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We got a healthy dose of Star Wars and Marvel shows on Disney Plus this year, but the more mature series from Hulu helped balance things out. Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images This year, Hulu officially became a part of Disney Plus, which means no more bouncing back and forth between the two apps if you’re subscribed to both. The two services had some pretty noteworthy releases this year, including several new additions to the Marvel and Star Wars lineups on Disney Plus, along with a variety of binge-worthy shows from Hulu. Here are all the best shows released this year that you can stream on both platforms. Agatha All Along Agatha All Along takes place three years after the end of WandaVision. It follows Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), who’s released from a magical spell by a mysterious teen (Joe Locke). As Agatha looks to restore her lost powers, she recruits an eclectic coven of witches, including a lover from her past, Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), a divination witch Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), and a potions expert Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), to take on the trials of the Witches’ Road. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Skeleton Crew is the latest Star Wars spinoff to hit Disney Plus. It’s a coming-of-age story featuring four kids — Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), KB (Kyriana Kratter), and Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) — who get lost in a foreign galaxy after exploring an abandoned ship on their home planet. As they try to find a way back home, they encounter the Force-wielding Jod Na Nawood (Jude Law), and things only get wilder from there. Shōgun If you’re in the mood for a riveting historical drama to immerse yourself in, Shōgun is a great choice. It takes place in 17th-century Japan, revolving around two key figures: the powerful Lord Yoshi Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) and John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), an Englishman who winds up in Japan following a shipwreck. The story is adapted from a 1975 book by James Clavell and is loosely based on real events. The Acolyte Along with Skeleton Crew, Disney Plus added The Acolyte to its lineup of original Star Wars shows this year. The Acolyte is set around 100 years before The Phantom Menace, exploring the relationship between identical twins Mae and Osha (both played by Amandla Stenberg), who were separated as children and went on to lead very different lives. The two reunite under unexpected circumstances: the murder of a Jedi master. Though The Acolyte was canceled after one season, it’s still worth watching if you’re looking for a new spin on Star Wars. We Were the Lucky Ones We Were the Lucky Ones is a heart-wrenching miniseries based on a book by Georgia Hunter, which chronicles her family’s struggles as they fought to survive World War II and the Holocaust. It’s centered around the Kurcs, a Jewish family living in Poland, who are separated when war breaks out and attempt to reunite. Some noteworthy names in this series include Joey King as the youngest sibling, Halina Kurc, and Logan Lerman as one of her brothers, Addy Kurc. X-Men ‘97 As the title suggests, Marvel’s X-Men ‘97 is reminiscent of the classic — and beloved — X-Men: The Animated Series. It picks up one year after the events in the ’90s-era series, which sees the return of Cyclops (Ray Chase), Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale), Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith), Wolverine (Cal Dodd), Rogue (Lenore Zann), and other familiar mutants as they face new challenges in the absence of Professor Charles Xavier. Echo Speaking of Marvel, the company’s first TV-MA series made its debut on Disney Plus this year. Echo offers a deeper look at the skilled fighter Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), who first appeared as a villain in 2021’s Hawkeye. The five-episode series touches upon her Native American roots, along with her troubled backstory that left her an amputee. Lopez, who is deaf, returns to her Oklahoma hometown, where she aims to take control of an enemy’s crime ring. Doctor Who Doctor Who has returned for a 14th series. This time, the alien Time Lord is portrayed by Ncuti Gatwa, who was first introduced as the Fifteenth Doctor during a 2023 Christmas special. The show hit Disney Plus in full this year, featuring the Doctor and his companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) as they investigate strange incidents across London while running into some new enemies along the way. The Bear The Bear released its third season this year, making it a good time to catch up on the Emmy-winning series. It stars Jeremy Allen White as Carmy Berzatto, a prestigious chef who moves back to Chicago after inheriting his late brother’s Italian sandwich shop. The third season only expands on the chaos in the kitchen as a stressed-out Carmy juggles issues at home and work as he tries to transform his restaurant into a Michelin-starred spot. Interior Chinatown Based on the book by Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown is sort of like a show within a show, starring Jimmy O. Yang as Willis Wu, an actor and waiter in a Chinatown restaurant longing to break out of his role as a background character in a procedural crime show. However, things start to change once Willis witnesses a crime and detective Lana Lee (Chloe Bennet) asks him for help solving the case. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of November): 5,298 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

