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Disney to pull movies from Netflix

TomH1138

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This news story has been making the rounds on Facebook, and I thought it might be interesting for discussion here. 

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/d...3d8&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook

This comes just a year after Disney's content went exclusively to Netflix for the foreseeable future. Apparently, that deal will end in 2019.

I, for one, am getting really tired of every entertainment company pulling out of Netflix to start their own service, or in some cases, multiple services. Warner Bros. has put all their classic cartoons (including Hanna-Barbera and MGM content) on the Boomerang app, and they intend to release another app for all their DC Comics content. And if one wants to watch Doctor Who on streaming, one has to pay Britbox for the classic stuff and Amazon Prime for the new stuff.

Disney has already announced that they're going to have a separate streaming service for ESPN content. If they have a separate service for animated classics, and a separate service for Marvel, and one for Lucasfilm, Pixar, etc., people are not going to go for that. 

Part of what's great about Netflix is its affordability. But studios seem to think that if we'll pay Netflix $8 a month, we'll be willing to pay them $40 a month for multiple different mini-Netflixes. That's an incorrect assumption. 

This strategy may drive some consumers back to physical media, which may in fact be part of the goal of the studios. Even though the rest of the planet moved on to streaming media 10-ish years ago, I've seen multiple doom-and-gloom articles from Hollywood experts about how the industry is doomed if consumers don't keep buying physical media (ignoring the many decades in which the industry did just fine without that). 

Nonetheless, having said all that, if enough companies do pull out of Netflix, it may become worth my while to invest our $8 a month in one of these other companies. Much of what my family watches comes from one of Disney's many divisions; in addition to what's mentioned above, my kids are big fans of anime from Studio Ghibli, which has been distributed by Disney for a long time. While I don't want to jump ship -- I'd rather pay Netflix a little more to have more content -- there may come a point where loyalty to them doesn't make sense. 

Anyway, the industry continues to change and evolve, and it's fascinating to watch the permutations.

Thoughts?
 

TomH1138

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P.S. I'd also be interested if the Disney streaming service has multiple classic versions of characters instead of just the latest version. For instance, if they have just the new DuckTales and the latest version of Spider-Man, that doesn't seem very interesting to me. But if they have those in addition to the old DuckTales and the '90s Spider-Man and so forth, that could be fun. I would also be excited if they would finally release all episodes of The Muppet Show in some fashion. (The DVDs stopped after Season 3, leaving two seasons unreleased.) They would need to dig in their archives a bit and come up with interesting things.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Haven't they been anti Netflix until just a few years ago? The separate interface approach is bothersome, but if they can link together like they currently do I don't think people will rebel.

I personally don't like to buy digital content. It's all leased and can be taken away or modified at a moment's notice.
 

addiesin

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Zarius said:
Disney are considering separate streaming services for their own stuff, Star Wars, and Marvel

That's mentioned both in the article linked in the first post, and by Tom.
 

Vultural

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Disney has been losing money.
Stock price has declined 3% this year, whereas the market in general has ascended.
I am sure Disney feels they can earn more profit by eliminating Netflix.
 

Moe_Syzlak

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Vultural said:
Disney has been losing money.
Stock price has declined 3% this year, whereas the market in general has ascended.
I am sure Disney feels they can earn more profit by eliminating Netflix.

Disney's overall growth has slowed the past few years, but movies are not the problem. Parks and Resorts are also doing very well. The real albatross for Disney is ESPN. Investors are not too keen on this move either.
 

TomH1138

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To the surprise of absolutely no one, Netflix has now pulled the plug on the last two remaining Marvel shows: Punisher and Jessica Jones.

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/the-punisher-jessica-jones-canceled-netflix-marvel-1203142166/

For those keeping score: On Oct. 12, 2018, Netflix pulled the plug on Iron Fist. That wasn't too much of a shock; it was the least popular and acclaimed of the Marvel shows. But it was more stunning a week later when they cancelled Luke Cageand when they cancelled the flagship show Daredevil on Nov. 29.

Who's at fault here? Fingers have been pointed in both directions. Many said that Disney yanked the shows because they don't want competition with their upcoming Disney+ streaming service*, which will include new shows based on Marvel movie characters. Others said that Netflix wanted shorter seasons to save on expenses, which Disney balked at; Netflix also claimed that viewership had fallen dramatically for all the shows.

*The service got its official name back on November 8.

Whatever the case, Netflix has yet to premiere one more season of Jessica Jones (its third), which will be its last.

There also won't be any more seasons of the team-up series The Defenders, although that one had such lukewarm reception that a second season was never even discussed.

Initially, people thought that Disney wouldn't have access to the characters that Netflix used. But this time, Marvel head honcho Jeph Loeb boldly announced, “Our Network partner may have decided they no longer want to continue telling the tales of these great characters… but you know Marvel better than that.” 

If the characters are kept in their current TV-MA format, they may go to Disney-owned Hulu rather than Disney+.

