Let’s preface with this: this news is both exciting and worrying. After all, this is what we get- Disney classics at the push of a button, a new Lizzie McGuire movie with icon Hillary Duff herself? It’s what we deserve. But Disney is growing at a rampant rate, and who knows when they’re going to stop? The conglomerate may swallow all media, but ‘Hercules’ is still a bop.
The new Disney Plus streaming service is set to begin this November 12th. With it comes the promise of new shows, new films, access to the classics, even old Disney Channel Originals. Great, right? It’ll follow Hulu’s setup, where any new shows will be released with a new weekly episode, unlike Netflix’s binge-able seasons. It seems like a smart decision to not only keep watchers reeled in for the shows, but reeled in with their wallets. Don’t get me wrong, they’ll gladly get my money, and it’s exactly what they want.
The service has also announced a slew of new shows and films to be made and released on the platform, most of the news coming from this year’s D23 Expo. First up, and probably most exciting for most people, comes the bombardment of Marvel productions set to be released: ‘WandaVision’, ‘Falcon & Bucky Barnes’, ‘She Hulk’, ‘What If…’, ‘Moon Knight’ (in which Keanu Reeves is RUMORED to play…that’s a whole other level of excitement in and of itself), and so many more. The move to keep the original casting in all these shows that include recurring characters was a brilliant one, as I fear recasting would destroy every reason why they’re so successful.
There’s those to look forward to, but one of the most beautiful ideas to have come out of the announcements is by far a show hosted by Jeff Goldblum in which the entire premise is he doesn’t know anything and is curious about random things. In true Goldblum fashion, he goes to see how denim is made, why shoes cost so much, how tattoos work, and so much more. Entitled ‘The World According to Jeff Goldblum’, I can confidently say that we’ve reached peak TV content. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Other films are being released as well, such as ‘Noel,’ which follows Anna Kendrick and Bill Hader on a quest to save Christmas. It all sounds very exciting and very promising, but it is a lot of content being pumped out all at once, isn’t it? I’m not saying that it’s worrying, but it sure is a large amount of high budget productions coming out in a short amount of time. I have no doubt they’ll be good to begin with, but it does beg to question whether Disney can keep up with them.
It’s an ambitious move, and a historical one at that. Disney is a giant company that owns many media outlets, and is now sizing itself up against large services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. The content it ensures is promising and exciting, but we can only see what this means for what is actually produced and what it means for the other companies challenging it.
But, you’ll have to be the judge- remember, it’s only two months away.