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Disney Is Pulling Star Wars and Marvel Films From Netflix (arstechnica.com) 195

Posted by BeauHD from the subscribe-to-save dept.
Disney CEO Bob Iger announced on Thursday that his company will pull the full catalog of films from the Star Wars franchise and Marvel universe from Netflix after 2019. Last month, Disney announced it would be pulling a number of Disney titles from the Netflix catalog, but left the door open to keeping the Star Wars franchise and Marvel films. That door has since been slammed shut, "choosing instead to use movies like Iron Man, Captain America, and the forthcoming Star Wars: Episode IX as a draw to a new Disney-owned streaming service," reports Ars Technica. From the report: It's not clear exactly which films are affected by Iger's announcement. A Netflix spokesperson told The Verge last month that "we continue to do business with the Walt Disney Company on many fronts, including our ongoing deal with Marvel TV." That refers to a collaboration between Disney and Netflix to produce several live-action television series based on lesser-known Marvel characters Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage. Some of those series are still being actively developed. It's a high-risk gamble for Disney. It makes sense for Disney to bring its best-known franchises back under its own roof to give the Disney streaming service the best possible chance of success. But Disney is leaving a lot of money on the table by not doing a deal with Netflix or one of its competitors. It could be an expensive mistake if the Disney streaming service doesn't get traction.
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Disney Is Pulling Star Wars and Marvel Films From Netflix More

Disney Is Pulling Star Wars and Marvel Films From Netflix

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  • So long... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Known Nutter ( 988758 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @05:42PM (#55156097)
    And nothing of value was lost. For me anyway.

    • I stand with you.

      I heart Netflix and I am counting on them to make alternative original content that blows away anything that Disney could accomplish alone.

  • Just say no (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gravewax ( 4772409 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @05:44PM (#55156105)
    As per previous discussions on this. FUCK YOU DISNEY! I will not support service proliferation in this manner no matter what movies you have that I may want to watch. You are basically trying to create the exact same licensing, package lockin and distribution restrictions we fled to these streaming services to escape.

    • They're counting on the kids (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @08:18PM (#55156779)
      Any other studio wouldn't try this because of the potential backlash from upset consumers. Disney thinks they can get away with it because kids are going to bug their parents into getting a subscription so they can watch the Disney stuff, principles be damned. And I suspect they're right.
      • It's basically the modern version of the Disney Channel, which is one of the few cable channels people actually wanted.

      • Re:They're counting on the kids (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Friday September 08, 2017 @03:01AM (#55157643)

        Any other studio wouldn't try this because of the potential backlash from upset consumers. Disney thinks they can get away with it because kids are going to bug their parents into getting a subscription so they can watch the Disney stuff, principles be damned. And I suspect they're right.

        Yes, you're right.

        Think about it. Disney is the #1 entertainment company in the world. They make a crap load of money selling entertainment.

        What Disney makes pretty much turns the rest of Hollywood as a rounding error.

        It's why they can co-opt the public domain, get "mickey mouse" laws passed and all sorts of other things. And they've carefully crafted their image as a family friendly child-safe zone, so billions of people happily hand over trillions of dollars.

  • I can't wait to pay $20/m for a disney streaming (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hsmith ( 818216 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @05:45PM (#55156109)
    service. said no one ever. The rates they'll charge itll be cheaper to buy the titles you like, or simply pirate them. My price elasticity has already tapped out for these services.
    • Disney will have to go with a yearly subscription model if it wants serious revenue from the people those movies attract.

      Disney's animated stuff for kids can go with a monthly model and expect revenue to keep pouring in because kids watch things over and over and over again.
      • The others will probably go with a yearly subscription as well, or people will start "service hopping": subscribe to 1 or 2 different streaming services each month and binge their stuff, then switch again the next month. Or they will do what purveyors of online porn already tried a while ago: keep only a subset of your archives online in any given month, and rotate the selection. Or they might offer pay per view options at silly prices, i.e. 5 bucks for a movie.

    • Re:I can't wait to pay $20/m for a disney streamin (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mike Van Pelt ( 32582 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @06:12PM (#55156277)

      This. Every dang studio and every dang TV network is planning to have their very own subscription service for $$/month, just to see the one program of interest that they have, and I'm not doing it. I would probably have watched the new Star Trek series, but I'm not paying CBS $$/month subscription for their package of crap I'll never watch just for that one program.

      I hadn't been tempted to go pirate before, but this is making me waver...

      • "I would probably have watched the new Star Trek series, but I'm not paying CBS $$/month"

        If you're in the US, not sure that's an issue. Isn't CBS still free over the air??

