Disney Selling Off Marvel And Star Wars Shows To A Competing Streamer?
Disney could be selling off their Star Wars and Marvel shows to rival streaming companies.
Disney has been going through some massive changes lately, including reinstating former CEO Bob Iger, laying off tons of employees, and now possibly selling Star Wars and Marvel shows to competing streaming platforms. According to Bouncing Into Comics, which reported on a rumor posted to YouTube by notorious entertainment news content creator, Doomcock, Disney is considering selling a handful of its shows to fellow streaming platforms in order to help them get out of the red zone caused by a failing Disney+.
At this time, the idea that Disney is selling off Marvel and Star Wars content is still just a rumor, though Doomcock says that his information has been provided by a longtime internal source who the YouTuber trusts to provide accurate details. The rumor is that Disney plans to sell some of its more popular shows like The Mandalorian Season 1, The Orville Season 1 (and maybe season 2), Loki Season 1, WandaVision, and Andor Season 1. As well as, Bad Batch Season 1, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Willow, and several others.
Disney plans to sell these popular Marvel, Star Wars, and other fantasy series to platforms like Apple, Paramount Plus, and Peacock, as well as an unidentified fourth streaming platform. However, the rumor states that Disney does not plan to sell any of the licensing to Hulu, which is owned mostly by Disney, with a minority of the streaming platform being owned by NBCUniversal.
While nothing has been officially announced regarding Disney selling off these shows, speculation is that the company is considering the licensing sale due to the continuing failure of Disney+, the company’s own streaming service. Despite reducing its cumulative debt by $400,000, the streaming platform is still operating at a significant loss, as well as a loss of roughly 2.4 million subscribers, which was mostly caused by Disney’s break up with the Hotstar television network in India.
With the reinstatement of Bob Iger as Disney CEO, Disney is on a mission to cut $5.5 billion in costs for the company and help the production conglomerate get back into the black. Some of the action steps Iger has taken have included laying off 7,000 workers worldwide, considering the sale of these Marvel and Star Wars properties, and even considering selling their shares of Hulu.
At this time, there is no rumor that Disney plans to abandon their main streaming platform, Disney+, but rather is looking for ways to cut costs, re-strategize, and ultimately save the streaming service. In the Q1 2023 Earnings Call, Iger told shareholders that Disney is still urgently looking to add subscribers to the platform but will aim to spend less on promotion going forward. Iger also stated that the company is looking for many ways to cut costs, including costs related to content and infrastructure, which could have been the CEO referring to the sale of these Marvel and Star Wars properties.
Iger also mentioned that while Disney is looking to save money, none of the means of savings that they look at are intended to lower the quality of the content the company produces. At this time, Disney’s sale of Marvel and Star Wars properties to other streamers has not been verified and is still only a rumor.
