Apple TV+, HBO Max, Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu… are you keeping track?
Entertainment giant Disney announced the entirety of its future Disney+ catalogue on Twitter last week. The thread itself was extremely lengthy at over 600 tweets, which comes as no surprise seeing as Disney+ combines not only Disney’s entire catalogue but those of Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. The first film announced was the very first Disney film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), before ending with their most recent titles: Lady and The Tramp (2019) and The Mandalorian (2019). There are also many lesser known titles in the mix, including some very humorous titles such as That Darn Cat (1997) and Step-Sister from Planet Weird (2000). In the thread’s closing tweet, Disney+ promised that there is more to come which indicates that there will likely be more announcements as future projects are unveiled. (If the twitter thread is too much of a faff, the official Disney fan club website D23 has created an alphabetical list of all the titles coming to Disney+ next month for fans to browse titles in a much easier fashion.)
Disney is not the only entertainment service launching a streaming platform however, and the market is looking to get more crowded as time goes on. Apple TV+ launches on November 1st at a cost of USD $4.99 a month, and it has stated that it will be focusing on quality over quantity when it comes to its offerings. HBO is also launching a service named HBO Max in April 2020 (price TBA) and have just paid Netflix USD $425 million for the rights over the Friends tv series. Speaking of Netflix, there are also the incumbent streaming services that Disney+ will be competing with in terms of viewership. Although the cost of Disney+ compared to Netflix (for example) is much cheaper at only USD $6.99 a month or $70 for the year, Netflix remains one of the leaders in the streaming industry thanks to their variety and enormity of original content produced – one of the downsides of Disney+ is the slow rollout of new shows, as classic Disney channel spinoffs and sequels are most likely to be released in 2020, if not later. With such variety of streaming platforms to choose from, it will be interesting to see how the viewership for Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime will change once Apple TV+, Disney+, and HBO Max are introduced – not to mention any future streaming sites that have not yet been announced.
After having our choices efficiently streamlined by Netflix, audiences are once again being forced to choose which packages and companies to choose from when it comes to films and television shows. For those ardent Disney/Marvel fans however, you won’t have much longer to wait as the site goes live less than a month on November 12th.
Words by Yasmin Bye