Tag: disney

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Disney+ will give subscribers four simultaneous streams and free 4K

Disney’s upcoming Disney+ streaming service is shaping up to be quite the deal. According to CNET, the service will launch on November 12th with support for four simultaneous streams and 4K included, all for the base price of $6.99 a month. Subscribers will also be able to create and manage up to seven profiles on a single account.

That will make it highly competitive with Netflix, which raised its prices earlier this year and has in place stricter limitations on simultaneous streams. Netflix now costs $9 a month for a standard definition plan with only one available stream. If you want HD streaming, you need to pay $13 a month, and that gets you two simultaneous streams. For 4K and four simultaneous streams, it’s $16 a month. (The company also recently bumped prices in the UK.)

Netflix’s price changes have been so dramatic, in fact, that CEO Reed Hastings blamed the hike for its dip in US subscribers last quarter, the first drop in domestic Netflix users since 2011. The setback slowed Netflix’s overall growth and caused its stock to tumble, too.DISNEY IS MAKING ITS UPCOMING STREAMING SERVICE HIGHLY COMPETITIVE WITH NETFLIX

Notably, Disney’s ESPN and Hulu bundle for Disney+ won’t have the same simultaneous streaming benefits. With the bundle, which will cost $12.99, subscribers will only get two simultaneous ESPN+ streams and one basic, ad-supported Hulu stream.

Of course, Netflix has much more robust library than Disney+ right now, but Disney is filling out its upcoming platform with a number of original shows. The streaming limitation and 4K news, which was disclosed during interviews at Disney’s D23 Expo, joins a flurry of new announcements regarding shows and films coming to Disney+ later this year. CNET also reports that Disney will be releasing new episodes of original series on Disney+ weekly, as opposed to all at once like Netflix, a strategy that will likely help it extend the lifespan of its earlier slate of programming while it plays catch up to competitors.

The company is bringing a Ms. Marvel series to its platform, as well as one centered on She Hulk and one on Moon Knight. Disney also today announced a live-action Lady in the Trampadaptationthat will be exclusive to Disney+ and confirmed the much-anticipated Obi-Wan Kenobi original series starring Ewan McGregor.

Prior to D23, Disney has promised a number of other enticing Disney+ benefits, including numerous other Star Wars series like The Mandalorianand a seventh season of The Clone Wars; shows focused on popular Marvel characters Hawkeye, Falcon / the Winter Solider, and Loki; and streaming exclusivity for a number of upcoming high-profile films like Frozen 2and the live-action The Little Mermaid.

Source: The Verge

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The Lion King remake is the biggest animated earner ever, but Disney claims it isn’t

Disney’s CGI remake of its 1994 film The Lion King has crossed $1.3 billion at the international box office, officially beating out Frozen’s $1.27 billion to become the top-grossing animated film of all time, per CinemaBlend. That is, it’s sort of the biggest animated film ever since Disney has been loath to call it an animated film at all. While it’s entirely computer-generated footage (save for one shot), Disney continues to refer to it as a live-action film.

That’s an odd stance for the studio to take, given how often it likes to crow about its record-breaking blockbusters. But Disney has been oddly insistent on avoiding the animated label for the Lion King remake, despite the fact that it’s essentially just as visually manufactured as the original 1994 film.“BUT TO SAY IT’S ANIMATED, I THINK, IS MISLEADING AS FAR AS WHAT THE EXPECTATIONS MIGHT BE.”

Director Jon Favreau hedged when asked point-blank whether he’d call his film live action, commenting to SlashFilm earlier this year, “It depends what standard you’re using. Because there’s no real animals, and there’s no real cameras, and there’s not even any performance that’s being captured that’s underlying data that’s real. Everything is coming through the hands of artists. But to say it’s animated, I think, is misleading as far as what the expectations might be.”

Why does everyone involved seem so insistent on avoiding the “animation” label? There are a few possible reasons. American animated films are still stigmatized as less serious cinema than live-action movies. (Just ask the Academy Awards.) The company may want to emphasize the perceived superiority of its new photorealistic CGI technology by avoiding even calling it “animated” at all. Disney may even want to boost the numbers for its live-action reboot brand on the accounting sheets.

It’s not like Disney has to worry about holding the top spot on the animation charts. Frozen, the previous record-holder, is a Disney film, as are most of the slots in the top 10 highest-earner list. Plus, all this may be a moot point, given that Frozen 2 is scheduled for a 2019 release, and it may take the top slot from both the original Frozen and the new Lion King. Like most of the discussion around the 2019 box office, that makes this debate less of a categorization issue and more of a reminder of Disney’s intimidating power at the box office. Live-action, animated, or something in between, the only thing that matters to Disney at the end of the day is profit, and the new Lion King certainly succeeded there.

Source: The Verge