A new Star Wars film in the cinema and an unexpected reunion with a beloved Disney princess. At first glance, this sounds like something that should send millions of Disney fans around the world into joyful excitement and anticipation. The Mickey Mouse company has seemingly conjured up two new blockbusters out of nowhere. However, a closer look reveals a new publishing strategy that might make some fans feel like they're being taken for a ride.
The fourth season of an extremely popular Star Wars series and the return of a Disney princess have been canceled on Disney Plus. At first glance, this sounds like something that would cause disappointment and disappointed sadness among millions of Disney fans around the world. This seemingly paradoxical rollercoaster of emotions reveals a new publishing strategy that, at least for me pretty ripped off occurs.
Star Wars series and Disney Princess canceled on Disney Plus, the cinema is calling
Because Disney is apparently stomping planned series on Disney Plus in order to bring them to the big screen in a compressed form as a “movie”. At least that's the case with Star Wars: The Mandalorian. Season 4 was canceled and is coming instead in feature length first go to the cinema. One new trilogy does not seem to be out of the question if successful.
And also at Vaiana (im Original: Moana) a similar picture emerges. In addition to the live-action film with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a second part of the animated original will be released in the cinema, which apparently also happens originally conceived as a series became. For me, this creates numerous problems on several levels.
Disney Plus series in the cinema – Disney, what's the point?
Disney's apparently new strategy seems understandable. Filming a two-hour “episode” should be significantly cheaper than producing an entire season of a Star Wars series. There is also the nice side effect that the fans get paid twice as much. Once for the cinema ticket and then again for the monthly subscription to Disney Plus, which is not only becoming more and more expensive, but its availability is becoming more and more limited in terms of password sharing. But that's not enough.
I fear that Star Wars series or Disney princesses condensed into feature length films will combine “the worst of two worlds”. Production quality is likely to suffer significantly. Series like Obi-Wan Kenobi simply look a lot cheaper than big Star Wars blockbusters. And the animated series on Disney Plus also don't reach the standard that you're used to from the Disney masterpiece series in the cinema.
Disney is threatening its former members more and more excellent reputation to gamble away. If you have to worry about global brands like Star Wars or the Disney Princesses that for the money you pay for a movie ticket you will only get cobbled-together content that only meets TV standards, then quite a few people are likely to consider watching films like Dune in the future 2 to go.
These blockbusters are explicitly made for the big screen (here is our review of Dune 2) and only come later as a stream. Disney seems to want to test the exact opposite approach in the coming months and years and as a viewer and film fan you can rightly feel a little cheated.