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by The Rizz ( 1319 )

          If you're in the US, not sure that's an issue. Isn't CBS still free over the air??

          That depends on if you own a HDTV with a tuner built in, and if you've bought an HDTV antenna.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by txmason ( 882110 )
          The new Star Trek is CBS All Access only.

        • Re:I can't wait to pay $20/m for a disney streamin (Score:5, Insightful)

          by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @10:25PM (#55157113)

          >"If you're in the US, not sure that's an issue. Isn't CBS still free over the air??"

          CBS has explicitly said they are NOT going to air the new Star Trek and have it ONLY on their streaming service. There are absolutely ZERO other shows most of us want from CBS, so this is likely to go over like a lead balloon. So they will have very little streaming revenue and zero ad revenue. I suspect they will give up and air it anyway after they discover people will not tolerate it and it ends up very popular on illegal file sharing.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            CBS is a perfect example of how these old industries don't understand technology. A lot of piracy these days is via streaming sites - Game of Thrones piracy was about 85% streaming sites this year. So CBS thinks "people like streaming, so if we make a streaming site we can charge $15/month they will flock to it. We are a premium content channel after all, and this is our premium Star Trip franchise."

            Beyond that they see an opportunity to become the cable company, to milk the customers for ridiculous amounts

          • It is all about exclusive geographic licencing rights. I looked into this some time ago when it was first announced.

            If you live in the USA: CBS Streaming Service
            If you live in Canada: Bell Canada will air it on it's "Space" cable channel.
            If you live anywhere else: You will be able to watch it on Netflix (Though I am uncertain if individual episodes will be available, it may only be available after the first season has been aired, and then posted to Netflix).

            It is kinda BS. I have the Space channel of course

      • This. I will pay CBS $6/month for Big Brother live feeds. I will not pay for Star Trek and I am an enormous nerd.

        There is literally nothing on CBS.com I would watch for free, much less pay for. Same for other networks.

        CBS is doubling down with 2 BBs a year now -- this year will include not a BB OTT 2, but rather a celebrity BB in the "winter". No doubt chosen to coincide with the second half of season one of Goldtone Trek.

        Personally, I cannot wait for The Orville with old-school primary colors instead of

      • Just like cable television, where you pay stupid amounts of money for a "package" that contains 39 crap channels you never watch just for the one channel you do want.

    • Isn't Pirates of the Caribbean a Disney title?
      I mean they already like pirates, so...

      Seriously though, I already pay explicitly for one streaming service (Netflix) and implicitly for a second (Amazon Prime, but streaming is secondary reason for account ownership). I'll not pay for a third, and will elect to visit whatever the replacement for TPB is instead and stream from there.

      The value add Netflix brings is that they aggregate several publisher's works into one dead simple interface. I'm confident that

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by The Rizz ( 1319 )

        I'll not pay for a third, and will elect to visit whatever the replacement for TPB is instead and stream from there.
        You mean TPB? Every time they kill it, it comes back. I swear, it's some kind of phoenix always rising from its own ashes...

        2) *someone* would make a front-end that re-aggregated all the services into a unified UI and would be attacked by the media cartel instantly.

        Attacks for that are seriously doubtful. "Guardians of the Galaxy is only available if you purchase the Disney Streaming service. [Purchase now?]" As long as you still have to pay their service fees to get their shows, they won't care. Aggregate services are fine, competing services are not.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by GNious ( 953874 )

        2) *someone* would make a front-end that re-aggregated all the services into a unified UI and would be attacked by the media cartel instantly

        From what I can tell, the PS4 already sorta aggregate all the streaming services into a single front-end.

    • The rates they'll charge itll be cheaper to buy the titles you like...

      Yeah, sure. Have you seen the price of Disney titles in stores? They're nearly always more than New Release titles, even Fantasia at a whopping 50 years old.

  • First DRM now fracturing. Instead of banding together to provide a real alternative to Cable they are all fighting for the table-scraps. Did anyone expect anything else

    • All the streaming services are trying to give 'honest people' an alternative to piracy. If they try and charge too much or make it too difficult, piracy it will be.

    • Re:Score one for Cable (Score:5, Interesting)

      by solios ( 53048 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @06:14PM (#55156287) Homepage

      People have been demanding "a la carte" cable for decades.

      Well, we finally got it - you can buy all the individual channels you want. Thing is, each one is now its own individual streaming service, with its own account and billing and app interface and media catalog.

      Give it another five to ten years and there'll be services that bundle these services for you, and then we can start complaining about how Cable 2.0 is charging us too much for packages we don't use when all we want is Hulu and Netflix.

