Disney’s exclusive deal with Netflix
Netflix has returned from another content hunt with massive bounty as the result of a huge bidding war. They have locked in an exclusive streaming contract with Disney for a large catalog of content, including movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, and Disneynature, according to CNN Money.
The catch? Netflix users won’t see a lot of this content until 2016, when Disney’s current agreement with Starz (a la Sony) expires.
This reads a lot like the deal between Netflix and Dreamworks to post their computer animated library by 2013. It’s also mirroring that deal, as Disney has already provided Netflix with some recognizable and notable content, including “Alice in Wonderland”, “Pocahontas” and “Dumbo”, to name a few.
The deal also includes many sequel-heavy series, like the “Air Bud” sequels, and the “Brave Little Toaster” sequels, but not their originals.
A big piece of this agreement is that it yanks a lot of future content out of the hands of premium cable TV channels like HBO, Showtime and Starz, as they lose access to new Disney/Marvel/Pixar content released after 2016 that would usually linger on their channels between each film’s exit from the theater, but before they hit DVD/Blu-ray. It also blocks streaming sites like Amazon Prime and Crackle from access to the content as well.
It’s nice to see Netflix experiencing success through this agreement (including a recent rise in the company’s stock), but there will still be the gaggles of nay-sayers uninterested in waiting four years for the overall payoff.
At the same time, there are speculators wondering how this will affect Disney’s recently acquired gold-mine of the Star Wars universe. Although LucasFilm was not listed among the content providers (as far as I have seen), the release of Episode 7 in 2015 may lay the groundwork for future negotiations and deals to continue to feed us desired content.
I am, personally, among those excited now, as two of my childhood Disney favorites, “The Great Mouse Detective” and “The Rescuers Down Under” are among the titles already available on Netflix. The fact that the voice talents of Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor, John Candy, and Vincent Price are just a click away makes me wish I wasn’t at work so I could start a Disney binge right now.
Still, there are a number of additional Netflix releases to look forward to this month, as we’ve discussed on the show before, including “ParaNorman”, “Looper” and “The Campaign”. All three of these will be on Netflix around Christmas or New Years, according to movieinsider.com.
Looks like we have at least 1,121 days until we will reap the benefits of this deal, but we’ll keep an eye on things here in the Wheels Brewing Co Studio.
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