The Disney Thread | Iger will be with us until 2026

[Factcheck]

2 hours ago, Porthos said:

Since I'm headed to bed, might as well lay out my personal reasoning on Late April/Early-Mid May for Secret Invasion.

 

Here is what we actually know about SI's hard release date:

 

(would have went with the Godfather gif, but all of them had the "my offer is this" attached)

 

Complete and utter Radio Silence from Studio Burbank since a soft schedule announcement of "Early 2023" at... Comic-Con, I think?  Disney Plus Day? D23?  Been a hot minute either way.

 

Have had some reports of a May launch from the scoopershere, for what ever grains of salt they're worth.  But they might just be guessing

 

Still, even if they are guessing, I think it's a fairly good and reasonable guess for several reasons.

 

First and foremost, Season Three of The Mandalorian is gonna be airing from March 1st through at least  Early April.  I personally wouldn't be surprised if Disney compresses the calendar slightly to tie in a finale/penultimate episode with SW Celebration. But if they don't then it runs to mid-late April, depending on double episodes. 

 

Even if Disney hasn't reconsidered the idea of overlapping SW and Marvel in general, I don't know if Disney is all too keen on having two premiere/destination series (as both Mando S3 and Secret Invasion should be) battling against each other for mindshare.  At the very least, they'd probably want to minimize overlap as much as possible, which points to mid-April at the earliest.

 

Then there is the consideration that SI might not even be ready until late-March.  It went under a decent amount of reshoots that went until mid-August (and perhaps into late September), and depending on just how extensive said reshoots were, that might be affecting when it can be finalized.  And if it's not gonna be ready until late-March, might as well wait a couple of more weeks until Mando S3 is in the clear.

 

Lastly, there is also the looming WGA negotiations.  It is possible that Disney might be tempted to space out its Star Wars and Disney frontline properties if it thinks there might be a WGA strike.  Not because said strike would effect them immediately when it comes to airing stuff (it very much wouldn't), but because it might blow a hole in their penciled in schedule 8 to 10 months from when the strike might start, .  So instead of compressing the release calendar, they could be tempted to stretch out releases a tad as a minor bit of insurance in case the WGA strike lasts long enough to affect writing of scripted shows.  

 

Of course, all of this is tea leaf reading and wondering why the proverbial dog hasn't barked yet.  It could be none of the reasons above. Or it could just the be the ever-likely "it's not ready yet".

 

But if it was gonna air in March, almost 100% certain we would have heard about it by now and I am 100 percent sure it'd have some sort of trailer at the Super Bowl, even if it was relegated to pre-game.

 

And since it isn't?  Or rather, if Deadline is right and it isn't?  Well, not hard to add two and two and get four.

good post, but you forgot about GOTG3. The MCU movie is releasing on May 5. If they give SI a mid-April release date, then it will overlap with GOTG3. Would Marvel Studios promote both GOTG3 and SI at the same time? I don't think so. So my guess for the SI launch date is either late March or mid-late May, so it wouldn't overlap with Mando much and also not with GOTG3.

[cookie]

Wouldn't SI be a better cross-promotion with The Marvels anyhow (provided Skrulls are part of that movie's plot)?

[Legion Again]

They've had MCU shows overlap movies before 

[Factcheck]

14 minutes ago, Favorite Fearless Legion said:

They've had MCU shows overlap movies before 

Yes, I checked. The final 2 episodes of Loki, Hawkeye, and Ms. Marvel aired along with the 1st 2 weekends of BW, NWH, and L&T, respectively. But is it a good idea for Marvel Studios to compete with themselves?

[Legion Again]

1 hour ago, Factcheck said:

Yes, I checked. The final 2 episodes of Loki, Hawkeye, and Ms. Marvel aired along with the 1st 2 weekends of BW, NWH, and L&T, respectively. But is it a good idea for Marvel Studios to compete with themselves?

It’s fine, especially now that the shows are Wed release. Much better than competing with another flagship show.   
 