For now it’s just games and events from ESPN Plus. But next year, the real ESPN will be there, too. Disney’s also offering a free taste of Hulu and ESPN to get more customers on the bundle. After bringing Hulu content to the Disney Plus app earlier this year, Disney is now doing the same for ESPN Plus programming. A new ESPN tile is being added to the app’s homescreen. The tile just says “ESPN,” because for right now, it’ll only include the live games and shows that are normally part of ESPN Plus. But next year will mark the long-awaited debut of a true ESPN streaming service — you know, the actual cable channel with shows that sports fans can’t live without — and that’ll eventually be accessible through this Disney Plus portal, too. Disney’s reasoning for putting all this content under one umbrella is simple: it wants to get more people signed up for the Disney Plus / Hulu / ESPN Plus triple-package bundle. And the less friction there is, the more appealing that bundle becomes for customers who might only be paying for the core service right now. To help push the bundle even harder, Disney Plus subscribers can now access “a curated selection of live sports events and shows from ESPN Plus and movies and series from Hulu.” The tiles for both services will now appear in the main navigation even if you’re not paying for Hulu or ESPN. If you’re a bundle subscriber, you get all the stuff! If you’re not, you get a small sampling of stuff... to help tempt you into the bundle. Image: Disney “This gives our bundle subscribers one place to consume everything they love from all our brands.” Alisa Bowen, president of Disney Plus, said in a press release. ESPN Plus offers access to “over 30,000 live sports events each year” along with plenty of original content. But this is really just a half-step towards the end goal of bringing real, linear ESPN to the service. Disney says what we’re seeing today is “the groundwork for an expanded sports offering on Disney Plus in the US upon the launch of ESPN’s flagship direct-to-consumer product, expected in fall of 2025.” That ESPN streaming service is expected to launch as early as August and has been rumored to cost upwards of $30 per month. Yes, just for ESPN. You’ll be able to view it through Disney Plus, but CEO Bob Iger has said the ESPN app will offer a more feature-packed sports experience with integrated betting and fantasy leagues. The Disney option is there for people who want the convenience of everything being crammed into a single app. Disney is determined to make its streaming business a reliable profit maker, and the real money is in bundles and ad-supported plans. On the ad front, advertisers will have the ability to purchase inventory “by sport, league, team, within live events, and across all marketplaces” now that ESPN content is streaming within Disney Plus. The company has also taken steps to tackle password sharing and now charges customers between $6.99 and $9.99 for letting others sign into their Disney Plus account from a different location. The cost of subscribing to Disney Plus is inevitably going to keep climbing higher. And Disney will no doubt cite the app’s value as an all-encompassing entertainment hub — now with sports — as the rationale for those hikes. For the end user, it can all feel reminiscent of cable, but that’s the streaming era we find ourselves in. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of November): 5,298 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

What If’s third and final season seems to be teasing Secret Wars with Storm of the X-Men. Though it’s going to be a while before X-Men ‘97 returns to Disney Plus, the third and final season of What If…? is about to bring one of Marvel’s mutants to the MCU in the flashiest way possible. Ahead of What If…?’s season 3 premiere on December 22nd, Disney Plus has dropped a trailer spotlighting some of the new alternate universe stories featuring slightly different versions of previously-introduced MCU characters. The season will see Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) reimagined as a cowboy, Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) in a cosmic flapper guise, and the Avengers become a super sentai team with interconnecting mechs. That all feels like the exact kind of madness that has already made the show a fun, whiz-bang watch, but what’s really surprising to see is Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith) showing up as a hammer-wielding Thor. In Marvel’s Secret Wars comics event, Storm spent some time as a member of the Thor Corps — a group of people recruited from different universes by Doctor Doom to serve as the police in his Battleworld reality. When What If…? first debuted, the show seemed like a collection of out-there stories that might not have all that much to do with what’s going on in Marvel’s films. But with Doctor Doom on the way and a Secret Wars feature in the works, it’s looking more and more like What If…? might end up being a pretty important piece of the franchise’s ongoing story. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Season two of Andor will start its 12-episode run-up to Rogue One in the spring. Image: Disney Star Wars spinoff Andor is finally coming back for its second and final season on Disney Plus April 22nd, 2025, Disney announced during its D23 event in Brazil yesterday. And in a clear nod to Rogue One, the 2016 film it’s setting up, it has a new logo with the subtitle “A Star Wars Story.” The new season will complete the so far excellent story of Cassian Andor’s (Diego Luna) transformation from street rat to hard-bitten rebel alliance spy in the lead-up to the events of Rogue One. Its 12-episode run will be broken up into blocks of three episodes, each covering three-day events taking place in a four-year period, as TheWrap notes. We’ll see some first-season characters return, including Luthen, Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), and Saw Guerrera (Forest Whitaker). Alan Tudyk is expected to show up, reprising his role as the charming imperial droid, K-2SO, and Ben Mendelsohn will be there, playing his Rogue One villain, Orson Krennic. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Wonder Man, Iron Heart, and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man are all set to hit Disney Plus in 2025. It has been a while since the MCU really felt like a cohesive place, but Marvel’s new slate of upcoming Disney Plus shows makes it seem like the studio is ready to tighten things up. Ahead of Agatha All Along’s season 1 finale tonight, Marvel shared a new sizzle reel highlighting all of its upcoming projects that will carry the MCU into its Sixth Phase. After Agatha All Along and Deadpool & Wolverine (which starts streaming on November 12th), the third and final season of What If…? is set to premiere on December 22nd. Jeff Trammell’s animated Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man series will debut the following month on January 29th, and introduce a new take on Peter Parker (Hudson Thames). On March 4th, Daredevil Born Again begins with a new story in the MCU centered around Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), Vincent Fisk / Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), and Frank Castle / Punisher (Jon Bernthal). Later that summer, Ironheart starring Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams (who appeared in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) will debut on June 24th. And the Black Panther spinoff miniseries Eyes of Wakanda premieres on August 6th. Marvel Zombies, another Marvel Animation-produced spinoff, hits Disney Plus some time in October. But in December, Marvel’s closing out the year with its live-action Wonder Man project starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Simon Williams and Ben Kingsley as Trevor Slattery. Curiously absent from the sizzle reel is any mention of X-Men ‘97’s second season, but that probably means we can expect to see it some time in 2026 along with the new Vision-centric show. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of September): 4,292 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Russell Tovey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jemma Redgrave, and Alexander Devrient have signed onto The War Between The Land And The Sea. Disney / BBC The Doctor Who franchise is about to get even bigger with a new spinoff series that, interestingly, doesn’t seem like it’s going to focus on everyone’s favorite Time Lord. During the Doctor Who panel at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Disney and the BBC announced that The War Between The Land And The Sea — a new series written by Russell T. Davies and Pete McTighe — is on the way. Rather than the Doctor, the new show will revolve around a group of humans as they work together to face the Sea Devils, a race of ancient, ocean-dwelling creatures who first appeared in Doctor Who back in 1972. Jemma Redgrave and Alexander Devrient are set to reprise their roles as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and Colonel Ibrahim, respectively, but they will also be joined by Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as characters not yet revealed. Previously, Tovey and Mbatha-Raw both starred in Doctor Who —he as Titanic midshipman Alonso Frame, and she as Tish Jones — but it’s not clear whether that’s who they’ll be playing here. In a press release about the new show, Davies called it “a huge, muscular, thrilling drama which will shake The Whoniverse to its foundations,” and while we don’t know when to expect its debut, it’s scheduled to begin shooting in August. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of June): 2,839 news posts

Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury is back in black and ready for war in Secret Invasion’s new trailer. The new Marvel series premieres June 21st on Disney Plus. Nick Fury’s kept himself pretty scarce since the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home, but in the newest trailer for Disney Plus’ upcoming Secret Invasion series, the man behind the Avengers Initiative is back and preparing for a war that only he can wage. Though much of Secret Invasion’s new trailer is footage we’ve seen before, a handful of new moments make clear that Nick Fury’s (Samuel L. Jackson) absence hasn’t gone unnoticed on Earth in the years since the Avengers managed to reverse Thanos’ snap. While Fury’s been off-planet hiding, Skrulls loyal to him back on Earth, like Talos (Ben Mendohlson), have watched as the extremist Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) used Fury’s absence to justify their increasingly violent plays for true freedom on their adopted planet. It’s Gravik’s attacks on the public that bring Fury back to Earth and into contact with old — and seemingly human — allies like Maria Hill (Colbie Smulders) and MI6’s Sonya Falsworth (Olivia Colman). But it’s Fury’s refusal to contact the Avengers and ask them for help that seems to be one of the big reasons that the world is in so much danger. While the trailer doesn’t show any hints about whether they might show up, it definitely makes it seem like the show’s going to be engaging as hell when it hits Disney Plus on June 21st. Secret Invasion’s latest trailer is a prelude to Marvel’s next big war

The Clone Wars spinoff will wind down next year. Star Wars: The Bad Batch is coming to an end. During this year’s Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm announced that the animated series has been renewed for a third and final season that will arrive on Disney Plus in 2024. The Clone Wars spinoff follows a group of experimental clone troopers, known collectively as Clone Force 99, who became fugitives after resisting the Order 66 command that brainwashed their counterparts into viewing Jedi as traitors. The show’s second season just wrapped up last month, and the fans at the Star Wars Celebration got a first look at what’s to come with an in-room teaser trailer. The teaser, which Lucasfilm has yet to post online, opens with Emperor Palpatine, who’s once again voiced by Ian McDiarmid, and teases the appearance of Dr. Royce Hemlock and The Mandalorian bounty hunter Fennec Shand. There are also “glimpses of several worlds and characters, including Republic commandos, clones, Rex,” and “plenty of giant creatures,” according to Lucasfilm. We still don’t know the exact release date for The Bad Batch’s final season, but, with Star Wars: Visions Volume 2 set to premiere in May and Star Wars: Ahsoka making its debut in August, we’ll have plenty of Star Wars content to keep us busy until we find out. Star Wars: The Bad Batch will return for a third and final season in 2024

Disney’s newest original animated movie is already headed to streaming this December following a lackluster performance at the theatrical box office. Though Disney’s Strange World animated feature from director Don Hall only hit theaters on Thanksgiving, the studio’s already getting ready to debut the movie on Disney Plus for reasons that might have something to do with its terrible box office returns. Today, Disney announced that Strange World — a sci-fi action adventure about a family of explorers journeying beneath the surface of their planet — will be coming to Disney Plus this December, just weeks after its theatrical release and subsequent bombing at the box office. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union, and Lucy Liu, Strange World tells the story of how multiple generations of the legendary Clade family are pushed to settle their differences as they work together to save their world from destruction. Despite featuring a stacked cast of stars and a script from Raya and the Last Dragon co-writer Qui Nguyen, Strange World has struggled to make much of a splash at the box office, and the movie currently stands to lose Disney some $100 million. It’s difficult to pinpoint specifically what about Strange World made audiences less inclined to flock to movie theaters to see it, but in the months leading up to its initial release, there was a decided lack of a major advertising push behind the project. Strange World’s story centers on one of Disney’s first openly queer protagonists and features a surprisingly diverse array of characters, but you would have been hard-pressed to know either of those things based solely on how the movie’s been marketed. Disney’s decision to put Strange World onto its streaming service so quickly suggests that the studio sees more value in making the movie easier to watch rather than banking on there being a delayed surge of interest in it, which is likely true. But in a year when Disney’s elected to forego releasing absolute knockouts like Turning Red theatrically, the choice to push Strange World to Disney Plus this way definitely makes it seem like the studio isn’t entirely sure how best to put out its animated offerings. Strange World is coming to Disney Plus just a month after its theatrical release

