Once the public face of squeaky-clean, harmless family entertainment, the Walt Disney Corporation has evolved into a widespread conglomerate known as much for the properties it controls as the films it produces. With subsidiaries including Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, National Geographic, A&E, 20th Century Fox, ESPN, Hulu, and Pixar, Disney has a commanding control of some of the world’s most lucrative franchises, plus an extensive library of film and TV classics. Its streaming service Disney+ signals a new interest in controlling its own online distribution, setting aside decades of licensing partnerships. Follow along with The Verge as we look at Disney’s new films and shows, and its strategies for dominating the box office and the streaming dollar.
Hideo Kojima’s two games are getting an anime series, Death Stranding Isolations, on Disney Plus in 2027.
Kojima will produce, with Takayuki Sano of E&H Production directing, and the announcement promises “a traditional, hand-drawn 2D animation style.” It’ll follow two new characters in the Death Stranding world, but that’s all we know.
The Athletic reports that Disney and Google’s CEOs have become “more involved” in the negotiations nearly two weeks after ESPN, ABC, and other Disney-owned channels went dark on YouTube TV.
Sources tell the outlet that YouTube TV is still trying to determine how much it should pay for Disney’s non-sports networks like Freeform, FX, and National Geographic.
Ahead of one of the biggest games of the NFL season so far, I have a feeing there might be something he wants to talk about. He’ll be on the show at 8PM ET.
Now that the Disney blackout has dragged on for an “extended period of time,” Google will begin handing out the promised credits today. Customers should get an email explaining how to apply the one-time credit to their next bill. But, $20 probably won’t satisfy disgruntled customers who just want to watch SportsCenter.
The standoff between Disney and YouTube started just before midnight on Thursday evening, and unlike the 36-hour tiff in 2021, there’s no sign of an end yet. Disney said it asked Google to turn the networks on for 24 hours for election (and probably football) coverage, but YouTube declined.
There are plenty of other options for customers - election news information is very widely available across other broadcast stations and news networks on YouTube TV, as well as on the main YouTube service, for free. In fact, on the last two U.S. election days, the vast majority of tuned in YouTube TV subscribers chose not to watch ABC.
Disney is one of the last major streamers to support the open-source, royalty-free (and Samsung-backed) competitor to Dolby Vision. Its inclusion now gives people with Samsung TVs access to the dynamic HDR content that other TV owners have been getting from Dolby Vision.
Fubo and Hulu + Live will remain separate, meaning you can still watch Hulu + Live TV from the Hulu app, while Fubo’s content will stay on its own streaming service. Under the new structure, Hulu’s parent company, Disney, owns 70 percent of the combined businesses.
Last week Marvel confirmed that a third season of the Disney Plus revival is in the works, but now we know when the second will arrive: Born Again will be born again on March 4th, 2026.
Avatar actress Zoe Saldaña was just talking earlier this week about wanting James Cameron to make a documentary about how much human artistry goes into films made with motion capture. And now, there’s a new trailer for Disney Plus’ upcoming Fire And Water: Making The Avatar Films doc out on November 7th.
A six-part documentary and Final Show concert film showcasing Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour are coming to Disney Plus on December 12th, featuring guest appearances from Gracie Abrams, Sabrina Carpenter, Ed Sheeran, and Florence Welch. The recent Disney price hikes might be a small price to pay for Swifties who missed out on the tour itself.
First, Yahya Abdul-Mateen showed up at the Fantastic Four: First Steps premiere, giving in-character interviews as Simon Williams — the star of Disney Plus’ upcoming Wonder Man miniseries. And now, Marvel has dropped a Wonder Man teaser that makes it seem like the show will be about an in-universe superhero movie reboot.
Disney’s notorious legal team complained Character.AI was damaging its brand and exploiting its intellectual property by allowing unauthorized chatbots of its characters.
Don’t worry, there’s still an abundance of bots pretending to be characters owned by other companies if that’s what you’re after, including hordes of Shreks and SpongeBob SquarePants.
Disney has had a tumultuous couple weeks. It pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air, suffered a widespread boycott, then reinstated Kimmel’s show last night. Sounds like the perfect time to raise prices.
supernova-high:
Hiking prices a couple of days after the disastrous decision to cave to Trump and kick-off a boycott of your platform that lost you thousands of subscribers? This is the kind of business thinking that AI just can’t replace yet.
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Despite Disney announcing the show’s return, the television operator in control of 39 local ABC affiliates across the US, including Washington DC, issued the following statement:
Beginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live! across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming. Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return.
It’s unclear if Nexstar, the other major operator that’s also seeking FCC approval for a merger, will follow suit.
That might have been “part of the reason” the company figured things out with Jimmy Kimmel to bring his show back, according to independent journalist Marisa Kabas.
ABC’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel in fear of Donald Trump is already casting an ugly shadow on the Disney brand.
Soon, Disney Plus subscribers will have access to a “curated selection of content” on a new digital comics platform that’s being developed by Disney and Webtoon. In addition to thousands of classic titles from the Marvel, Star Wars, and 20th Century Studios brands, the platform will feature original Webtoon series.
There’s been a backlash to the news that RedZone’s “commercial-free football” promise is coming to an end, but the host explained on X that the new ads shouldn’t be too intrusive with a few points, matching an earlier report by Front Office Sports:
While Marvel has released TV-MA projects before, the new trailer for Marvel Zombies makes it look like the series is really going to earn that rating by piling on as much (animated) blood and guts as possible.
Charles already declared Alien: Earth “one of this year’s strongest new shows,” so I wasn’t shocked by how much I liked its debut. I was surprised by the scale of its sets, and this featurette has more detail about how they managed that by filming outside in Bangkok.
Following talks first reported two years ago, ESPN is acquiring the NFL Network and rights to the fan-favorite RedZone Channel in exchange for the league taking a 10 percent stake in the sports network. It’s all fodder for ESPN’s upcoming streaming service which could launch this month for $29.99. ESPN parent Disney reports earnings later today so expect to hear more then.
[thewaltdisneycompany.com]
