Disney May Not Be Able to Move Its Marvel Series From Netflix
12.04.2017by
Meg Downeyin
TV NewsComment
Confusion and concern was stirred up among Marvel fans earlier this year when parent company Disney announced plans to move forward with its own original direct-to-consumer streaming platform designed to compete with services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.
The as-of-yet unnamed Disney service plans to house content from all of the company’s various IPs, like Star Wars and Pixar, both of which have films currently streaming on Netflix — but the bulk of the concern involved what might happen to the current line up of Netflix-original Marvel shows like
Daredevil,
Defenders and
Jessica Jones.
RELATED: Disney & Fox Have Reignited ‘Serious’ Acquisition Talks
Now, Netflix’s content chief Ted Sarandos has weighed in on the potential complications, revealing to investors that Netflix apparently maintains the rights to keep the series already on the service, and potentially continue to produce more starring those characters.
“What Disney going direct to consumer means, I don’t really know and I’m not positive that they do either,” reports
The Hollywood Reporter. “They’ve created some really killer brands. It’s not that exclusive… Netflix has the Defenders.”
Sarandos emphasized that while Disney does own Marvel, they don’t own all of Marvel’s IPs outright, indicating that Netflix maintains the rights to the properties they are currently producing. In theory, this means that while Disney’s streaming platform would be able to host movies like
Captain America: Civil War, it would seem that, unless something changes on the licensing end of things, the Marvel Netflix Universe would be destined to stick around where it started.
The Disney direct-to-consumer streaming platform is expected to launch in 2019.