Disney Plus’ new teaser trailer for 2023 features some early looks at The Mandalorian’s upcoming third season, Marvel’s Secret Invasion series, Pixar’s Win or Lose, and more. Disney Plus subscribers probably still have a back catalog of shows and movies from 2022 to watch. That said, the streamer’s already gearing up to hit the ground running in the new year with a bevy of returning series like The Mandalorian and Loki and a few new ones like Ahsoka and Secret Invasion. Though it doesn’t reveal all that much about any of the new series debuting next year, Disney Plus’ new teaser trailer for all of its forthcoming shows does make clear that the House of Mouse is sticking to its guns in 2023 by offering up even more live-action Marvel and Star Wars fare. Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin and Grogu are both (obviously) returning for The Mandalorian’s third installment that’s slated to spotlight the return of Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan Kryze, and the new sizzle reel features a new look at Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka’s eponymous ex-Jedi apprentice. You can’t quite tell who’s a Skrull and who isn’t from the brief snatches of Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion seen in the teaser. But it’s obvious that something has Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury has stressed much in the same way that Owen Wilson’s Mobius and Tom Hiddleston’s Laufeyson seem exhausted by whatever madness will play out in Loki’s second season. Short as it is, it’s surprising how interesting the teaser makes Disney’s American Born Chinese and Pixar’s Win or Lose look while also squeezing in glimpses of Dug Days: Carl’s Date, Peter Pan & Wendy, and The Bad Batch season 2. Of course, the teaser doesn’t make clear when most of these new things are slated to hit Disney Plus in 2023, but the wait won’t be long, as The Bad Batch’s second season begins on January 4th, with The Mandalorian’s third season following on March 1st. Ahsoka, Loki season 2, and Secret Invasion are all part of Disney Plus’ teaser for 2023

The Disney Plus original already has a teaser trailer, featuring some of his cameos in the Marvel movies. Disney will release a documentary about comic book titan Stan Lee in 2023 as an original title for its Disney Plus streaming service. In a Marvel.com post, the company said the news is being announced today because it would’ve been his 100th birthday (Lee died in 2018 at the age of 95). Lee famously had cameos in pretty much every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, some of which are shown in Disney’s announcement trailer. Of course, before the movies, he was known as the person who helped write the stories they were based on; Disney’s post lists him as the co-creator of characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man, and the Avengers. Disney has often used its streaming service to release content that ties into its own history and behind-the-scenes details; The Mandalorian, Frozen 2, and WandaVision have all gotten documentaries, as have the engineers that design the company’s theme parks. It’s likely the company will share a release date for the Stan Lee doc at some point next year. If you don’t want to wait until then to watch a documentary about Lee, the 2010 film With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story is currently available for free on Crackle and Pluto TV. Disney’s releasing a Stan Lee documentary in 2023

