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.
As explained by Front Office Sports, the NBA is waiting to see if TNT parent Warner Bros. Discovery will try to match any part of the reported $76 billion in offers from NBC, ESPN, and Amazon.
WBD’s (not-HBO) Max could try to match Prime Video, but with a smaller audience than Amazon’s service, matching might not be enough.
Tech reporter Janko Roettgers shared screenshots of the in-the-works live sports streaming app from Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox in his Lowpass newsletter. Some features spotted by Roettgers include a DVR capability to record live events, multiview for watching multiple streams at once, and a tab dedicated to live programming.
I think most people will be worthy, considering how easy it is to unlock this lock shaped like the MCU version of Thor’s hammer.
Truth be told, I’d still find something to use it for.
The Acolyte took Star Wars back in time by taking things away
The designers behind the show talk about working in a new time period without relying on some of the most iconic elements in Star Wars.
The Acolyte carves out its own slice of the Star Wars universe
The new Disney Plus series is set 100 years before the prequels, giving its early episodes plenty of breathing room.
The first two episodes of the Star Wars series will appear in theaters before it starts streaming on Disney Plus on June 4th. Showings are only available in select theaters in the US — and most of them are already sold out.
The first teaser for the next Moana movie — animated, not live-action — looks a lot like the original but larger in scale, which means some very impressive water effects and gigantic sea creatures. The movie hits theaters on November 27th.
After announcing the new live-action Fantastic Four leads, Marvel revealed that Julia Garner will play a new version of the Silver Surfer, now Deadline is reporting that they’ll all be beefing with Ralph Ineson’s Galactus when the movie hits theaters.
In its first teaser, the new LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy (on Disney Plus September 13th) goes where no Star Wars production has gone before by entering Darth Jar Jar into the canon.
Just kidding, it’s not canon. But it does look like a fun DC Elseworlds or Marvel’s What If...? kind of approach, which I’d like more of (no multiverse though, please).
Here’s your reminder that Disney’s latest animated anthology series, Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, started streaming today.
The six-episode miniseries may not quite be enough to tide everyone over until The Acolyte’s June 4th release, though — the longest episode clocks in at just 19 minutes.
The contest (rules here) runs from May 4th through June 4th. Autodesk provides certain assets like the Star Wars alphabet and symbols, as well as 30 day free trials of Autodesk software.
Prizes include Autodesk fabricating the winning overall droid and a paid trip for the winning designer (with lodging and a plus one!) to San Francisco to tour Industrial Light and Magic Studios.
Star Wars Day doesn’t technically kick off until May 4th, but Apple is celebrating the event a bit early with a precision finding-focused iPhone 15 ad spot starring a squad of (cosplayer) Mandalorians.
Disney Plus has never hosted “Dad Baby” — likely because it depicts Bluey’s dad Bandit pretending to give birth to his daughter Bingo — but the entire episode is now available to watch online via the official Bluey YouTube channel.
Despite Dad Baby’s cult status, it's actually one of several episodes of the Australian children’s TV show hit with censorship.
Disney Plus is well on its way to becoming a cable channel, and the final trailer for X-Men ‘97 makes it feel like the series is going to be following suit given the Cable of it all.
Given the success of Disney’s “live-action” remake of The Lion King, a prequel seemed inevitable, so here we are with Mufasa. It looks a lot like the original, only this time they added an ice level and a villain voiced by Mads Mikkelsen. It hits theaters on December 20th.
According to the WSJ, Amazon, YouTube, and Peacock are all in the mix alongside incumbents Warner and Disney, with the possibility of snagging global streaming rights for some games.
When these deals kick in after 2024-2025, they’ll exist alongside the three-headed effort from Disney, Fox, and WBD, standalone ESPN, Netflix and the WWE, the NBA’s FAST channel and who knows what else.
Jim Henson Idea Man, Ron Howard’s new Disney Plus documentary about the man who dreamt up the Muppets, is obviously going to have its lighthearted moments. But the doc’s first trailer makes it feel like a sentimental tearjerker that will have people putting on their favorite Henson productions after it debuts on May 31st.
Aaron LaBerge is a big name at ESPN and Disney — he’s been there most of the last two decades, overseeing a lot of big projects including the recent Hulu / Disney Plus combination. He cited “personal reasons” for leaving in a note to staff, but also has a new job: after working on the joint betting project between ESPN and Penn Entertainment, he’s Penn’s new CTO.
Today’s episode of Decoder is all about Disney, the massive activist investor revolt it just fought off, and what happens next in the world of streaming. Earlier this month, Disney survived an attempted board takeover from businessman Nelson Peltz. While investors overwhelmingly sided with Disney and CEO Bob Iger, the boardroom showdown made something very clear: Disney needs to figure out streaming and get its creative direction back on track.
To help me better understand what’s happening here, I brought on my friend Julia Alexander, who is VP of strategy at Parrot Analytics, a Puck News news contributor, and, most importantly, a former Verge reporter. She’s a leading expert on all things Disney, and I always learn something important about the state of the entertainment business when I talk to her.