Once the public face of squeaky-clean, harmless family entertainment, the Walt Disney Corporation has evolved into a widespread conglomerate known as much for the properties it controls as the films it produces. With subsidiaries including Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, National Geographic, A&E, 20th Century Fox, ESPN, Hulu, and Pixar, Disney has a commanding control of some of the world’s most lucrative franchises, plus an extensive library of film and TV classics. Its streaming service Disney+ signals a new interest in controlling its own online distribution, setting aside decades of licensing partnerships. Follow along with The Verge as we look at Disney’s new films and shows, and its strategies for dominating the box office and the streaming dollar.
Fubo, which is now controlled by Disney, has appointed Alisa Bowen as its CEO. Bowen has led Disney Plus since 2022.
As noted by Variety, it’s not clear whether Disney plans to fill Bowen’s role or just leave it to Joe Earley and Adam Smith, the co-presidents of Disney’s combined streaming business.
The gen AI psyop known as Tilly Norwood is reportedly going to be in a movie produced by Particle 6. Put more plainly: the company that created Tilly Norwood in the first place is making an elaborate commercial about one of its products.
[Los Angeles Times]
In hopes of winning its ongoing legal battle with Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery Midjourney is trying to force the studios to reveal the extent to which they use artificial intelligence internally. This would establish whether “they are doing exactly what they are suing Midjourney for doing.”
With tickets going on sale today ahead of Spider-Man’s premiere on July 31st, Sony Pictures released a new nearly three-minute trailer to follow the March teaser that quickly racked up a billion views.
This new one still features a world that’s forgotten Peter Parker, and also highlights the movie’s villain, an invisible entity that seemingly takes over even Bruce Banner / Hulk.
Disney and Pixar’s latest feature gets at the heart of how we let tech hurt us.
The R&D team at Walt Disney Imagineering has embraced Adobe’s Firefly Foundry platform to “accelerate the design and pre-production visualization pipeline” for Disney Parks and Experiences. The partnership will use AI models trained on Disney assets to turn sketches into fully rendered concept art, 2D images into 3D prototypes, and more.
The two projects highlight how it takes more than nostalgia to reinvigorate a franchise.
As Deadline reports, ABC filed early renewal applications for its broadcast licenses “under protest” on Thursday, along with a letter condemning the FCC’s demand for the premature license renewal. ABC called it “unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional,” stating:
Simultaneously forcing every station in a media company’s portfolio to file premature license renewal applications is not a regulatory tool. It is an extraordinary demonstration of power and coercion directed at disfavored editorial voices, which sends a clear warning to every broadcaster in America. This is a threat to the First Amendment that this Commission and this proceeding must not be permitted to normalize.
An internal document viewed by Business Insider details efforts to transfer Hulu’s content and features to Disney Plus, which Disney has already started doing. The document says “the Hulu tech stack and app will be decommissioned after all users have transitioned” to the unified app, according to Business Insider.
[Business Insider]
You can bring over your Hulu watch history, watchlist, and recommendations to Disney Plus if you subscribe to both services. This comes as part of Disney’s plans to create a unified streaming app, though the company tells Variety it has “no current plans” to get rid of the Hulu app.
The new Star Wars movie isn’t strong enough to get the franchise back on track.
It’s time for Josh D’Amaro to lock in.
It’s been a while since we heard anything new about Disney’s Agatha All Along followup, VisionQuest, but Disney has just pegged the series for an October 14th premiere.
During its annual upfront presentation today, Disney announced that Avatar: Fire and Ash will stream on Disney Plus beginning June 24th.
Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s new CEO, says in the company’s Q2 2026 earnings report that he expects the “shift from linear toward streaming to continue.” Operating income from Disney’s streaming business, which includes Disney Plus and Hulu, jumped to $582 million over the past few months, marking an 88 percent increase year over year.
While the Trump administration’s attempt to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air was ultimately unsuccessful last year, the president is once again demanding his removal.
Now Semafor and CNN report the FCC is planning to “call in all of the TV station licenses for Disney/ABC for early renewal,” which would start a lengthy and potentially expensive process of hearings for the broadcaster that Carr has hinted at using before.
Update: And now that process has begun.
In celebration of National Deaf History Month, Disney has reanimated three songs — Frozen 2’s “The Next Right Thing,” Encanto’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” and “Beyond” from Moana 2 — into American Sign Language. The full reimagined musical sequences are coming to Disney Plus on April 27th.
It was already exciting enough to know that Ryan Coogler was working on an X-Files revival, but The Wrap reports that he is also set to produce a new Animorphs reboot for Disney Plus.
It didn’t take long for the latest Disney Imagineering innovation to freeze up (hah) and fall backwards in front of a small crowd of children at Disneyland Paris. Even his magnetically attached carrot nose decided to “Let It Go.”
Though Disney almost put an end toMarvel’s Wonder Man series before it got a chance to stream, the studio is bringing it back for another season according to Variety.
After being removed last month the HDR format and 3D movies are once again available to Disney Plus Premium subscribers in Europe, although some German users are still reporting them missing. Disney confirmed to FlatpanelsHD the removal was a result of a “German patent dispute with American company InterDigital.”
[FlatpanelsHD]
Now that Andor has come to end, series creator Tony Gilroy is free to speak more openly about what it was like working for Disney, and in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter he says that the studio was very insistent on him not using the word “fascism” while talking about his show focused on fighting fascism.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
The latest trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu really highlights how very, very young Grogu still is for one of Yoda’s species, which makes it seem that much more absurd that Din Djarin still hasn’t found his son a helmet to protect that (presumably) soft head.
In a cease and desist letter, Disney includes examples of the new Seedance 2.0 model making videos featuring characters like Spider-Man and Darth Vader, according to Axios. “ByteDance is hijacking Disney’s characters by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works featuring those characters,” Disney’s attorney said.
Disney Plus subscribers in a few European countries have spotted that Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and 3D content have disappeared from the service. A Disney statement blames it on “technical challenges,” but FlatpanelsHD points out it may be linked to a patent dispute in Germany.
Just before kickoff, Disney and Pixar previewed their next CG family flick, Hoppers. As we’ve heard and seen in a teaser trailer, this one follows a world where people put their minds into 3D-printed versions of animals to try and live among them. It’s coming to theaters on March 6th, although the YouTube description mentions an early viewing window on February 28th.
Todd Harthan and Todd Helbing have joined the series as co-showrunners and executive producers, along with Marc Webb and Rachel Moore as executive producers, as Variety reports. Author Christopher Paolini will also be executive producing the adaptation of his YA fantasy series at Disney Plus, which is also home to the hit adaptation of Percy Jackson.
Disney’s deal with OpenAI includes a plan to allow Sora users to create 30-second clips featuring over 250 Disney characters while some will appear in curated vertical video feeds inside Disney Plus, CEO Bob Iger told investors on Monday. Iger said the feature could arrive “sometime in fiscal 2026,” adding the company hopes to allow Disney Plus subscribers to create them directly on its platform:
What this deal does is by giving us the ability to curate what has been basically created by Sora onto Disney, is it jumpstarts our ability to have short form video on Disney Plus.
Current CEO Bob Iger has apparently said he plans to step down before the end of the year, and the company’s board of directors are set to vote next week on who should be his successor, The Wall Street Journal reports. The frontrunners are reportedly Josh D’Amaro and Dana Walden.
[The Wall Street Journal]
Disney Plus is teasing Jessica Jones’ return to the MCU in this new teaser trailer for Daredevil: Born Again’s upcoming second season, and it looks like the detective is going to be knocking heads.