The shifting pop-culture landscape has everyone on full alert. Back on November 16th, ABC renewed Agents of SHIELD for a seventh season, even though the show has always struggled in the ratings, and its sixth season has been shortened to only 13 episodes and was dumped in the summer, a low-ratings time for TV. Why? With that announcement coming a month after the Netflix cancellations, my best guess is that ABC didn't want to lose the only slice of the Marvel pie that they have the rights to broadcast. Even though it's all in the same corporate family, all the kids are competing to make Daddy proud, so to speak.
 

Handman

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Hollywood is Hollywood's own worst enemy.  Every perceived threat to their business never ends it, and they nearly always go about things in the most boorish way.
 

CatBus

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Looks like I restarted my Netflix disc-by-mail service just in time.  Netflix will still have Disney properties available, just not via streaming.  I feel disc-by-mail is Netflix's ultimate differentiator from every other streaming service, albeit a kinda non-sexy utilitarian yesteryear differentiator.  As soon as it's out on disc, Netflix will always have everything, and their competitors won't.  People keep saying Game of Thrones isn't on Netflix, but that's how I've watched it from the beginning.  Why subscribe to 10 services when you can subscribe to one at a fraction of the cost and get everything?  IMO Disney won't gain much from this, and Netlfix won't lose anything at all.
 

TomH1138

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Duragizer said:
Is it any wonder why I'm anti-capitalist?

Every political system has its strengths and weaknesses, and there will always be someone trying to exploit whichever one is currently popular. 

Nonetheless, I didn't see this as an overall negative post, and I definitely wasn't trying to start a political argument. I do think that the chess game between these companies is a bit silly and pointless, but nonetheless fascinating to watch.
 

Possessed

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TomH1138 said:
Duragizer said:
Is it any wonder why I'm anti-capitalist?

Every political system has its strengths and weaknesses, and there will always be someone trying to exploit whichever one is currently popular. 

Nonetheless, I didn't see this as an overall negative post, and I definitely wasn't trying to start a political argument. I do think that the chess game between these companies is a bit silly and pointless, but nonetheless fascinating to watch.

Don't feel bad,  it doesn't take much to get him to mention that.
 

TomH1138

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CatBus said:
Looks like I restarted my Netflix disc-by-mail service just in time.  Netflix will still have Disney properties available, just not via streaming.  I feel disc-by-mail is Netflix's ultimate differentiator from every other streaming service, albeit a kinda non-sexy utilitarian yesteryear differentiator.  As soon as it's out on disc, Netflix will always have everything, and their competitors won't.  People keep saying Game of Thrones isn't on Netflix, but that's how I've watched it from the beginning.  Why subscribe to 10 services when you can subscribe to one at a fraction of the cost and get everything?  IMO Disney won't gain much from this, and Netlfix won't lose anything at all.

Great points, @"CatBus". (Terrific screenname, too, BTW!)

I'm of two minds about physical media. On the one hand, I always want to have the option of buying whatever I want to own; I don't want to pay full-price for something and then find out a few years later that the company lost the rights to let me stream something, so I no longer own it. (That happened with at least one thing I bought off of iTunes. I no longer "own" a Clone Wars episode that I bought because Lucasfilm took it down from their service and then reissued it later on with a slightly different name.)

On the other hand, I feel like sometimes the reason why the studios make streaming such an annoying proposition is because they have this weird hang-up about physical media being the only way they can survive. @"Handman" is spot-on: "Every perceived threat to their business never ends it." They did just fine without physical media for years (through re-releases and TV airings), and when VHS became popular, they wrung their hands and said that it was going to put them out of business. It didn't, just like TV didn't put movie theaters out of business. In fact, now they've grown so attached to home video that, if they can't sell us physical discs, then "they're going to be put out of business!" Groan.

So I feel like that's part of why Disney+ and CBS All Access and the others are starting up now: They're trying to make Netflix's streaming service less and less exciting by removing all the interesting content. So either we have to pay for a dozen different services, or -- as you've smartly done -- we have to stick to (or go back to) physical media, because of Hollywood's weird paranoia with any new technology. 

Thus, why I don't like the reasoning behind having to rent physical discs, I think you make a strong case for it. We may switch over at some point too, although Disney may not put some of its new content on home video, or they may wait a long time to do it. 

Time will tell, I suppose.
 

Duragizer

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Possessed said:
TomH1138 said:
Duragizer said:
Is it any wonder why I'm anti-capitalist?

Every political system has its strengths and weaknesses, and there will always be someone trying to exploit whichever one is currently popular. 

Nonetheless, I didn't see this as an overall negative post, and I definitely wasn't trying to start a political argument. I do think that the chess game between these companies is a bit silly and pointless, but nonetheless fascinating to watch.

Don't feel bad,  it doesn't take much to get him to mention that.

Hatred burns me.
 

CatBus

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TomH1138 said:
On the other hand, I feel like sometimes the reason why the studios make streaming such an annoying proposition is because they have this weird hang-up about physical media being the only way they can survive.