That said, it seems many shows are pushed back. I would not be at all surprised if they premiered it just after Gotg to finish right before CM2 for tie in value

Edited February 4, 2023 by Favorite Fearless Legion

[Factcheck]

19 minutes ago, Favorite Fearless Legion said:

It’s fine, especially now that the shows are Wed release. Much better than competing with another flagship show.   
 
That said, it seems many shows are pushed back. I would not be at all surprised if they premiered it just after Gotg to finish right before CM2 for tie in value

Or they connect Loki S02 with The Marvels as The Marvels also have rumoured multiverse tie-in; who knows?

[Porthos]

6 hours ago, Factcheck said:

good post, but you forgot about GOTG3. The MCU movie is releasing on May 5. If they give SI a mid-April release date, then it will overlap with GOTG3. Would Marvel Studios promote both GOTG3 and SI at the same time? I don't think so. So my guess for the SI launch date is either late March or mid-late May, so it wouldn't overlap with Mando much and also not with GOTG3.

 

No, this is a good point, but I didn't want to bring it up because my post was already getting long as it was.  Plus, as both you and Legion pointed out, Marvel movies and TV series have overlapped before, so I'm not currently giving it as much weight as I was earlier in the year.  Still, can't push it back too far as then the same concern about Season 2 of Loki and the release of The Marvels (July 28th) comes into play.  And as big as Secret Invasion should be (premise + Samuel L. Jackson = lots and lots of eyeballs), the second season of Loki figures to be massive with a capital M. 

 

So then does Disney push back S2 of Loki to after The Marvels?  Maybe!  But then we have scheduling concerns about Loki and the upcoming Mando spinoff, Ahsoka.  Though in the case of the latter I personally am expecting numbers somewhere between Andor and The Book of Boba Fett (prob closer to Andor if I'm being honest with myself), so Disney might not be too concerned about it getting kneecapped by Loki.  

 

Plus there is the consideration that in a strange way Secret Invasion could boost GOTG3.  When Loki dropped a new episode, Black Widow saw a spike in pre-sales.  At least as memory serves.  So it could be seen internally by Disney as cross-promotion.  But, sure, if it gets a May 10th date, then that's probably the reason (which in turn allows S2 of Loki to just squeeze in before The Marvels).  If it gets May 17th or later though, then Loki perhaps gets bumped to August, unless double episodes are used.

 

As it was, I was soft penciling in a March 29th drop date for Secret Invasion as a possible release date earlier in the year.  But lack of a Super Bowl promotion (again presuming Deadline is right) is making that look exceedingly unlikely.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Porthos

[Verrows]

14 hours ago, Porthos said:

 

The current running thought is that Secret Invasion isn't gonna start to air until Late April/Early-Mid May, so even with the huge number of eyeballs at the Superb Owl, just not worth promoting it when it is (likely) over two-plus months away.

I don't know if you know what I meant but I just realize that was very strangely worded given we are talking about the Super Bowl. 🤣

 

What I was meaning to say is I thought the show would air in the first quarter of the year, which is why I was surprised about no super bowl spot. If it's dropping in late April, earl May as you said then, yeah, it makes total sense that they aren't promoting it yet.

 

I guess I took Marvel's "early 2023" announcement too literally.

 

EDIT: Aaaand I just read your following post. You touched on exactly why I was so surprised about no SB spot; I figured the show wasn't dropping so late into spring. I thought maybe the same late March slot as Moon Knight last year, even with Mando releasing on March 1. This is mainly because I figured they'd prioritize spacing out Marvel shows from each other over Marvel shows from Star Wars shows, and Marvel has Loki Season 2 looming in the summer (unless of course that gets pushed to laaaate summer as SI has been pushed).

Edited February 4, 2023 by Verrows

[Porthos]

52 minutes ago, Verrows said:

I don't know if you know what I meant but I just realize that was very strangely worded given we are talking about the Super Bowl. 🤣

 

What I was meaning to say is I thought the show would air in the first quarter of the year, which is why I was surprised about no super bowl spot. If it's dropping in late April, earl May as you said then, yeah, it makes total sense that they aren't promoting it yet.

