content such a the next season of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" and a new series set in Pixar's "Monsters Inc." universe.
The service is built on technology developed by BAMTech, an arm of Major League Baseball Advanced Media www.mlb.com that develops and maintains direct-to-consumer streaming technology.