Once the public face of squeaky-clean, harmless family entertainment, the Walt Disney Corporation has evolved into a widespread conglomerate known as much for the properties it controls as the films it produces. With subsidiaries including Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, National Geographic, A&E, 20th Century Fox, ESPN, Hulu, and Pixar, Disney has a commanding control of some of the world’s most lucrative franchises, plus an extensive library of film and TV classics. Its streaming service Disney+ signals a new interest in controlling its own online distribution, setting aside decades of licensing partnerships. Follow along with The Verge as we look at Disney’s new films and shows, and its strategies for dominating the box office and the streaming dollar.
During an earnings call on Wednesday, Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro reiterated the company’s plan to make Disney Plus the “digital centerpiece” of the company by incorporating “games, merchandise, and other experiences” into the app. “We expect to introduce elements of this expanded ecosystem beginning in spring of 2027,” D’Amaro said.
A show almost canceled as a tax write-off before it ever aired is now canceled, according to Variety, despite Variety’s report that it was renewed in March.
Our S1 review mentioned that “by the end of the season, you get the sense that Simon and Slattery could go on to become one of Marvel’s more novel riffs on a superhero team,” and a source in today’s report says the show’s characters could pop up elsewhere in the currently-under-renovation-MCU.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s unusual move demanding ABC renew its broadcast licenses early is part of a “broader pattern” in a “campaign to punish speech disfavored by the Trump administration,” over a dozen bipartisan former high-ranking officials charge. Several of them recently warned Carr was abusing the News Distortion Policy.
The ESPN, National Geographic, and Pixar divisions are among the most impacted according to Deadline, making this the second round of cuts this year since Josh D’Amaro took over the Disney CEO role in March. That Pixar blow comes despite Toy Story 5 earning almost $1 billion so far.
The first full trailer for Avengers: Doomsday may not reassure you that the MCU is back on track, but it does suggest Marvel is finally pushing artistic boundaries.
swingdingaling:
The haters said it couldn’t be done but they’ve done it: they made a whole movie of people looking at stuff just off screen
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Fubo, which is now controlled by Disney, has appointed Alisa Bowen as its CEO. Bowen has led Disney Plus since 2022.
As noted by Variety, it’s not clear whether Disney plans to fill Bowen’s role or just leave it to Joe Earley and Adam Smith, the co-presidents of Disney’s combined streaming business.
The gen AI psyop known as Tilly Norwood is reportedly going to be in a movie produced by Particle 6. Put more plainly: the company that created Tilly Norwood in the first place is making an elaborate commercial about one of its products.
[Los Angeles Times]
In hopes of winning its ongoing legal battle with Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery Midjourney is trying to force the studios to reveal the extent to which they use artificial intelligence internally. This would establish whether “they are doing exactly what they are suing Midjourney for doing.”
With tickets going on sale today ahead of Spider-Man’s premiere on July 31st, Sony Pictures released a new nearly three-minute trailer to follow the March teaser that quickly racked up a billion views.
This new one still features a world that’s forgotten Peter Parker, and also highlights the movie’s villain, an invisible entity that seemingly takes over even Bruce Banner / Hulk.
Disney and Pixar’s latest feature gets at the heart of how we let tech hurt us.
The R&D team at Walt Disney Imagineering has embraced Adobe’s Firefly Foundry platform to “accelerate the design and pre-production visualization pipeline” for Disney Parks and Experiences. The partnership will use AI models trained on Disney assets to turn sketches into fully rendered concept art, 2D images into 3D prototypes, and more.
The two projects highlight how it takes more than nostalgia to reinvigorate a franchise.
As Deadline reports, ABC filed early renewal applications for its broadcast licenses “under protest” on Thursday, along with a letter condemning the FCC’s demand for the premature license renewal. ABC called it “unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional,” stating:
Simultaneously forcing every station in a media company’s portfolio to file premature license renewal applications is not a regulatory tool. It is an extraordinary demonstration of power and coercion directed at disfavored editorial voices, which sends a clear warning to every broadcaster in America. This is a threat to the First Amendment that this Commission and this proceeding must not be permitted to normalize.
An internal document viewed by Business Insider details efforts to transfer Hulu’s content and features to Disney Plus, which Disney has already started doing. The document says “the Hulu tech stack and app will be decommissioned after all users have transitioned” to the unified app, according to Business Insider.
[Business Insider]
You can bring over your Hulu watch history, watchlist, and recommendations to Disney Plus if you subscribe to both services. This comes as part of Disney’s plans to create a unified streaming app, though the company tells Variety it has “no current plans” to get rid of the Hulu app.
The new Star Wars movie isn’t strong enough to get the franchise back on track.
It’s time for Josh D’Amaro to lock in.
It’s been a while since we heard anything new about Disney’s Agatha All Along followup, VisionQuest, but Disney has just pegged the series for an October 14th premiere.
During its annual upfront presentation today, Disney announced that Avatar: Fire and Ash will stream on Disney Plus beginning June 24th.
Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s new CEO, says in the company’s Q2 2026 earnings report that he expects the “shift from linear toward streaming to continue.” Operating income from Disney’s streaming business, which includes Disney Plus and Hulu, jumped to $582 million over the past few months, marking an 88 percent increase year over year.
While the Trump administration’s attempt to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air was ultimately unsuccessful last year, the president is once again demanding his removal.
Now Semafor and CNN report the FCC is planning to “call in all of the TV station licenses for Disney/ABC for early renewal,” which would start a lengthy and potentially expensive process of hearings for the broadcaster that Carr has hinted at using before.
Update: And now that process has begun.
In celebration of National Deaf History Month, Disney has reanimated three songs — Frozen 2’s “The Next Right Thing,” Encanto’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” and “Beyond” from Moana 2 — into American Sign Language. The full reimagined musical sequences are coming to Disney Plus on April 27th.
It was already exciting enough to know that Ryan Coogler was working on an X-Files revival, but The Wrap reports that he is also set to produce a new Animorphs reboot for Disney Plus.
It didn’t take long for the latest Disney Imagineering innovation to freeze up (hah) and fall backwards in front of a small crowd of children at Disneyland Paris. Even his magnetically attached carrot nose decided to “Let It Go.”
Though Disney almost put an end toMarvel’s Wonder Man series before it got a chance to stream, the studio is bringing it back for another season according to Variety.
After being removed last month the HDR format and 3D movies are once again available to Disney Plus Premium subscribers in Europe, although some German users are still reporting them missing. Disney confirmed to FlatpanelsHD the removal was a result of a “German patent dispute with American company InterDigital.”
[FlatpanelsHD]
Now that Andor has come to end, series creator Tony Gilroy is free to speak more openly about what it was like working for Disney, and in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter he says that the studio was very insistent on him not using the word “fascism” while talking about his show focused on fighting fascism.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
The latest trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu really highlights how very, very young Grogu still is for one of Yoda’s species, which makes it seem that much more absurd that Din Djarin still hasn’t found his son a helmet to protect that (presumably) soft head.
