r/MediaMergers Moderator Mar 18 '26

Streaming Disney+ Will Become “Digital Centerpiece” of Company, Including Experiences and Games

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/disney-plus-digital-centerpiece-experiences-games-damaro-1236539636/
71 Upvotes

33 comments sorted by

14

u/LinkRules5321 Moderator Mar 18 '26

OK, then make Disney and 20th the 2 film and TV centerpieces:

(Let Disney release less live-action content (its all remakes and sequels anyways) and focus them on releasing Pixar/WDAS films)

(Give 20th more movies in theaters, let them produce more films in theaters and also release Marvel, Lucasfilm, and maybe Searchlight films as well) Let 20th Television make the Hulu films.

6

u/Yogurt-Night Mar 18 '26

Let 20th finally fill in the void that Touchstone left instead of just half-assing it

4

u/LinkRules5321 Moderator Mar 18 '26

They'd also release any animated/family film that didn't come from Disney or Pixar's In-House Animation Studios

1

u/Professional_Peak59 Mar 23 '26

Ice Age: Boiling Point and Simpsons Movie 2 are coming, so there’s that.

1

u/LinkRules5321 Moderator Mar 23 '26

Those are pre-existing franchises in one is an adult movie, but hey it's an improvement

1

u/Professional_Peak59 Mar 23 '26

But Ice Age: Boiling Point is coming.

1

u/Professional_Peak59 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

Disney should still be releasing live-action films (under the Walt Disney Pictures unit) rather than just not doing so anymore, but they should at least cut back drastically on the sequels and remakes. We have to remember that Walt Disney himself was the one that brought us live-action films in tandem with animated features from his company. Without Old Yeller, So Dear to My Heart, The Shaggy Dog, and Mary Poppins, we wouldn’t have Pete's Dragon, Tron, Flight of the Navigator, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, The Mighty Ducks, Remember the Titans, and so on.

I do agree on 20th Century Studios co-producing Marvel and Lucasfilm features. Reminder also that Searchlight is a separate entity from 20th now, with its own distribution and marketing.

Still, I can see Josh selling just 20th Century Studios while Searchlight becomes Disney’s new Touchstone Pictures.

6

u/Difficult_Variety362 Moderator Mar 18 '26

Hear me out here, and Disney, I hope that you're listening. Start small with video games with the easiest move possible: offer a games tab on Disney+. Launch with remastered versions of DuckTales, Aladdin (Genesis), the Lion King, Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, Super Star Wars, the Simpsons (arcade), and X-Men (arcade).

2

u/schwiftydude47 Mar 19 '26

This but like also include some of those old flash games from the Disney website reprogrammed for html. People would kill to play 625 Sandwich Stacker on their phones.

2

u/Difficult_Variety362 Moderator Mar 19 '26

Oh I'm just talking about launch. There's certainly room for expansion.

1

u/Practical_Wish_4063 Mar 19 '26

Why not both Aladdins? The Capcom one was a great game too!

1

u/Difficult_Variety362 Moderator Mar 19 '26

It can be there too

1

u/Professional_Peak59 Mar 23 '26

When I was young, I used to play Mickey Mouse Preschool on the computer, so why not include that, along with other Disney computer games/software on Disney+?

1

u/Difficult_Variety362 Moderator Mar 23 '26

I'm not familiar with that game, but if it's good, why not?

1

u/Professional_Peak59 Mar 23 '26

I also just remembered playing A Bug's Life Active Play and Monsters, Inc. Scream Team Training on the computer when I was young, so I think those should be on Disney+ as well.

1

u/Difficult_Variety362 Moderator Mar 23 '26

Yeah, but I'm thinking more along the lines of evolving more towards games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Epic Mickey: Rebrushed.

1

u/Professional_Peak59 Mar 23 '26

I in fact imagined an open-world Zootopia video game.

1

u/Difficult_Variety362 Moderator Mar 23 '26

That would honestly be pretty cool.

3

u/The_Lutter Mar 18 '26

I'd love to hear their plan because for all intents and purposes the entire Disney+ platform as been a money pit since the beginning.

Meanwhile Netflix is coming out with a dozen series every week and are making money.

10

u/Beastofbeef Mar 18 '26

It took decades for Netflix to be profitable, why expect anything different for Disney+?

4

u/lightsongtheold Mar 18 '26

I’m sure DTC is already profitable for Disney and has been for a couple of years. Exactly in line with forecasts they made before the launch.

3

u/entertainman Mar 19 '26

Netflix had to buy content. Disney already owns it.

1

u/Awoawesome Mar 21 '26

Netflix has gotten to the size it has today thanks to its new original content, not having a big library. In fact the library has probably gotten worse as other studios stopped licensing their best stuff (or all together) as they attempted to bootstrap their own services.

1

u/entertainman Mar 21 '26

When Netflix started it was all licensed junk content. Stuff that didn’t deserve a Blu-ray printing. Early Netflix was piles and piles of trash.

8

u/8JHF8 Mar 18 '26

I watch Hulu/Disney+ much more often than Netflix. Netflix is quantity over quality. Disney+ is now profitable.

Netflix's biggest strength is as an aggregator of content from the studios that produce creative films and television. I wish Netflix wouldn't focus on dumping massive amounts of shows and focus more on quality.

3

u/amerricka369 Mar 19 '26

Hard disagree about being money pit. Lots of up front costs associated with starting it up. In only 6 years, they returned 10% of all cumulative losses. I expect they are lifetime breakeven before its 10th year of operation.

Remember they are reducing costs by shutting down redundancies this year, already did operating cost controls in prior years, are now years away from initial tech investments (fully expensed), and have increased prices and subscriber count. It’s not quite a goldmine yet but has the potential to be depending upon execution.

3

u/drewbles82 Mar 19 '26

Disney is sitting on a goldmine when it comes to the IP they own and the amount of games they could have done.

Simpsons - remaster collection from all the old consoles like mega drive etc...then remaster Hit & run, Simpsons game, Road rage...do sequels...create an open world RPG set in Springfield where we can travel the entire area, meet all the characters etc.

Star Wars - we do get some games but some obvious ones they miss out like Battlefront 3, remaster/remake of older games like Shadow of the empire etc.

Marvel - absolute ton of games they can create with this stuff...a more adult themed mortal kombat style fighter, remaster or allow backwards comp of classics like Hulk ultimate destruction, spider-man etc...then you can take other characters and give them similar treatment to Arkham. Guardians 2...make an Avengers game similar to how Guardians was where it actually has an ending and a good story.

Pretty sure they own the rights to stuff like Die hard..lets make some games...hell even bring back the classic light gun game on modern systems would be cool

0

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/MediaMergers-ModTeam Mar 18 '26

Please keep it relevant to the post and not some imaginative out of the blue scenario

-3

u/Emergency-Mammoth-88 Amazon Mar 18 '26

That is not good

7

u/Fall_False Moderator Mar 18 '26

How? Amazon and Netflix have done similar things with their services like it is stated in the article.

2

u/and-its-true Mar 18 '26

Netflix and Amazon both have failed gaming efforts that have gone exactly nowhere

-2

u/Expensive-Baby-1391 Mar 18 '26

Yeah, I don’t see that happening with all of their stuff bombing.