Disney has launched its own streaming service with the announcement of new productions, including a Marvel TV series starring Tom Hiddleston as Loki, a new Star Wars series with actors from Rogue One and US streaming rights to The Simpsons.
The entertainment behemoth has been planning its own streaming venture for years as a competitor to Netflix, but on Thursday in California, it announced new TV spin-offs and that it would stream The Simpsons, which Disney acquired when it bought 20th Century Fox last month. Disney already owned Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm.
The company intends to make any new film releases exclusive to its platform, and has already begun the process of pulling its content from other services like Netflix.
Disney Plus will launch in the US on 12 November, at a cost of US$6.99 a month. The company has not yet released details for any other markets.
On Thursday, Disney announced three original Marvel-based TV shows would be developed for the platform.
One will feature Hiddleston in the role of Loki from the Thor movies, one will follow the characters of Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) from the Avengers films, and one will feature the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) from the Captain America franchise.
It will also create two TV series spin-offs of the Star Wars film franchise. One, titled The Mandalorian, will be available at launch. Another will be a spin-off of the film Rogue One, with Diego Luna reprising his character of Cassian Andor.
All of the original and prequel Star Wars films – as well as The Force Awakens – will be on the service at the launch, as well as the recent Captain Marvel movie.
All new Disney theatrical releases – including the upcoming Marvel and Star Wars movies – will be on the platform, and Disney plans to eventually move all existing Disney films on to the platform, once current deals expire.
