Several non-Disney Marvel movies are starting to appear on Disney+ in several countries. The history of Marvel characters is chaotic, as corporate ownership of superheroes has changed hands repeatedly, which has affected both the distribution of films and the rights of characters for decades. With the acquisition of Marvel Studios by Walt Disney in 2009 began the process of combining all the characters under one banner, but after the merger of Disney and Fox in 2019, Disney acquired the rights to use almost all Marvel characters. superheroes in their film and TV projects.
However, despite the fact that characters such as the Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man are now free to appear in MCU films, they were noticeably absent from the Marvel movie catalog available on Disney+. This is due to the fact that, although Disney managed to conclude deals allowing the use of these characters in certain MCU projects, the studio does not own the rights to distribute them, which belong to Sony and Universal, respectively. Thus, films such as Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy of the early 2000s starring Tobey Maguire and The Incredible Hulk of 2008 starring Edward Norton were not previously available on the Disney streaming service.
However, this won’t last long, as some non-Disney Marvel movies are heading to the streaming platform in multiple territories. According to the official Twitter of Disney+ Japan, “Iron Man”, “The Incredible Hulk” and “Venom” will arrive in the service on June 17. Meanwhile, Disney+ Italy tweeted that “Spider-Man: Across the Universes” will arrive in this territory on the same day. meeting. In addition, Disney+ UK announced that Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, the New Spider-Man and its sequel, and Spider-Man: Homecoming will be released on June 17.
The reasons for these additions to the Disney+ service of non-Disney Marvel movies seem to have one goal in mind. The fact that so many previously unavailable Marvel movies are now coming to the platform shows that Disney is starting to put everything under one roof, consolidating its power over the viewers of two very successful franchises: the MCU and Spider-Man. Moreover, it is an important step forward in Disney’s growth in the crowded streaming market, as its competitors such as Netflix continue to lose subscribers.
However, according to the agreement that Sony and Netflix signed last year, the first viewing rights to stream Sony Pictures theatrical releases belong to Netflix, which means that Disney may not get its hands on MCU webmaster Tom Holland during this period. Thus, the full collection of Marvel objects, both Disney and others, will not be available on the Disney+ service for the foreseeable future. However, this development shows that the current growth trend for Disney+ is not going to stop, and the addition of the long-awaited Spider-Man Raimi films, as well as other popular Marvel films, will no doubt continue to increase its popularity. already a huge number of subscribers.
