Last night during an investors presentation, Disney officially unveiled more information about its upcoming streaming service, Disney+. The company says the service will officially launch on November 12th and cost just $6.99/month. You’ll also have the option to pay annually at $69.99/year.
But during the presentation, Disney did much more than give us simple dates and pricing. The company gave investors a first look at what the Disney+ app will look like and what platforms it’ll be available on. In addition, we now have a good idea of what content will be available to stream.
For starters, here’s what Disney+ will look like. As you can see, there are multiple tabs that will give you access to content from Disney themselves, Pixar, Marvel, the Star Wars universe, and National Geographic. Sifting through the tabs, you’ll be greeted by a similar UI once you make a selection populated by whatever content lives under that brand. It’s pretty straight-forward and will work similarly on smart TVs, phones, tablets, and computers.
Disney says users will be able to set up multiple profiles with Disney+, including those for children with parental controls. All content will be available to download for offline watching, in case you were wondering.
Speaking of content, Disney touts it will have 500 films and around 7,000 episodes of Disney TV shows ready to stream when Disney+ launches. This includes the content from the company’s Vault program which used to make it near impossible to buy certain titles. Now, basically everything Disney owns will be available to stream.
When I say “basically everything,” I mean it. While on stage, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that The Simpsons will be available to stream exclusively on Disney+ from day one. This is one of the biggest additions to the company’s service by far as it required the company to purchase 21st Century Fox. It did it, of course, and now the Walt Disney-founded company can reap the rewards.
As a side note, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more titles from the Fox universe added to Disney+ over time. I’m not sure what Disney has in mind, but I guess we’ll find out over time.
Of course, Disney+ will also be home to new, exclusive movies and TV shows. Disney announced plenty of titles onstage, and here’s a list of each of them.
- Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2 documentary
- Forky Asks A Question series of Pixar shorts based on Toy Story 4
- Lamp Life Pixar short starring Bo Peep from Toy Story 4
- WandaVision series based on Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and The Vision (Paul Bettany) from Avengers
- The Falcon and The Winter Soldier series starring Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan from Avengers
- Loki series starring Tom Hiddleston from Avengers
- Cassian Andor series from Diego Luna and Alan Tudyk
- The Mandalorian live-action Star Wars series
- Noelle starring Anna Kendrick and Bill Hader
- Timmy Failure film from director Tom McCarthy
- Stargirl based on the best-selling book of the same name
- Togo original film starring Willem Dafoe about a man and his sled dogs set in the Alaskan tundra
- Lady and the Tramp live-action remake
- The World According to Jeff Goldblum series from National Geographic
- The Phineas and Ferb Movie all-new original film
- High School Musical: The Musical: The Series based on the film series
Notably, these are just the original shows and movies we know about. No doubt does Disney have more planned, but it’s safe to say they’re at a pretty good start.
All in all, Disney+ looks strong. It costs under $7 a month, it has virtually any and every Disney movie or TV show you would want to watch, and there’s enough original programming for the company to at least have one or two hits on its hands. Of course, the market will have to decide whether the service is actually worth it, but I have a feeling Disney won’t have any problems getting people to sign up. Who wouldn’t pay $6.99 every month to give kids all the movies and TV shows they could ever want in one app?