 

I gathered.

 

52 minutes ago, Verrows said:

I guess I took Marvel's "early 2023" announcement too literally.

 

EDIT: Aaaand I just read your following post. You touched on exactly why I was so surprised about no SB spot; I figured the show wasn't dropping so late into spring. I thought maybe the same late March slot as Moon Knight last year, even with Mando releasing on March 1. This is mainly because I figured they'd prioritize spacing out Marvel shows from each other over Marvel shows from Star Wars shows, and Marvel has Loki Season 2 looming in the summer (unless of course that gets pushed to laaaate summer as SI has been pushed).

 

The thing is, when they made the "Early 2023" announcement, they might very well have been eyeing a mid-late March start.  At the same time, "always in motion is the future".  Reshoots might have been more intensive than originally planned.  Mando might have taken longer.  Andor might have come under internal benchmarks for initial viewership which in turn might have increased skittishness on overlapping Marvel and SW.  Hell, maybe they finally grew a bit of a conscience the vfx controversy/blowback got to be a bit too intense and they took the foot off the gas pedal slightly in a hope to stave off unionization give the vfx teams more time to work. 

 

Whole host of reasons, really, for schedules to slip.  If it has slipped. 

[Verrows]

6 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

I gathered.

 

 

The thing is, when they made the "Early 2023" announcement, they might very well have been eyeing a mid-late March start.  At the same time, "always in motion is the future".  Reshoots might have been more intensive than originally planned.  Mando might have taken longer.  Andor might have come under internal benchmarks for initial viewership which in turn might have increased skittishness on overlapping Marvel and SW.  Hell, maybe they finally grew a bit of a conscience the vfx controversy/blowback got to be a bit too intense and they took the foot off the gas pedal slightly in a hope to stave off unionization give the vfx teams more time to work. 

 

Whole host of reasons, really, for schedules to slip.  If it has slipped. 

Yeah that's fair. We can't get married to these initial date announcements, especially for TV shows. Guessing we'll hear something more concrete after Ant-Man has had its opening week.

[Factcheck]

1 hour ago, Verrows said:

I guess I took Marvel's "early 2023" announcement too literally.

They said "arriving spring" I think. Spring last from March to end of May in US, so at present it's on track to release in spring.

[JWR]

I wonder what properties Disney considers selling to third parties?

[Hades]

The upcoming Daredevil series returns home. Where it belongs at Netflix. We can only hope. May stand a much better chance to be actually good 

[AJG]

2 hours ago, JWR said:

I wonder what properties Disney considers selling to third parties?

 

Overseas they brought back the first run rights for most of their Fox\ABC shows and haphazardly dashed them onto Disney+ (you would have no idea that they were streaming the new episodes of 911 etc), that might be getting reversed. They also stopped producing shows for other platforms (iirc they sold a True Lies show to CBS, which would be one of the very few shows they sold to an outside company in a while).

 

Also I think the days of the company streamer hoarding everything from MASH to Boston Legal to Mixed-Ish are dead and gone. I won't be shocked if more shows jump to other streamers (like it used to be - 4 years ago).

Edited February 5, 2023 by AJG

[Eric Loves Rey]

2 hours ago, JWR said:

I wonder what properties Disney considers selling to third parties?

It's probably just going to be the same thing they've already done. A bunch of ABC and FOX shows have already been sold to different streamers. Desperate Housewives and Lost already air on like 2 or 3 different streaming services right now. Random Fox/Touchstone movies get plopped onto Amazon or Tubi for a couple months all the time. It's really not as big a deal as the press has been hyping this up as if I'm being honest.

[MNightShya]

We may get some juicy announcements on the quarter call. On the corporate side. Not content.

[El Squibbonator]

So, I just found this at a site called DisneyDining. Is there any truth to it? I remember Bob Iger saying in December that he didn't plan on making any further acquisitions. 

