Could THIS Be the Answer to Disney's Constant Film Failures?

Disney’s been doing a lot of live-action remakes recently.

Live-Action Disney Remakes

Coming up in the next few years, we’ve got a live-action Moana and Lilo & Stitch coming out, and many Disney movie fans are NOT happy about it. They want to see more originals, but then when more originals like Wish and Elemental (which did end up doing very well at the box office, but started off rough), they get criticized pretty heavily too. So what is Disney to do? The answer could be in licensing.

According to a recent article from The Hollywood Reporter, Disney owns 148 TV shows with licensing power (which is determined by having “completed their first run, have at least three seasons, are scripted, of U.S.-origin, and still maintain consumer engagement measured with Ampere’s Popularity Score”) in comparison with Paramount with 72, Warner Brothers with 54, and NBCUniversal with 47.

©Disney

Licensing out their shows would allow Disney to make more money on their content by not limiting it to just being on their streaming services (so essentially, you’d be able to watch Disney+ content on Netflix or Paramount+).

Now, major studios aren’t crazy about doing this, but Warner Bros. Discovery 2023 deals to license DC content to Amazon, Netflix, and Tubi have worked out quite well for them. In fact, the number of TV seasons cross-listed between Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max and Discovery+ and Netflix tripled in 2023.

©Marvel

So how does this help Disney or any other major studio? Well, many consumers can only afford one streaming service, and choose to forgo seeing content on other platforms. The moment you make that more readily available to them, something they’ve been interested in watching but not enough to scrounge up money for another streaming service, they jump on that new content.

©Disney

Now, this is going to be tricky to navigate for studios, because, as Rahul Patel, research manager at Ampere, said, “Studios’ strategies will need to carefully balance exclusivity and non-exclusivity to ensure their streaming offerings are distinct and compelling while also maximizing the value of their content.”