She-Hulk’s season one finale was a tribute to John Byrne’s fourth wall-breaking comics and a rumination on how formulaic Marvel’s live-action stories tend to be She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’s refreshingly personal, down-to-earth stakes made the show’s first season feel unlike the vast majority of Disney Plus’ other live-action Marvel shows. As was the case with WandaVision, both She-Hulk’s conceit and its narrative format gave the show the ability to play with the boundaries of Marvel Studios’ approach to bringing characters to the screen. But in its finale, when She-Hulk could have kept cleverly pushing the limits of what all a big, flashy cape series could be, the show chose to play it safe under the guise of going meta. This piece contains spoilers for episode 8 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. After a season of furiously shifting gears in order to be a half-hour legal comedy, a self-contained superhero origin story, and a joke-filled ad for the rest of the MCU, “Whose Show Is This?” from writer Jessica Gao and director Kat Coiro tries to tie up all of She-Hulk’s plot lines in one fell swoop. Between being a better Hulk than her cousin Bruce (Mark Ruffalo), defeating her nemesis Titania (Jameela Jamil) in court, and hooking up with Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) was on quite the hot streak in both her personal and professional lives. She-Hulk was always meant to be a story about its heroine embracing the newfound duality of her irradiated existence, and the show did a solid job of seeding that idea throughout the season as Jen grappled with what being a superhuman meant to and for her, personally. But just as Jen was beginning to see She-Hulk as an invaluable, powerful part of who she is, Attorney at Law finally pits her against Intelligencia, the collective of hateful men who’ve been plotting to destroy her all season. And despite her being physically invulnerable, she came out much worse for wear. Jen’s still groggy (probably from tranquilizers) as she comes to in a Department of Damage Control cell as “Whose Show Is This?” opens, but she knows exactly what happened at the Southern California Law Awards gala. She remembers how humiliating and infuriating it was to have her private information doxxed and footage of her having sex broadcast without her consent at a public event where her friends and family were in attendance. She also remembers tearing the venue apart and seizing on the opportunity to grab one of the masked Intelligencia members in attendance, who was sent to capture her rampage on camera. But what Jen doesn’t quite understand as her former colleagues speak to her through reinforced glass is why it’s so easy for them and virtually everyone else in Los Angeles to see her as an out-of-control monster, even though they all know why she lost her cool. Pretty much from its very first episode, She-Hulk’s had a tendency to do as much narrative showing as it cares to before it pivots to simply telling you what’s going on, something the show can sometimes get away with because of Jen’s ability to break the fourth wall. But unlike some of She-Hulk’s more joke-y, meta moments, the way “Whose Show Is This?” leads with the public turning on Jen feels curiously shoehorned in here because of how little time the show’s spent establishing why people would be afraid of She-Hulk. While people in the MCU might have once lived in fear of the original Hulk, that’d seemingly all changed in Avengers: Endgame, where Smart Hulk had become a cardigan-wearing, autograph-signing celebrity. Jen and Bruce’s reputations aren’t exactly the same, and they’ve been operating in the public spotlight for very different amounts of time. But Jen’s ability to retain her mental faculties when she transforms is one of her defining traits that She-Hulk’s led with from the jump, and it’s rather jarring to see that idea set aside so completely as “Whose Show Is This?” unfolds. If She-Hulk had the time, “Whose Show Is This?” might have slowed down some to dig deeper into the implications of how Jennifer’s body and her feelings have been policed in ways distinct from Bruce’s experience and how her predicament is complicated by her living as a relatively “normal” person. It didn’t, though. Instead, the show used its Intelligencia plot as an opportunity to reflect on the nature of Marvel’s approach to storytelling, and while She-Hulk might have been the ideal character to do that sort of thing, it’s tough to say whether “Whose Show Is This?” was the right place to do it. To She-Hulk’s credit, it’s impressive how swiftly “Whose Show Is This?” moves as it’s detailing how Jennifer loses her job, moves back in with her parents, and sinks into a mild depression after a judge rules that she can no longer transform into She-Hulk without risking jail time. While She-Hulk’s occasionally struggled in the past to get its A and B plots working in harmony, there’s a slick cleverness to how Jen’s decision to camp out at Emil Blonsky’s Summer Twilights retreat syncs up with Nikki (Ginger Gonzaga) and Pug’s (Josh Segarra) plan to infiltrate an Intelligencia meeting. It’s completely predictable when Nikki and Pug discover that one of the creepier guys Jen went on a date with in She-Hulk’s first episode is actually Intellgencia’s leader, true. But his reveal that Emil (in his forbidden Abomination form) is the special guest of the evening is an impactful one because of how effective a job She-Hulk’s done at making their pseudo-therapist / client relationship feel meaningful. Just when it was beginning to feel as if “Whose Show Is This?” has found a surprising second wind, the episode starts to falter by once again just telling you what’s going on. It’s immediately obvious that She-Hulk’s poking fun at the superhero genre as a whole when Intelligencia leader Todd (Jon Bass) starts explaining how he stole footage of Jen having sex, as well as a sample of her blood that he’s engineered into a serum to give himself Hulk powers. What takes a little bit more time to become clear, though, is how unsatisfying She-Hulk’s attempt at substituting meta humor for a big, flashy VFX sequence is, even though the idea to go in that direction is a very good one. It is sort of funny to watch Jen become increasingly frustrated as Bruce and Titania show up out of nowhere to fight the Abomination and a Hulked-out Todd and then decide to leave the scene by smashing out of her show and climbing onto Disney Plus’ front page. It’s kind of interesting that Jen’s seemingly aware that she’s a character on a streaming series much in the same way that her comic book counterpart was aware that she was being written and illustrated by John Byrne in the late ’80s. But “Whose Show Is This?” becomes deeply exhausting as Jennifer rolls up on the She-Hulk writers’ room to dunk on them for being unimaginative, and they fearfully inform her that her real beef is with K.E.V.I.N., a “giant AI brain” that brings to mind Space Jam: A New Legacy’s central villain. Though Jen and K.E.V.I.N.’s conversation is all about her wish for She-Hulk’s finale to sidestep all the typical whizbang spectacle and thin plotting that tends to define the final thirds and finales of most of Marvel’s projects, “Whose Show Is This?” still does all of the same things it’s being critical of. Nothing about the way Jen convinces Kevin to alter the structure of her changes the reality that “Whose Show Is This?” is another Marvel finale in which so many ridiculous, nonsensical things happen that it becomes necessary to remind the audience what the focus of the show was before things went sideways. It’s great to hear someone in the MCU mention the X-Men by name and point out how the larger franchise has more than enough male superheroes with boring daddy issues. But it also would have been nice to see She-Hulk send Jennifer off with a bang that was actually about her as a person rather than the megacorporation that created her. She-Hulk tried to save itself from Marvel’s finale formula by jumping the shark

Disney Plus added 12.1 million subscribers globally in Q4. Disney Plus added over 9 million subscribers in the US in the last several months, and many people in the US are opting for its bundle that includes Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus. In its earnings report on Tuesday, Disney also revealed that it added 12.1 million Disney Plus subscribers globally, making for 164 million in total, as well as 14.6 million subscribers across all its services. Christine McCarthy, the chief financial officer at Disney, said during an earnings call that 40 percent of Disney Plus subscribers have the bundle with Hulu and ESPN Plus, which its pricing makes it increasingly hard to pass up. It provides access to all services for $14.99 per month for the ad-supported versions of Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus or $19.99 per month for Disney Plus and Hulu without ads (and ESPN Plus with ads). The bundle price looks better after recent price hikes that brought the ad-free Disney Plus from $7.99 to $10.99 and ad-free Hulu from $12.99 to $14.99 (or $6.99 to $7.99 for the ad-supported version). It also implemented a price increase on its ESPN Plus subscriptions in July, which now costs $9.99 instead of $6.99. Even with these price increases, Disney’s average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for Disney Plus in the US and Hulu without live TV actually decreased from $6.81 to $6.10 and $12.75 to $12.23, respectively. This is likely because more people bought into the bundle, as it reduces how much they’re paying for each individual subscription. Although all of Disney’s services are adding subscribers, the company lost $1.5 billion in direct-to-consumer revenue. The company attributes this to a lack of Premier Access releases, which let subscribers watch cinematic releases directly from Disney Plus. It also says it dealt with an “increase in programming and production costs” as the company added more content to the service. Disney remains pretty optimistic that its streaming services will continue to grow. On December 8th, Disney Plus is introducing its new, cheaper ad-supported tier for $7.99 per month that CEO Bob Chapek says the company has “secured more than 100 advertisers” for so far. 40 percent of US Disney Plus subscribers picked the bundle with ESPN Plus and Hulu