      • >"Well, we finally got it - you can buy all the individual channels you want. Thing is, each one is now its own individual streaming service, with its own account and billing and app interface and media catalog. Give it another five to ten years and there'll be services that bundle these services for you, and then we can start complaining about how Cable 2.0 is charging us too much for packages we don't use when all we want is Hulu and Netflix."

        The true end-game is a provider service that allows streami

        • Then you learn to not watch stuff. Some asked for ala carte, but many asked for smarter options. Streaming is a smarter option. that means instead of going from $30 basic cable with nothing whatsoever to watch, to $60 higher choice cable with a few handful of shows, what most wanted was a way to dumb the crap and substitute something good in instead.

          The concept of "channels" is kind of dumb anyway, what people tend to watch are certain shows, no matter what channel that show is on. Broadcast TV likes to p

        • The cable model is crap because we pay, for example, $75 a month to watch a few dozen shows/series on just a dozen of their 1,000 channels. I don't watch sports, but I am forced to pay ESPN extortion fees. I don't watch reality TV, daytime drama, news, weather, ethnic channels, etc, etc, etc, etc... and yet I have to pay for all of those, and they are all rewarded.

          No, you don't have to pay for those, and you're not forced to pay ESPN. You're free to cancel your cable subscription at any time, or just not

    • There is a real alternative. It's call Piracy.

    • They're the same problem. DRM empowers the distributor at the expense of the content creator. By insisting on DRM, they allowed companies like Amazon and Netflix to ship clients on dozens of different devices, often with no sensible software upgrade mechanism (think: 'Smart' TVs), over which they then have complete control.

      They completely failed to learn the lesson from the music industry: First the big four record labels insisted on DRM. Apple included some DRM in iTunes and the iPod and so were all

  • Here's a prediction (Score:3)

    by viperidaenz ( 2515578 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @06:03PM (#55156215)

    It will be followed with a spike in piracy and less revenue for Disney

    • This worked out so well for every other media company trying to cash grab and reinvent the wheel!

      (actually hbo go is doing pretty well but that is an entirely different creature...well more of a 'like' creature)

  • And those dumb ass companies still wonder why people turn to illegal downloads. Consumers don't what to pay $50 per month for several streaming services to watch those few series or movies they like. So, no Disney, Piss off. Although I really liked watching Jessica Jones and Luke Cage on Netflix and hate to see it go, I won't pay a single dime for your streaming service.

  • Content owners will win... (Score:4)

    by HockeyPuck ( 141947 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @06:14PM (#55156283)

    People care more about the content than the medium it's delivered on. Let's see, we watched Disney movies in the theater, then bought them on tape, then bought them on DVD, then streamed them online via $cable_company, then Netflix and now Disney's Service.

    Who always made money in all those forms? Disney. Not the movie theater, the VHS tape mfg/distributor, video stores, DVD mfgs etc etc... Disney.. People will be wanting to watch Disney flicks for the next upteen years.

    Same thing with all the other content.

    We could have a scenario where every content owner has their own streaming service, so you pay them $10/mo, and then buy an aggregator box/service on top of them (Roku etc). Now you're back to paying $100/mo.

    We haven't seen ESPN do it with sports, but once they get around to streaming it standalone (and not requiring a cable provider), it's gonna sell like gangbusters.

    • ESPN is doing it. You can get ESPN as a $X add-on to Sling. For some reason they want to stay out of direct-billing, probably because of the customer support costs.

    • People care more about the content than the medium it's delivered on.

      I, for one, care about both. The HBO client on the Amazon Fire TV Stick is so shit that I'm doing my best to binge-watch everything I care about in the free trial period because I don't want to pay for that experience. I'm trying to eat my cake without being forced to pay for it, because it may be delivered on a soggy napkin, but I still like cake — I'm just offended by the presentation.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pnutjam ( 523990 )
        I have a full PC (hp stream mini). The web interface still sucks, although I don't think I've tried it since I went from 10Mb to 75Mb internet. It defaults to a very high definition and I don't think I can turn it down, so it stuttered and hung occasionally.
    • ESPN is mostly owned by disney, FWIW
  • I think Disney's service is not going to be successful long term. There's only a finite amount of money available to spend on streaming services.

  • Don't even bother do pirate Disney movies from now on.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @07:13PM (#55156573)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Copyright law gives content creators exclusive control over how their work is distributed. I agree that it's too much control, but government anti-trust law is powerless here because it's a right granted by the government in the first place.

      We need to modify copyright law if we want to change it. But need I remind you that Disney is the company who successfully managed to shove life + 90 years copyright duration down our collective throats to protect Mickey Mouse.
  • HAH. Throw the dozens of Disney kids shows and it's ridiculously huge catalog of movies on there and people will be LINING UP to throw money at it to babysit their kids.

