Earlier this month, on 12th November, to be more precise, Disney had hosted the Disney Plus Day event with much fanfare. In India, the much-hyped event was marked with the arrival of premium content such as ‘Special Ops 1.5’, ‘Jungle Cruise’, and ‘Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’, besides several exciting announcements for forthcoming films and shows.
And now, it has recently been revealed through Disney’s latest annual report that the global entertainment giant is set to invest a massive $33 billion on new content for the fiscal year that commenced on 1st October 2021. The massive amount surpasses the planned investments of other entertainment giants like Netflix ($14 billion) and Warner Media ($20 million).
This marks a substantial increase of $8 billion from last year’s investment figure of a still impressive $25 billion. Ostensibly, the extra amount of $8 billion has largely been set aside for Disney’s streaming division that includes Disney Plus, Hulu, and the sports service ESPN Plus.
For the unversed, Disney is divided into three main content heads namely The Walt Disney Studios, Disney General Entertainment Content, and ESPN and Sports content.
Disney’s Studio head comprises the likes of Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Searchlight Pictures, and 20th Century, etc. While the entertainment head includes ABC network, Disney TV studios, and National Geographic, etc. And the sports head focuses on ESPN’s live sports programming.
For the current fiscal, Disney intends to release 50 theatrical and streaming titles, 60 unscripted series, 30 comedy series, 25 drama series, 15 docuseries or limited series, 10 animated series, and 5 made-for-TV movies, amongst other projects.
Disney’s forthcoming content slate includes films and shows such as Encanto, West Side Story, The King’s Man, Doctor Strange sequel, Thor sequel, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ms. Marvel, to name a few.
It would be super interesting to see how the significantly increased investment for the new fiscal year would actually reflect in the quality and quantity of Disney’s films and series.