Disney is bringing Andor to ABC, FX, and Freeform for special showings later this month. And if you have Hulu, you’ll be able to catch the episodes there, too. If you haven’t watched Andor yet, you should. Image: Lucasfilm / Disney Plus If you haven’t watched Andor, the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story prequel series on Disney Plus — and you really should, it’s quite good — Disney will be airing the show’s first two episodes on a few of its other channels over the Thanksgiving holidays, including on linear TV. The Andor episodes will air on ABC, FX, Freeform, and Hulu at varying times and days. For the TV airings, you’ll need to put aside an hour and a half to watch the episodes. On Hulu, the two episodes will be available over two weeks. Here’s the schedule, according to a press release: ABC: Wednesday, November 23rd, 9:00–10:30PM ET / PT FX: Thursday, November 24th, 9:00–10:30PM ET / PT Freeform: Friday, November 25th, 9:00–10:30PM ET / PT Hulu: Available from November 23rd through December 7th If you like what you see from the first two episodes in these airings, good news: by then, the entire first season of Andor will be on Disney Plus since the show’s season finale debuts on November 23rd. Maybe I’ll recommend these special showings to my family while we’re hanging out over the Thanksgiving holidays; I’ll take any excuse to watch more Andor. Andor’s first two episodes will air on TV over Thanksgiving

Disney’s next big Star Wars show will air on Disney Plus at 9PM ET on Tuesdays. Ahsoka, Disney’s next big Disney Plus Star Wars show, will now premiere on Tuesday nights at 9PM ET / 6PM PT, Disney announced on Friday. That means the first two episodes of the show will now be available the evening of Tuesday, August 22nd. It’s only a slight shift from Ahsoka’s original premiere date of Wednesdays. But since Disney Plus shows typically come out in the middle of the night, this new air time might make episodes easier to watch the moment they debut. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the change. I’m old and go to bed early, so it’s hard for me to stay up late to watch new episodes of shows right when they air. Since I live on the West Coast, I can now watch Ahsoka at the extremely reasonable time of 6PM PT and still be in bed at a decent hour. This isn’t the first time Disney has experimented with Disney Plus release dates. Disney moved the first season of Loki from Fridays to Wednesdays ahead of its debut. Soon after that, announced that Wednesdays would be the official premiere date for its original series. But last year, it debuted the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi on a Friday even though subsequent episodes released on Wednesdays. And with She-Hulk, Disney aired new episodes on Thursdays. Source

Pixar’s parable about interracial relationships hits the streaming service after a quietly successful box office run. A still from Elemental. Image: Disney / Pixar Disney has announced that Disney Plus subscribers will be able to stream Elemental, its parable about interracial relationships, beginning September 13th. The company is also releasing a making-of documentary for the film, called Good Chemistry: The Story of Elemental, and an Up-related short called Carl’s Date for its streaming service. Our own Charles Pulliam-Moore praised the film’s visuals in his review for The Verge. But he felt the racial framing suffered, partially from the elements-as-people metaphor but potentially also from the writers’ eagerness to avoid mistakes made in Zootopia. Elemental, which had a $200 million budget, managed to pull in $480 million on its box office run, according to Disney, despite a mediocre June opening that initially seemed to spell doom for the movie. It’s directed by Peter Sohn, and its screenplay was written by Kat Likkel, John Hoberg, and Brenda Hsueh. Elemental stars Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, and Shila Ommi and features performances by Catherine O’Hara, Mason Wertheimer, and Joe Pera. Disney also announced that Disney Plus (with ads) will be $1.99, instead of $7.99, per month for three months if you subscribe before September 20th. Pixar’s next movie, Elio, is due in theaters on March 1st, 2024 and will tell the tale of a kid who is abducted by aliens and then pretends to be the leader of Earth. Source