  • Congratulations Netflix! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @08:19PM (#55156787) Journal

    Considering Disney makes literally the worst POSSIBLE choices every time as far as distribution of their product, I'd say Netflix should see this as validation.

    VHS? Disney ran SCREAMING away from it, insisting it was going to destroy filmmakers, finally grudgingly dragging itself back to VHS...about the time DVDs came out.

    DVD? Hahaha, Disney (insisting such tech would destroy filmmakers and the entire industry) backed the original Divx, which was a rental scheme by which you could buy the disk for about triple the price of a movie rental, and you could then play it (once it validated itself and your purchase in what was essentially an early IoT-locked dvd player) for 48 hours. If you wanted to play it past that 48 hours, you could pay again. (http://www.dvdjournal.com/extra/divx.html)

    So...pretty much any tech that Disney's terrified of will soon become the defacto standard.

    • Considering Disney will probably be 50 years late in implementing their streaming service to Canada, Hulu and others are still non-existant after all these years, I'm going to stick with Netflix. At least they understand there's a market in Canada.

      • Really this sounds more like Canadian over-regulation is to blame.

        It's just a few switches to flip from a media company's point of view, a few extra IP address ranges. Plus a deal with a data distribution/localization company. I'm sure they have clear sailing too.

  • ...the share price of several top VPN providers is expected to increase sharply.

    Seriously, how many streaming services do these people think we'll fork out for? It's like they're begging us to hoist the Jolly Roger.

  • I wonder what paying for a combination of Internet services like Netflix, HBO, Disney, Amazon, and etc. sounds like? Cable?....Is that you? Fuuuuuuuck that. The sad part is, I know too many people 20+ that would waste their money on a Disney version of Netflix.

  • CNET says yes and no (Score:3)

    by RhettLivingston ( 544140 ) on Thursday September 07, 2017 @11:41PM (#55157279) Journal

    The CNET article [cnet.com] was a bit more concise in its treatment of the Defenders question.

    Netflix will keep the original Marvel TV series it produced, namely "The Defenders" and the four series focusing on each character, such as "Daredevil." As the Defenders are officially part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you may need both streaming services to keep up to date with the whole shebang.

    In my case, this is all I care about. I see all Star Wars and Marvel movies at the theatre, and I almost never watch anything twice. So, I've never used Netflix to see one of those movies.

    The original programming is a completely different story. I would have been very angry if the viewing time I'd spent on that were wasted (I'll never get a Disney service).

    • *THIS* is all I cared for.

      And if Disney had any brains, they would let Netflix carry their stuff in the countries that the Disney Streaming service doesn't service yet or never will. People will see want they want regardless of how many cottages the Disney board wants to buy.

      Disney should have just turned their stuff into an option to a Netflix subscription.

  • Well done Bob, well done: I'm cancelling my Netflix account as well. With my 28 MB per second internet connection, who need multitude of legal streaming services anyway, huh Bob?
  • So my days of pirating shit isn't done, thought I would finally be "legit" and just stream all my stuffs, looks like that is not going to be the case. There is no way I am paying x/month for x number of streaming services. Hell, I've practically watched everything I want to watch on Netflix (at least in my country). The only way I would be remotely interested in Disney's streaming service is if I had kids, which i don't so they can shove it and I will pirate the 2 or 3 Disney things I actually do want to

  • They aren't on Netflix anyway (Score:3)

    by in10se ( 472253 ) on Friday September 08, 2017 @08:24AM (#55158405) Homepage

    Excluding Marvel cartoons, the only Marvel movies on Netflix (streaming) from the past 10 years are Doctor Strange and Captain America Civil War.

    The only Star Wars film on Netflix is Rogue One.

  • Remember old cable? I mean really old cable. Back from when it was new and shiny. Hard to get to your area, I know, but those that got it, wasn't it awesome? You bought "cable" and you got like 50 new channels, some great ones, some not so great ones, some with rather ... odd content, some local ones where you could see the "low budget" (or actually, more often, "no budget") production value, a healthy mix, giving you pretty much anything you'd want.

    Then the CableComs realized that they could make more mone

  • Because this is how you get it.

  • I'm not signing up for another service, especially one that's for only one company's stuff. But I love those movies, so now I'm pissed.

  • Especially considering that many people sign up for these streaming services based on the convenience of the apps being loaded on "smart TVs". Good luck getting manufacturers to push out updates to millions of outdated unsupported devices.

    No, I don't watch movies on my phone, tablet, laptop, desktop.

  • If Disney thinks I am going to pay for multiple subscriptions, they are in for an unhappy suprise. I just won't consume their products any more.

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