Disney is still in "negotiations" to add more of its content to Netflix, but when it comes to its "core brands," it's not sharing.
During Wednesday's Q4 2023 earnings call, one of the investors pointed out that Warner Bros. recently started licensing its "tentpole content" - most notably, eight DCEU movies - to Netflix and asked Disney CEO Bob Iger if the House of Mouse might do something similar. While Iger noted that they're going to "continue to" license out some of their content to Netflix, that won't include major brands like Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar.
"We're actually in discussions with them now about some opportunities, but I wouldn't expect that we will license our core brands to them," he said on the call. "Those are real, obviously, competitive advantages for us and differentiators. Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, for instance, are all doing very very well on our platform."
He added that those brands are "really, really important building blocks to the future of our streaming business," and that he doesn't see why they'd give up that exclusivity in order to "chase bucks."
This is in line with comments Iger's previously made on the subject, as he told the New York Times last year that, in licensing its content to other parties, Disney was "basically selling nuclear weapons technology to a Third World country, and now they’re using it against us.” However, he softened a bit from that position during the company's annual meeting in April, saying they would "consider on occasion licensing other content to third parties."
Disney, of course, has been aggressive with producing original content for Disney+ since the platform's launch in 2020, starting with a bang with Marvel's WandaVision and Star Wars series The Mandalorian. Theatrical films, meanwhile, have been hitting Disney+ shortly after their debuts in theaters.
Elsewhere in the earnings call, Iger announced that the company is set to launch the combined Disney+/Hulu app in beta next month, and acknowledged a "period of fixing" after a rough 2023.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