[AJG]

2 minutes ago, El Squibbonator said:

So, I just found this at a site called DisneyDining. Is there any truth to it? I remember Bob Iger saying in December that he didn't plan on making any further acquisitions. 

Quote

Answering this question and others would only be the tip of the iceberg, were Disney to actively pursue a deal with Warner Bros. to buy Harry Potter. Long before those questions are asked, we need to ask whether Harry Potter is the right intellectual property for Disney–and whether this satirical trip down imagination lane could ever have any merit to it.

 

[El Squibbonator]

Maybe they should have added a bigger disclaimer. 

[Potiki]

5 hours ago, AJG said:

 

Overseas they brought back the first run rights for most of their Fox\ABC shows and haphazardly dashed them onto Disney+ (you would have no idea that they were streaming the new episodes of 911 etc), that might be getting reversed. They also stopped producing shows for other platforms (iirc they sold a True Lies show to CBS, which would be one of the very few shows they sold to an outside company in a while).

True Lies will likely be a Disney+/Star+ show for the rest of the world.

 

I know volume of stuff for outside streamers/networks is lower than Warner, NBCUniversal and Paramount but since 2020 Disney has still done a fair amount:

 

Quote

1. The Gloaming (Stan)
2. The Wilds (Amazon)
3. Amazing Stories (Apple)
4. Five Days at Memorial (Apple)
5. The Stranger (Quibi)
6. Tales from the Loop (Amazon)
7. Bad Sisters (Apple)
8. 911 Lone Star (Fox)
9. Duncanville (Fox)
10. Central Park (Apple)
11. Rathced (Netflix)
12. Filthy Rich (Fox)
13. Next (Fox)
14. The Great North (Fox)
15. The Prince (HBO)
16. The Ms. Pat Show (BET)
17. The Big Leap (Fox)
18. Ordinary Joe (NBC)
19. Our Kind of People (Fox)
20. True Lies (CBS)
21. The Last Thing He Told Me (Apple)

That is a fairly decent list and they have others in development for outside studios. 

 

I agree with @Eric Crowe that the story is a bit overblown as Disney has continued to license non-exclusive rights to a bunch of other platforms and this is likely just more of that with maybe a big batch of ABC/20th Century shows coming up for renewal at Hulu (as mentioned in the Bloomberg article) which is why they wrote the article. The headline was a bit misleading/clickbait and mad it sound like a huge shift in strategy when Disney has been fairy consistent even with Disney+ and Hulu being strategy important. 

 

This deal happened in February 2020:

 

Quote

Lost, Ally McBeal and My So-Called Life will soon be available to stream for free — with a catch.

 

Those hits are among a group of more than 20 shows are coming to the Amazon-owned IMDb TV platform as part of a larger deal with Disney’s Direct-to Consumer and International department. The catch is that all of them will stream with ads as IMDb TV is an ad-supported free-to-stream platform.

...

All of the shows listed above — save for My So-Called Life — will continue to stream ad-free on the Disney-backed subscription service Hulu.

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/lost-my-called-life-20-shows-coming-imdb-tv-disney-licensing-deal-1276578/

 

The Peacock/Hulu Modern Family happened in January 2021. I'm sure that plenty of smaller deals have happened as well.

 

Internationally older shows are still shown on linear TV like The Simpsons even with new seasons coming to Disney+ in many markets, same with older shows like MASH which is on Disney+ but shown on linear as well (or local AVOD/BVOD) such as in Australia it on 9Now. 

 

The only titles that Disney are holding back on licensing/sharing are originals and even they increasingly are being shown on Disney Channel, Freeform, FX, Nat Geo etc. either as full seasons or a couple of episodes as advertising. This isn't a major shift for Disney out of nowhere, there are things that have been happening since the first months of Disney+ and things that have been slowly changing over the last 6-12 months even before Iger returned which is why using that an angle in the article is strange. 

 

I also can't see Disney licensing out a bunch of titles like MASH, Mixed-ish etc. to other platforms exclusively, particularly with an advertising tier here/coming, but maybe I'm wrong there. 

Edited February 5, 2023 by Potiki