Disney CEO Bob Iger on Thursday shared details with shareholders about how the company’s upcoming Disney+ streaming service will compete with Apple’s upcoming streaming platform.
Iger told the gathered Disney faithful that the Disney+ service will offer “the entire Disney motion picture library,” signaling the end of the so-called “Disney Vault”.
The service, which I mentioned earlier is going to launch later in the year, is going to combine what we call library product, movies, and television, with a lot of original product as well, movies and television. And at some point fairly soon after launch it will house the entire Disney motion picture library, so the movies that you speak of that traditionally have been kept in a “vault” and brought out basically every few years will be on the service. And then, of course, we’re producing a number of original movies and original television shows as well that will be Disney-branded.
Disney typically makes their various titles available on home video for only short periods of time. Once the production run of DVD and Blu-Ray titles has sold out, Disney pulls it from distribution “returning it to the vault” until its next limited release cycle.
Iger said newer films will be available on Disney+ within a year of their theatrical release. “It’s going to combine both the old and the new,” Iger said. “All of the films that we’re releasing this year, [starting] with Captain Marvel, will also be on the service.”
Disney+ is expected to launch later this year, and will feature content from the Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars universes.