Echo looks like an ultraviolent revenge adventure, and its producer already has relationships at Hulu — which could make it a good fit for the streamer, even if the character debuted on Disney Plus. Alaqua Cox’s Maya Lopez immediately stood out when she appeared in Disney Plus’ Hawkeye back in 2021. Among a cast of charismatic goofballs and assassins with hearts of gold, Maya was a terrifyingly deadly foil, constantly reminding the audience and characters of the stakes. Disney was so enamored with Cox’s portrayal of the deaf Native American heroine, it greenlit a spinoff, and on Friday we got our first look at it. We also got the surprising announcement that the show, Echo, would be coming to Disney Plus and Hulu simultaneously. This news comes just a few days after Disney committed to buying Comcast’s stake in Hulu and right as we all begin to wonder what that means for the future of the smaller streaming service. Hulu doesn’t have nearly the same subscription base as Disney Plus, but what it’s had going for it is live TV and a willingness to stream much more violent and “adult” content than the kid-friendly Disney Plus. Watching the trailer for Echo, which includes people being beaten to death and shot in the head, it’s pretty clear why it would make its way to Hulu. That’s where stuff like Y: The Last Man, about the graphic death of all creatures with Y chromosomes, and Handmaid’s Tale, about the violently graphic subjugation of women in a patriarchal theocracy, stream. When Disney first launched Disney Plus, it differentiated between the two services in a similar fashion. Disney Plus was where you went to watch stuff with the whole family. Hulu is what you watched after the kids went to bed. But as Disney’s gotten more adventurous with programming on Disney Plus, the lines have blurred with more adult fare like Loki and Andor. Premiering Echo, which stars a character who first appeared on Disney Plus, on Hulu makes sense in that context. Echo looks way too violent for Disney Plus — even if the earlier seasons of Daredevil and Jessica Jones (both originally produced for Netflix) are on the service. But the show couldn’t have appeared on Hulu and not Disney Plus, given Disney Plus is where the Marvel canon lives — thus, the simultaneous release. I’m sure the fact that Echo’s executive producer, Sydney Freeland, previously worked on Reservation Dogs at Hulu helped as well. The show will premiere on both services on January 10th, and as Variety noted in a story today, it will feature a largely Indigenous cast and make Maya’s Choctaw heritage a prominent part of the story. Notably, Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk is also playing a big part in the show. Fisk was originally introduced on Daredevil and made a surprise return in Hawkeye. Presumably, he’ll also return for the next season of Daredevil, but that show is facing a major production overhaul after Marvel hated the direction of the show and its focus on courtroom drama instead of the violent action sequences that helped the original show break out on Netflix. If Daredevil is planning to be as violent as Echo appears to be, it will likely also appear on both streamers. So Echo is, in a sense, a test balloon for Disney as it figures out how to make these two streamers — including the new one it’s about to own outright — work together. Source

Marvel’s upcoming Eyes of Wakanda series will follow the lives of multiple Wakandan warriors from different parts of the nation’s history. Details about Marvel’s forthcoming Black Panther spinoff series have been sparse since the studio first announced it a couple years back. But ahead of What If …?’s season 2 premiere on Disney Plus, the streamer’s just shared a few promising details about what to expect from The Eyes of Wakanda. Along with reminders about the impending arrivals of X-Men ‘97 and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (formerly titled Spider-Man: Freshman Year), and new details about What If … season 2, Disney Plus announced today that its upcoming Black Panther spinoff series is titled The Eyes of Wakanda. Rather than focusing on a singular Black Panther, The Eyes of Wakanda will tell the stories of multiple warriors who “have been tasked to travel the world retrieving dangerous vibranium artifacts” from different points in the nation’s history. In the wake of Chadwick Boseman’s death in 2020, Marvel was forced to switch gears abruptly with its live-action Black Panther films in which Letitia Wright’s Shuri has since taken over the titular mantle. Though Black Panther: Wakanda Forever established a new status quo for the films, it’s been unclear how long that might last given the larger multiversal rumbling in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. That could be explored in The Eyes of Wakanda, especially considering how keen Marvel’s been on having its animated shows connect to its live-action projects lately. But it sounds like we’re still a ways out from Marvel and Disney giving everyone a better sense of what the show will bring to the table. Source

Only James Cameron gets an exception to streaming fragmentation. Avatar: The Way of Water is landing on not one but two streaming services on June 7th. In a press release on Monday, Warner Bros. Discovery shared that the James Cameron film is coming to the company’s combined Max streaming service in addition to Disney Plus. It’s a bit of a rarity to see a high-profile film like Avatar make its debut on more than one streaming service at a time, but it seems the shared premiere is all thanks to a modified agreement Disney made with WarnerMedia in 2021. Under the terms of the deal, HBO Max (soon-to-be Max) can share the rights to films Disney’s 20th Century Studios released in 2022 with Hulu and Disney Plus. The Way of Water first hit theaters in December 2022, and it proved to be another huge hit for Cameron: according to Warner Bros. Discovery, the movie is now the “third highest-grossing film of all time worldwide.” (The first Avatar holds the top spot.) And the addition of The Way of Water could be a boon for the company as it aims to get people onboarded with its new Max streaming service, which launches on May 23rd. That said, because The Way of Water will also start streaming on Disney Plus the same day it does on Max, the film may not be as big of a subscriptions driver as it likely would have been if it was exclusive. Avatar: The Way of Water hits Disney Plus and Max on June 7th

In the coming weeks, Disney Plus subscribers will start feeling the effects of the streamer’s push to keep them from sharing passwords. The writing’s been on the wall for months now, but Disney Plus is finally implementing measures to keep US subscribers from sharing their passwords with people who aren’t paying for the service. Today, Disney Plus began sending out emails informing subscribers about new changes to its terms of service that will, among other things, make it harder for people to access the service using log-in credentials that aren’t actually theirs. The updated terms come a few months after Disney Plus implemented similar measures for its Canadian subscribers and just days after Hulu sent out similar notices to users about changes to its own TOS and its plans to stop password sharing in the coming weeks. Like Hulu’s terms of service, the changes to Disney Plus’ agreement are dated January 25th and are already in effect for new customers. Per Disney Plus’ emails, existing subscribers can expect the new restrictions to go into effect on March 14th. “We’re adding limitations on sharing your account outside of your household, and explaining how we may assess your compliance with these limitations,” the email explains. As was the case with the rollout of Hulu’s new TOS, Disney says that the streamer can “analyze the use of your account to determine compliance” with the new rules but doesn’t detail specifically how it will identify anyone trying to skirt them. And while the new terms say that more information about this policy can be found on Disney’s online help center, all there seems to be right now is a pretty cut-and-dried explanation of how the company defines a “household.” Source

