Mass Media & Technology

Disney+ UK Launch Date Confirmed

(November 2019)

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GO
gottago
It's a $200 million film and Disney has a massive funding gap that needs to be filled. They were hardly going to give it away to people paying £6 a month for a largely archive based service with far lower budget originals (which were produced out of Disney+'s budget unlike Mulan). It's a unique situation and I think it's unlikely they'll be doing this in the future. Needs must for Disney right now.

Variety worked out they only need about 14% of subscribers to rent it in order for them to break even on the film. https://variety.com/2020/film/news/mulan-box-office-pvod-profits-potential-1234727271/
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
There's a lot of competition in the streaming sector (Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple, no doubt many others and more to come), so I suppose this may be a calculated risk by Disney, because Mulan was last done by them as an animated features in the late 1990s and was relatively successful, so it's at least a familiar name.

Compared to Artemis Fowl for example, which also made its debut on Disney+ and had no chance of becoming a paid extra and it cost $125m, although of course if they'd released that in theatres when they'd planned to August last year and not kick it into the long grass like they did, it would have still been critically panned but it would have recouped some of its money.
BA
bilky asko
The pricing of 'Mulan' will raise eyebrows. Paying the cost of a standard BluRay (£12.99 - £16.99) for substitute streaming cinema launches has been common and reluctantly accepted. For Disney to set £19.99 for Disney Plus Premier Access for the title does seem excessive.


The difference being (I believe) that the Disney+ access allows you to watch the film as many times as you like between the time you pay for it and its general release to Disney+ subscribers in December. The lower cost rentals are time limited, aren't they?

28 days later

DV
DVB Cornwall
So 'Mulan''s exclusivity on Disney+ has lasted barely 5 weeks, the title to buy at £19.99 has appeared yesterday (06 Oct 2020), on Apple Services (iTunes). For the same price as Disney+ are charging on top of their subscription you can now own it.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
Available to buy at Amazon Prime via Prime Video at the same price too, in HD or 4K. The DVD/Blu-Ray for those of us who prefer physical copies should be out probably November, or maybe when its opened up to all Disney+ users.

Wonder how successful the premium access thing was?

8 days later

NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
I notice looking down the list of movies on Now TV a lot of those that carry the Sky Cinema Disney logo now seem to expire at the end of November, with the exception of some of the better known stuff like Lion King, Toy Story and a few others, mostly with relatively high profile names in them. Other obviously Disney stuff just has a generic Sky Cinema logo on it and isn't expiring.

Wonder if we're going to start seeing soon more migration to Disney+ from other outlets like we've seen with the Disney suite of channels?
KU
Kunst
Sky Cinema Disney has its days counted anyway

Launching Sky Cinema Animation was obviously a strategy in order to mitigate its closure
PL
Plektrum
I notice looking down the list of movies on Now TV a lot of those that carry the Sky Cinema Disney logo now seem to expire at the end of November, with the exception of some of the better known stuff like Lion King, Toy Story and a few others, mostly with relatively high profile names in them. Other obviously Disney stuff just has a generic Sky Cinema logo on it and isn't expiring.

Wonder if we're going to start seeing soon more migration to Disney+ from other outlets like we've seen with the Disney suite of channels?


A large cohort of Disney movies expired in September and unlike normal, they weren’t immediately replaced. Outside of that a lot of catalogue movies appears to be going by the end of March and all that should be left are those still in their pay tv window like Lion King, Star Wars and Maleficent 2 until they expire in time.

I think it’s all but an inevitability that Sky’s Disney channel is gone within the next year - the closure of the linear channels pretty much said everything and that they’re all in on Disney+.

I guess the next question will be what happens with existing pay channels like Fox and NatGeo and whether they will be closed when or if they launch the Star platform.
WH
Whataday Founding member
There's a rumour persisting that Disney+ is getting ready to announce a pin protected section which will contain 20th Century/Touchstone movies that are less suited for a family audience.
PF
PFML84
Good, as some Touchstone movies containing F words are on Disney+ and are censored. Would be nice to see them uploaded uncut.

Odd though that the X-Men films on Disney+ are there, uncut with the F words left in and they aren't pin protected. Won't somebody please think of the children! Laughing
JA
james-2001
Yep, I watched Adventures in Babysitting with my boyfriend last week, was embarrasingly censored.

"Don't fool with a babysitter". Almost as bad as melon farmers.

Though as long as they don't take it as a reason to start littering their original productions with excessive amounts of F bombs like other streaming services do...

23 days later

DV
DVB Cornwall
Results just out. Disney+ has 73M subscribers globally which is impressive over 12 months.

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