Joan E. Solsman

Disney Plus to raise US subscription price by $1 to $8 a month in March

Disney Plus is raising its US price by $1 to an $8-a-month subscription starting in March, after Disney launched the streaming service in November 2019 to enormous popularity. In continental Europe, prices are going up by two euros to nine euros a month, and it will be making similar adjustments in other markets where Disney Plus is …

Read More »

Disney Plus to stream Pinocchio, Cruella, sequels to Enchanted, Sister Act

Disney will stream some of its new movies on Disney Plus at no added cost instead of bringing them to theaters at all, the company said Thursday. But it remains unclear if Disney’s biggest-budget films — like its Marvel movies Black Widow, Shang Chi and Eternals — are destined to premiere in theaters exclusively for a period of time before they …

Read More »

Disney Plus hits 86.8 million subscribers, expects at least 230 million in four years

Disney Plus grew to 86.8 million subscribers a little over a year after its launch in November 2019, Disney said. That’s an additional 13 million subscribers added in just a couple of months since late September, likely spurred by new rollouts in Latin America. And looking down the road to late 2024, Disney projected that Disney Plus will have between 230 million …

Read More »

Disney Plus will have 10 Marvel series, 10 Star Wars series ‘over the next few years’

Disney said that Disney Plus will have 10 Marvel series and 10 Star Wars series “over the next few years,” as well as 15 series and 15 feature-length films that are Disney live-action, Disney animation or Pixar in the same time frame. The company also indicated that “a number of Disney and Pixar films” will be headed straight to Disney Plus instead of …

Read More »

HBO Max will stream Matrix 4, Dune, all Warner Bros. 2021 movies same day as theaters

HBO Max will stream movies like The Matrix 4, Dune and all new Warner Bros. movies set for theatrical release next year, making them available to watch at no added cost online the same day as their debuts on the big screen. Each film will be on HBO Max, which costs $15 a month, for one month, and then the …

Read More »

HBO Max exec on Roku deal: ‘We’ll get it done’

The HBO Max app has been missing from Roku’s popular devices since the streaming service’s very beginning. But in spite of months without a deal, HBO Max’s top product exec is confident that the two sides will find a way to bring HBO Max to your Roku gadgets.  “We’ll get it done,” Andy Forssell, executive vice president and general manager of WarnerMedia’s …

Read More »

YouTube will ask you to rethink posting that comment if AI thinks it’s offensive

YouTube will start asking commenters to reconsider posting something before it goes up if Google‘s artificial intelligence identifies that comment as potentially offensive, YouTube said Thursday. The new YouTube prompt suggests that commenters review the company’s community guidelines if they’re “not sure whether the post is respectful,” and then gives the option to either edit the content or post anyway.  The …

Read More »

HBO Max kills 1

HBO Max is no longer offering one-week free trials to new subscribers, the latest streaming-video service to remove its try-it-out-free period even as competition for subscribers intensifies. The move comes three weeks before its mega-budget movie Wonder Woman 1984 is set to stream on the service the same day it debuts in theaters in the US.  HBO Max confirmed Thursday that the …

Read More »

Discovery Plus streaming service to launch Jan. 4, with free year for Verizon customers

Discovery, the cable programmer behind networks like Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV and TLC, will launch a reimagined streaming service called Discovery Plus in the US on Jan. 4 for $5 a month with commercials and $7 a month ad free, making it the latest traditional media company to rev up a rival to Netflix and Disney Plus. In addition, …

Read More »

YouTube’s top trending US video was from Netflix, thanks to Dave Chappelle

YouTube‘s top trending video in the US this year was an original piece of stand-up comedy posted by Netflix, a company that often pegs YouTube as one of its toughest streaming-video rivals — but they both have comedian Dave Chappelle to thank for it.  The video, titled 8:46, was a nearly half-hour recording of the Chappelle performing a stand-up set plumbing his …

Read More »