Disney Plus and What to Expect
Disney is betting big on its 2019 streaming service, Disney Plus, the entertainment giant’s place to stream almost all things Disney. It will be the the exclusive home for streaming the company’s blockbuster Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar movies — Avengers: Endgame, for example, will be available to stream starting Dec. 11. But more than that, Disney is also ramping up a slate of original shows and movies based on those brands and others. Starting Nov. 12, Disney Plus will launch in the US — and two other countries, we now know. Monday, Disney announced the first official launch dates outside the US, including Canada and the Netherlands on Nov. 12 and Australia and New Zealand on Nov. 19. It also detailed the streaming platforms that will support the service, which span Apple, Google, Microsoft, Roku, and Sony — but, so far, no Amazon. Much of Disney Plus’ original programming leans into the company’s big-budget franchises. Its Marvel original shows, for example, are going to be closely knitted into the storylines that play out on the big screen in theaters. Beyond that, Disney Plus will have additional, unnamed Marvel shows from Marvel Television, in addition to the titles that have already been announced from Marvel’s movie studio. Some shows — like the live-action, big-budget Star Wars spin-off The Mandalorian — have completed filming and will be available at launch.
Krypton Cancelled
Art Spiegelman and Marvel
In an essay for The Guardian that went up this weekend, Maus creator Art Spiegelman dives into the so-called golden age of comics that occurred (depending on who you ask) at some point between the late-1930s and the mid-1950s, with him specifically focusing on the birth of Marvel Comics and how superheroes like Captain America were explicitly created to oppose the rise of fascism. At the end, he brings it around to note that superheroes are as popular as ever with Captain America still fighting the fascist Red Skull in mega-budget movies just as America is terrorized by an “Orange Skull” of its own—meaning Trump, obviously. Then there’s a twist: Spiegelman didn’t write the essay for The Guardian, it was originally commissioned as an introduction to a collection of golden age Marvel comics being published by the Folio Society. In an extra addendum, Spiegelman says that a Folio Society editor told him that Marvel (as co-publisher of the collection) was trying to stay “apolitical” and wanted him to remove the “Orange Skull” reference. “I didn’t think of myself as especially political compared with some of my fellow travelers,” Spiegelman explains, “but when asked to kill a relatively anodyne reference to an Orange Skull I realized that perhaps it had been irresponsible to be playful about the dire existential threat we now live with.” Spiegelman says he decided to withdraw his essay from the publication because of that, adding that he had also recently learned that Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter and his wife had both recently given the maximum donation of $360,000 to Trump’s reelection campaign.
Agent King?
He-Man is Back!
Remember He-Man? Masters of the Universe? Remember Skeletor, Battle Cat and Orco? Well, it’s time to don the nostalgia goggles and relive that 80s childhood. A new He-Man series on Netflix, with filmmaker Kevin Smith at the helm, is en route. Smith announced he will be serving as the showrunner and executive producer of the new animated series Masters of the Universe: Revelation, which will focus on the unresolved storylines of the classic ’80s series, according to The Hollywood Reporter on Sunday. The new series for Netflix is described as “a wholly original story set in the epic world of Mattel’s over 35-year-old global He-Man toy franchise.” The original ’80s Masters of the Universe series tells the adventures of Prince Adam, heir to the throne of planet Eternia, who uses a magical Power Sword to transform into the warrior He-Man.
