NEW DELHI: After months of see-sawing and multiple rounds of negotiations, Disney has signed a deal with Sony Pictures that will allow Disney+ to stream Spiderman and other Marvel properties in the United States after they play on Netflix. Disney revealed that it will also add a significant number of Sony films to Hulu, the subscription video-on-demand service fully controlled and majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company.
Apart from Spiderman, Disney has also acquired streaming rights of hundreds of Sony Pictures movies including Jumanji and Hotel Transylvania. Some other movies that will be included in the deal are Marvel's Morbius, Brad Pitt's action thriller Bullet Train, and the new instalment in the Bad Boys series.
According to the new arrangement, Disney will be able to stream Sony movies that include Spiderman and Venom beginning 2022. After the theatrical screening, these films will be streamed on Netflix for an 18-month period and will be later streamed on Disney+ or any other Disney platforms.
The development comes close on the heels of Netflix inking a deal with Sony Pictures earlier this month to stream the latter’s movies after the first window of theatrical release. Similar to the Netflix deal, the new pact between Sony and Disney covers only the US market.
The deal between Sony Pictures and Disney was wrangled by Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution head of business operations for ABC, Freeform, FX Networks, and acquisitions Chuck Saftler, and Sony Pictures Entertainment president of worldwide distribution and networks Keith Le Goy.
"This landmark multi-year, platform-agnostic agreement guarantees the team at Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution a tremendous amount of flexibility and breadth of programming possibilities to leverage Sony’s rich slate of award-winning action and family films across our direct-to-consumer services and linear channels. This is a win for fans, who will benefit from the ability to access the very best content from two of Hollywood’s most prolific studios across a multitude of viewing platforms and experiences," said Saftler in a recent statement.
Keith Le Goy said, "We are thrilled to team up with Disney on delivering our titles to their viewers and subscribers. This agreement cements a key piece of our film distribution strategy, which is to maximise the value of each of our films, by making them available to consumers across all windows with a wide range of key partners.''
