Captain Marvel Will Be The First Disney+ Exclusive

According to Disney exec Bob Iger, the budding romance between Disney and Netflix is coming to an end. He announced on an earnings call on Tuesday that ‘Captain Marvel’ will be the first film that will be exclusive to Disney’s new streaming service. Disney and Netflix currently enjoy a fruitful relationship, but that will end with the introduction of Disney+. As Disney moves forward with banking on the future of their unreleased streaming service, they’ll also end up cutting relationships as they go. Disney CFO Christine McCarthy does expect this move to eventually cost Disney upwards of $150 in lost revenue initially.

The silver lining here though, is that after that initial hit, Disney will more than make up for the lost income. Seeing as their Disney+ streaming service will be the ONLY place for their massively extensive library, users will eventually flock to it. That will ultimately be the key to Disney’s success. Making users feel like they HAVE TO have the service. After all, Disney’s reach extends beyond just their animated classics. Disney is now the gatekeeper for several big name franchises, and as such they will almost immediately command the streaming space.

Disney not only has the rights to a ton of Marvel franchises, but they also own Lucas Film, home to the Star Wars universe. Those two alone are worth enough to bank a streaming service on. When you add in all the smaller subsidiary assets, that’s when you really see the true scope of their reach. When you look at the fact that Disney also owns both ABC (Grey’s Anatomy, Lost), and ESPN (Yay Sports!), you can see the potential for Disney to really do damage if they saw fit.

There isn’t an official release date for Disney+ but we will get a small demo of the service’s capability in April.