Netflix will have competition from Disney, but we don't know its name
A playful thought turned out to be fanciful...
- Best New Journalist 2019 Australian IT Journalism Awards
Movies like Moana are leaving Netflix for Disney's service in 2019.
Netflix's biggest upcoming opponent still doesn't have a name.
On Monday, a Disney representative cooled speculation that the entertainment giant's upcoming Netflix killer would be called Disney Play, a title that had been reported last week by Variety.
Instead, the subscription streaming service, which was first announced in August 2017, remains nameless.
"A name for the upcoming Disney streaming service has not yet been announced," a Disney representative said in an email.
Named or not, the service will affect the streaming landscape when it launches next year. Disney will pull its movies from the Netflix platform and relocate them to its own service. The company's films include Moana and Frozen, as well as Pixar and Marvel Studios movies, such as Toy Story 4 and Ant-Man and the Wasp. Both Pixar and Marvel Studios are owned by Disney.
Luckily for Netflix fans, the shift doesn't include Marvel TV shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, which will remain.
As for how much the subscription service will cost, Variety cites Disney CEO Bob Iger as acknowledging it will be less than Netflix's $8 to $14 monthly fee. The service will be the "biggest priority of the company during calendar 2019," according to Iger.
Despite challengers, Netflix is going strong: It topped Disney as the world's most valuable media company in May with a market cap of $153.8 billion, compared with Disney's $152 billion.
CBS, which owns CNET, competes in streaming media with its CBS All Access service.
First published Aug. 26, 10:48 p.m. PT.
Clarification, Aug. 27, 3:34 p.m. PT: Updates to clarify that Disney hasn't yet revealed the name of its streaming service.
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