Netflix isn’t giving up on streaming ‘Star Wars’ and Marvel movies
Disney a few days ago announced a move that makes perfect sense for the company: it will launch two standalone streaming services, including one that will compete directly with Netflix, and a sports service. The giant studio also said that come 2019, when the movie streaming service should be unveiled, some of its licensing deals with Netflix will expire, especially the ones covering new movies. Joint Disney-Netflix plans like Jessica Jones will not be affected.
However, it appears that Netflix isn’t ready to give up on certain Disney movies and it’s still negotiating a deal that would extend beyond 2019 for some franchises.
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Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos told Reuters “we are still in active discussions” to retain the rights to stream Marvel and Lucasfil titles on Netflix after 2019.
The Netflix exec said in an interview that Disney’s announcement did not come as a huge surprise to Netflix, being a “natural evolution” for the huge company.
“That’s why we got into the originals business five years ago, anticipating it may be not as easy a conversation with studios and networks,” he said.
But he also added that he expected Disney’s streaming service to be “complementary” to Netflix.
Disney, meanwhile, is yet to present a firm position on licensing some of its most popular content to competitors like Netflix. Disney CEO Bob Iger said on Tuesday that it had not decided where it would distribute Star Wars and Marvel movies in the future.
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