Walt Disney only seems like a cautious company.
Fairly new to the streaming world, the entertainment giant has caught on quick. Disney+, its first streaming service under its flagship brand that launched only last November, now has 86.8 million paying subscribers.
That’s about where the company first thought it would land after five years, and the success of the effort has persuaded Disney to rethink its priorities — and pour some gas on the fire.
It is an ambitious goal, and hardly a sure thing, especially since both Disney and Netflix can chalk up a good deal of their recent success to the pandemic that has shuttered movie theaters.
It also has several series coming from its Marvel universe, while its ownership of the old Twentieth Century Fox business.
Walt Disney expects to reach a level of releasing 100 shows and movies for streaming each year, many of them Marvel and Star Wars shows that won’t be cheap.
But investors have been effectively cutting Disney a blank check for streaming lately anyway.
It’s hard to blame Disney for cashing it.
Everyone knows the story of Chicken Little: a chick feels an acorn fall on his head and proceeds to blab to his animal friends that “the sky was falling.”
Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
Saving Mr. Banks peers behind Disney’s doors to tell a sort of true account of one of Walt Disney’s most tireless efforts: securing the rights to adapt Mary Poppins from the children’s book author herself, P.L. Travers.
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