Disney has been frequently in the news for the launch of its own standalone streaming service next year, as well as acquiring 21st Century Fox.
Disney’s new streaming service will host everything from Star Wars and Marvel movies to spin-off TV series that features characters from those entertainment franchises and more. Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger lately revealed the name of the video streaming service as Disney+, which will go live about a year from now.
But that isn’t stopping the company from planning a huge investment in another prominent streaming service- Hulu. Iger commented, “Given the success of Hulu so far in terms of subscriber growth and the relative brand strength and other things too like demographics, we think there’s an opportunity to increase investment in Hulu notably on the programming side”.
Disney now owns 60 per cent of Hulu as a result of its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, and on an earnings call with investors recently, Iger said the combined company’s television production capabilities will be used to “fuel Hulu with a lot more original programming.”
Iger added, “After the deal closes… we’ll meet with the Hulu management team and the board, and discuss what the opportunities are in terms of both global growth and investing more in content. But that’s something that we have to do after the deal closes.”
He also addressed questions about Hulu’s future and noted plans for expanding internationally while building up Hulu’s original content slate. The company could see a much larger stake in Hulu following the company’s acquisition of Fox. Iger informed the investors that company has no plans to abandon ship and it wants to expand Hulu’s presence as a streaming service.
These expansion plans will make Hulu available in international markets and also hints to combat Hulu’s biggest competitor, Netflix. Disney is planning to give serious competition to the streaming giant on two fronts — with Disney+ and also via a resurgent Hulu, for which Iger laid out an ambitious growth plan this week that calls for, among other things, pumping more money into the service to greatly expand its lineup of original content.
Besides that, Disney+ will feature five categories of material: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic. The streaming service will launch with an assortment of high-profile original series and a backlog of Disney original content.
Tom Hiddleston will reprise his role as Loki for a standalone Marvel series and Diego Luna will return to the Star Wars universe for a standalone Star Wars series, Rogue One. He joins Jon Favreau, who is working on a separate standalone Star Wars series called The Mandalorian. There’s a live-action Lady and the Tramp and Noelle starring Anna Kendrick as the daughter of Santa Claus.
It’s just a matter of time now, to see how these two streaming giants cope with one another and also to witness some great entertaining shows.