I disagree.  I think the fight isn't a fight against streaming, it's a fight to control streaming.  IMO Netflix is only "the enemy" not because they're the embodiment of streaming, but because the studios don't control them.  Streaming itself they love, at least in theory.  They're just not as good at streaming as Netflix, because where the studios see tighter control and an end to consumer media ownership, Netflix just sees a convenient way to watch media.

To consumers, "inconvenient" is having to sign up for and navigate three different services to watch media from HBO, Universal, and Disney.  But to the studios, that setup is extremely convenient -- it means no licensing and distribution deals, all the revenue comes straight to them, there's no legal secondary resale market, they can sell people the same thing twice, etc.  Those annoying studio streaming propositions aren't their attempt to hamstring streaming in an attempt to kill it, it's the studios genuinely trying to make streaming work the way they feel it ought to (and yes, that sucks).

Frankly you only have to look at UHD title availability to see that they've all but given up on physical media.  They worried about VHS because of the recording factor, but they loooved DVD.  They loved Blu-ray/HD-DVD so much they tore themselves apart for years trying to control the technology, while streaming quietly took over.  They even loved 2D-to-3D Blu-ray conversions so much they pushed them long after it was clear native 3D itself was going nowhere.  But UHD?  Unless you really like a narrow range of mostly recent action movies, the bloom is clearly off.  Physical media is not their main concern anymore, it's a shrinking legacy market with shrinking margins and demand.  IMO they all want in on the streaming action, and that's why they're jerking Netflix around.
 

TomH1138

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CatBus said:
I disagree.  I think the fight isn't a fight against streaming, it's a fight to control streaming.  IMO Netflix is only "the enemy" not because they're the embodiment of streaming, but because the studios don't control them.  Streaming itself they love, at least in theory.  They're just not as good at streaming as Netflix, because where the studios see tighter control and an end to consumer media ownership, Netflix just sees a convenient way to watch media.

(snipped for space)

Fair enough! A very well-put and reasoned argument. I can totally see what you're saying now.
 

TomH1138

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So I've been scouring the Net trying to compile a definitive list of everything that's going to be on Disney+. Every news site went to the same press junket a few weeks ago but came away with lists that skip over many things that other sites mention.

At any rate, the selection looks pretty good. While at one time it seemed like there were just a handful of Disney animated classics, it now looks like 42 of the 55 animated films will be available at launch, with a few gaps here or there for films that didn't grab the public as much. "Make Mine Music" and "The Black Cauldron" didn't make the cut, for instance, but the big hits from "Snow White" to "Moana" are all here, plus a generous helping of lesser-known ones such as "Fun and Fancy Free" and "The Aristocats."

Every single Pixar movie will be there, right up through "Toy Story 4," and many shorts will also be included.

Marvel, on the other hand, is weirdly lacking at the moment: "Iron Man 1" and "3" but not "2," "Captain Marvel," and "Thor: The Dark World." Could that be any more of a random grab bag? Not even a single "Captain America" or "Avengers" movie, even though there are no rights issues preventing "Endgame" from being on the site at launch.

Nonetheless, there's a ton of other good stuff, including both versions of "DuckTales" and a host of other animated TV offerings.

As for "Star Wars," all movies are included up through "Rogue One," the latter being the most surprising inclusion since it was part of Netflix's deal to show Disney movies released between 2016 and 2018. It's nice that it's on there, but if that one can make the cut, why couldn't "The Last Jedi" and "Solo" be on there as well? (Not a big deal, as I own nearly all the Star Wars movies. I'm just curious how and why some got included but others didn't.)

The most surprising thing is the almost total exclusion of anything by Fox. There are the Fox-distributed "Star Wars" films; there are 650+ episodes of "The Simpsons" (which is certainly nothing to sneeze at); and there's "Malcolm in the Middle." And...that's pretty much it.

One of the things we heard from the media experts over and over again is that the real reason for the Disney purchase of Fox is that it would give them a much wider library to choose from when filling up content for their streaming service. But that doesn't seem to be how it's shaking out. There's not even a single family-friendly film like "The Sound of Music" or "Miracle on 34th Street." So was the sale really about Marvel and Star Wars like the fans thought? Or is there some other reason that Fox is so underrepresented at launch?

Anyway, it's curious but not upsetting. I've seen those films many times before anyway. And there is a *ton* of content that will be available at the very reasonable price of $6.99. Looking back, I see my initial post was much more skeptical, but I do think this is a service my whole family will enjoy. 

P.S. Attached is a link to a spreadsheet where I've listed just about every movie I can find for the service, along with a link for the original source. (The SyFy article turned out to be the most thorough and in-depth, although there were a few missing on that one as well.) I hope to update it soon, but for now just look at the "Movies" section, as the other sections are incomplete.
 

Jrzag42

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Does it hurt the company financially in any way to not include certain movies? I just really want my Black Cauldron. Sure I can watch it through other means, but the same could be said about all the other content on there that I care about. It's the sake of convenience.
Anyways, I have no idea if I'll be getting this streaming service or not. I really want to, but at same time I still want to subscribe to DC's. I should probably take a look at your spreadsheet, there may be some gem I didn't think of that will make this worth it.
 
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