Why Hasn’t Disney Plus’ UK Release Date Been Revealed Yet?

People across the globe are waiting with bated breath for Disney’s new streaming service, yet at the moment only certain territories have a confirmed release date for Disney Plus.

Yesterday, Disney took to Twitter to reveal everything that would be on their streaming service on the day of release, and you can check out everything that will be made available on Disney Plus in the US in this very extensive article here.

Disney Plus is officially releasing in the US and Canada on November 12th, but when is it going to be released over here in the UK?

When are Star Wars fans going to get to watch the upcoming Disney Plus Star Wars TV series, The Mandalorian?

OK, so let’s get to the bottom of this perplexing mystery. Why is Disney Plus launching in the UK after it’ll be available to our American and Canadian cousins?

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Disney is reaching for the Sky

Well, it turns out that it’s all down to licencing. You might have heard that Disney has recently purchased 20th Century Fox and thus have acquired all their movie properties.

That’s all great (or bad depending on whether you’re OK with Disney monopolising the entertainment industry). Yet, there’s one problem, at least for many of us living in Europe.

Disney doesn’t own Sky – even though they tried to buy them too in the Fox deal. Comcast does.

The former owner of Fox, Rupert Murdock, ended up selling his shares in Sky to Comcast and got a pretty penny out of the deal.

It meant that Comcast now owns Sky’s pay television platforms in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy. It also owns Sky’s streaming service in Spain, as well as Now TV.

Note that the Disney Plus streaming service still doesn’t have a release date in any of these territories, and that’s because Sky and Disney already had contracts in place for many of its films and TV shows.

Get those contracts signed!

disney plus uk release date

When is Disney Plus UK release date? – Credit: Disney

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Contracts aren’t that easy to get out of, so I’d imagine that Disney is trying to pull every trick in the book to get out of these contracts with Sky so that they can put all their content onto Disney Plus.

It’s believed that this is why we haven’t had an official release date for Disney Plus in many of the European markets mentioned above.

Sky, for instance, has it’s own Sky Disney channel which only shows Disney movies, and whilst that channel still exists, Disney Plus won’t be released in the UK.

Deadline reported back in August, “it is expected to launch in a number of other territories and the studio is in negotiations to make this happen”, so it sounds like people at Disney (lawyers probably) are burning the midnight oil to get things sorted out so that we can start forking over the cash to Disney to get access to their streaming service.

The Mandalorian might hold the key

It’s believed that Disney Plus will be released in the UK early next year, and these rumours were bolstered by the fact that Star Wars UK’s Twitter account tweeted: “Bounty hunting is a complicated profession. The Mandalorian, an original Star Wars series, coming to you early 2020, only on #DisneyPlus.”

They followed up with tweet with another saying: “The Mandalorian, the first live-action Star Wars series, only on #DisneyPlus. Coming to you early 2020.”

So, it seems as though Disney Plus will be available in the UK early 2020.

Are you upset we won’t be getting Disney Plus in 2019 here in the UK? Let us know in the comments below or on our Facebook or Instagram pages!

And if you enjoy listening to film podcasts, why not check out Small Screen Radio wherever you get your podcasts!

Credit
Disney
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MOVIESFEATURES
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DisneyDisney PlusDisney Plus Release DateThe Mandalorian

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