Disney+ Isn’t Exclusive: The Full Report on Where Disney Content Still Resides

In the months leading up to the premier of Disney+ back in 2019, Disney offered an interesting, exclusive deal for D23 members. If you were willing to prepay, Disney would give you an unbeatable rate. For $140 plus tax, you could get three years of access to the “exclusive place for Disney content,” which came out to less than $4 a month. Especially since there was a free tier of D23, it was a no-brainer for any Marvel or Star Wars fan.

With all of those founder rates finally expiring on November 12, those die hard Disney fans are considering whether or not to renew at the current rate, which will be going up soon. There’s also the contingent of traditional conservative families that once thought Disney could do no wrong only to discover that they should be screening hours of pre-school content for ideology-shifting gender propaganda before they can let their children watch without an adult in the room.

As a family with small children, I personally have kept my eye out for other methods of procuring Disney content, whether it be physical media, direct purchase digital sites, or other streaming services. You might think that looking for Disney-owned content on non-Disney streaming services is a useless endeavor. In doing research for myself and for That Park Place, I discovered some interesting quirks over the last few months.

First of all, there are items that are clearly the remnants of existing deals. Starz, which is owned by Lions Gate, still has the subscription streaming rights to certain Marvel films like Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and even Sony’s Spider-Man films. If things continue as they supposed to, this access will expire when the Starz / Disney deal expires.

But then there are more questionable items. Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and Logan all appeared on Disney+ on July 2, 2022, signaling to North American subscribers that the platform would host more mature, clearly R-rated content. When these films were made by Fox, they were never intended to be under the Disney banner and whether or not these films belong on the same platform as Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is a matter for some small debate, but at least we knew how things would start to consolidate.

All Star Wars, Marvel, and Disney content would eventually make their way to Disney+, with a small consideration for Hulu as it also eventually consolidates under full Disney ownership, right?

On October 1, 2022, Roku started advertising that the 90s classic Rookie of the Year would be available on Roku Channel. While my household could have sworn that the film was produced by Disney, the film is only NOW owned by Disney through its acquisition of 20th Century Fox. A quick GoDuckGo search reveals that Rookie of the Year is also included as part of Prime Video, and of course Disney+.

On October 17, ad-based video-on-demand service Tubi premiered Deadpool and Deadpool 2 for free on their service. Tubi is owned by Fox Corporation, better known as “the part of Fox that Disney didn’t buy” so it’s possible that this also a remnant of an existing contract, but it also seems strange that the Deadpool movies would jump around so much while still maintaining a presence on Disney+.

In a similar situation, X-Men: First Class and the Josh Track Fantastic Four have both premiered on Disney+, but are also available on NBCUniversal’s Peacock app.

All of these can reasonably be explained by existing deals. The Starz deal has not expired and was probably modified at great cost to Disney when they re-acquired the rights to stream the Star Wars films. Fox Corporation could have seen that Deadpool had appeal outside of the MCU audience and added a low-stakes bullet point to the spin-off. NBC Universal and Disney are the divorcing co-parents of Hulu, so perhaps they worked something out on the Fox Marvel content.

There is one franchise that makes no sense to me, however. The Walt Disney Company has owned the Muppets for almost 20 years. Most Muppets content is available on Disney+ and some of it has even been produced exclusively for Disney+. So then why are The Muppets Take Manhattan and Muppets From Space not on Disney+? These two films are instead available on NBCUniversal’s Peacock and (for now) Hulu.

Disney has been involved with the Muppets since the Eisner era, with the Muppets appearing in the parks even in the MGM Studios days. So why does one of Disney’s largest competitors have the rights to a gem of the Muppets canon (and also Muppets from Space). There are unconfirmed indications that Paramount+ might be getting these two Muppets films as well.

It’s worth mentioning that on November 14, Disney announced that their cable channels FX and Freeform would be airing episodes of Andor. Even more interesting is that regular old broadcast network ABC will be airing it as well. Of course, Hulu will get a small taste of episodes as well.

So what does this all mean? Does this mean that Disney+ is no longer the exclusive place for Disney / Marvel / Star Wars content? Deadpool 3 is one of the few “sure things” that the MCU has left. Why would they diminish any of their legendary “brand synergy?” While the Muppets have stumbled in popularity after The Muppets (2011), they are about as close to a Disney flagship brand as you can get. And Star Wars is supposed to be the crown jewel of Disney+!

Until very recently, Disney would be able to reap income streams from premium cable, basic cable, home media, and licensing their content out to other streaming services. Slowly that is all being consolidated down into a handful of 4K disc sales and the hope that people will subscribe to Disney+.

So, are these all temporary hurdles on the way to Disney+ domination, or is Bob Chapek resurrecting content licensing as another support for a global company that could use another leg to stand on?

If you’re a nerd like me and would love more discussion of content licensing, I recommend checking out Valliant Renegade’s YouTube channel. His and WDWPro’s analysis of the recent Disney earnings calls have been top notch.