Disney Streaming Service: Here Are The Movies And TV Shows Being Developed

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

While Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu are currently having all the fun in the streaming realm, Disney is hovering on the sidelines and patiently waiting for its time to strike. A new Disney streaming service is coming in 2019, and now we finally have some concrete ideas of what sorts of films and TV products the company will debut on it.

Deadline reports that the studio "has been conducting meetings with the creative community" to prepare people for what they can expect when the service launches. Here are the most important things to know:

Movies to Expect

Magic Camp, which follows an up-and-coming magician who attends a magic camp and inspires his down-on-his-luck counselor (played by Adam Devine), was removed from Disney's release calendar last fall, and now Deadline says it'll be dumped straight to this new streaming service. Gillian Jacobs and Jeffrey Tambor co-star.Anna Kendrick's Christmas movie Nicole is also destined for the streaming platform. Marc Lawrence wrote and directed this story of Santa's daughter (Kendrick) who steps up to do her father's job after he retires and her brother gets cold feet. Bill Hader and Shirley MacLane co-star here. Note: Deadline refers to this project as Noelle, so perhaps its received a title change since we last wrote about it.

While those two films are already in post-production, the goal is reportedly to make four to five films per year specifically for this service. Here are a few more movies Disney is interested in bringing to its new streaming site:

  • Don Quixote, written by The Hunger Games writer Billy Ray
  • Lady and the Tramp, which I presume is another of Disney's live-action retellings of their animated classics
  • The Paper Magician,
  • Stargirl, which I'm guessing is an adaptation of the successful young adult novel. Julia Hart (The Keeping Room, Miss Stevens) is set to direct.
  • Togo, which I have to assume is an action film of some kind since it's being helmed by Point Break remake director Ericson Core.
  • Remakes of Three Men and a Baby and Sword in the Stone
  • An adaptation of the children's book Timmy Failure, directed by Spotlight's Tom McCarthy
  • No R-Rated Movies

    Something you shouldn't hold your breath for? R-rated films. Deadline says the streaming service's programming will be "consistent with the Disney brand," and the R-rated content will go to Hulu. That's interesting, because it assumes the Disney/Fox acquisition goes through and that Disney will utilize Hulu as a dumping ground for anything that doesn't fit its squeaky clean image. I wonder if they'll end up moving the archive of R-rated Touchstone movies that Disney used to distribute over to Hulu as well.

    Monsters Inc 3

    TV Shows to Expect

    The TV side is full of projects we've known about for a while. There are plans for a new live-action Marvel series, High School Musical, and an animated Monsters, Inc. show. Most importantly, as we wrote about earlier this week, there are plans in place for multiple live-action Star Wars TV shows to head to the streaming service. The Star Wars shows may end up costing $100 million for a 10-episode season, but nothing is set in stone at the moment.

    Marvel Studios Logo

    No Existing Marvel TV Shows

    Don't think that Netflix Marvel shows like The Defenders will immediately jump over to Disney's new streaming service as soon as it launches. The plan is for those shows to remain on Netflix – at least for the time being. I haven't seen the contracts that were signed when these Marvel/Netflix shows were announced back in 2013, but I know Netflix tends to secure exclusive rights to their shows in perpetuity. It's unclear if Netflix will allow Disney to remove those properties from Netflix, or if future fans will be in the odd position of having to stream some Marvel content on Netflix and others on Disney's service moving forward. (And don't forget about things like Legion, The Gifted, Runaways, and Cloak & Dagger, which are currently spread over a myriad of services.)

    Disney's still-untitled streaming service (we're hoping they call it The Disney Vault™) will debut in Fall 2019.