Interesting news via Comic Book looking at the greenlight team – led by Disney Plus president of content and marketing Ricky Strauss and SVP of content Agnes Chu – whose purpose is to filter out all of the pitches and decide which projects will be a go on the new streamer, which launches in the States and a small selection of other locations a week today. While you may naturally assume all Star Wars and Marvel projects are an automatic greenlight, that’s not the case.
Over the past 16 months or so, the Disney+ content team has been hard at work ordering original content so that when the direct-to-consumer offering launches next week, it has a group of fresh offerings for excited customers. That’s the same team the likes Kevin Feige and Kathleen Kennedy have to rub elbows with when pitching new ideas for their respective studios.
“A dedicated Disney+ programming team decides what shows and movies are greenlit for Disney+,” a Disney+ spokesperson tells ComicBook.com. “But eventually, for the most part, everything that falls under the Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, and National Geographic brands will stream on the Disney+ service.”
While Disney Plus will undoubtedly need to innovate if it expects to prosper long term, the launch schedule certainly leans towards the nostalgic.
Chu admitted she and Strauss wanted to lean heavily into nostalgia when helping get Disney+ off the ground. “We’re leaning into the nostalgia. We’re leaning into the fact that many of our subscribers will be fans who love titles we have created in the past [and love] seeing new extensions or reimaginings or reboots of them,” she said.