New trailer for the second season of Marvel’s What If...? series is yet another reminder of how big the MCU has become in its multiverse era. It was basically a foregone conclusion that Marvel’s animated What If...? series would return to Disney Plus with even more stories from far far corners of Marvel’s ever-expanding cinematic universe. But the show’s new season 2 trailer also makes it seem like its next chapter is going to jack directly into the big multiverse moment that most of the studio’s recent live-action films and series have become entangled in, which suggests some interesting things about the future. Though tinkering with people’s lives in season 1 damn near led to reality falling apart, The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) is up to his old tricks in the new season 2 trailer. And he’s once again keeping a close eye on unique variants of characters from films like Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Doctor Strange. Season 1 put a lot of focus on individuals’ origin stories, but the new trailer features teams of characters you don’t normally see working together, like Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), Bill Foster (Laurence Fishburne), a T’Challa variant (whose voice actor has yet to be announced), and a woman in a green Kree / Captain Marvel uniform who sounds a lot like Annette Bening. As curious as that team-up is, even more interesting is the way they seem to be searching for a younger version of Peter Quill (also unannounced) who has powers that his live-action counterpart from the Guardians movies has never displayed. Putting more focus on T’Challa, Pym, and Quill were hallmarks of the first season of What If...?, and it stands to reason that season 2 will pick up some already-established threads with those variants. What’s most promising, though, are the trailer’s brief flashes of old (but new here) faces like Hela (Cate Blanchett) and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) who both died unceremoniously at the end of their most recent films. With it finally starting to feel like Marvel’s actually getting to the meat of its multiverse era, What If...? putting the spotlight on characters who previously seemed to be permanently gone could be a sign of some momentous franchise twists on the horizon. If that turns out to be the case, it’ll probably make the show’s second season something of a headache for casual viewers when it hits Disney Plus on December 22nd. But for folks eagerly waiting to see if Marvel can pull this whole thing off, What If...? might be a sign of great things to come. Source

The combined app will launch in December in beta for people who subscribe to the Disney Plus and Hulu bundle. Disney’s combined Disney Plus and Hulu streaming app is on the way. As part of its fourth quarter earnings results, Disney announced it’s going to launch the new app in beta for bundle subscribers in December, with the official launch coming in early spring 2024. “We remain on track to roll out a more unified one-app experience domestically, making extensive general entertainment content available to bundle subscribers via Disney Plus,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday. “We expect that Hulu and Disney Plus will result in increased engagement, greater advertising opportunities, lower churn, and reduce customer acquisition costs.” We last heard about the “one-app experience” in May. The combined app is meant to put content from both Disney Plus and Hulu in one place, which some countries outside the US already have. Even as Disney implemented price hikes across its streaming services in October, Disney Plus surpassed 150 million global subscribers this quarter, with streaming losses shrinking to $387 million. Disney still hasn’t forgotten about its planned password-sharing crackdown, either. It’s still not clear when it will happen, but Iger noted that its “planned rollout” won’t have a “meaningful impact” on its streaming business until 2025. The earnings mark just about one year since Iger took over for Bob Chapek as CEO, but Iger mentioned during an earnings call on Wednesday that he still has some cleaning up to do. “As I reflect on our achievement this past year, I’m mindful of the fact that a lot of time and effort was spent on fixing... certain decisions made in the recent past and addressing the numerous challenges brought on by disruption and the pandemic,” Iger said. Disney has had a lot going on over the past few months. Earlier this month, Disney announced that it’s going to buy Comcast’s 33 percent stake in Hulu for more than $8 billion, giving Disney full ownership of the streamer. It also cut a deal with Charter, allowing the cable company to bundle Disney Plus subscriptions with its Spectrum TV packages, while also paving the way for similar agreements. Source

New trailer for Disney Plus’ The Acolyte series from Leslye Headland is a vision of the end of Star Wars’ High Republic era. All of Disney Plus’ Star Wars spinoff series have been focused on Jedi and other heroes aligned with the light side of the Force. But the first trailer for The Acolyte from executive producer Leslye Headland is a reminder that, in order for there to be true balance, sometimes darkness has to win. Set in Star Wars’ High Republic era long before the events of The Phantom Menace, The Acolyte will tell the story of how a revered Jedi Master’s (Lee Jung-jae) investigation into a string of grisly murders brings him face-to-face with a lethal warrior (Amandla Stenberg) from his past. Stenberg’s character definitely seems like they might be the murderer in question as they pull knives on yet another Jedi (Carrie-Anne Moss) in a canteen on what appears to be a desert planet. Though Stenberg’s character doesn’t seem to be using the Force all that much, they’re skilled enough with blades to give multiple Jedi runs for their money in combat. Though it’s clear that those strong in the dark side of the Force are working toward something, the trailer makes it hard to suss out what their goal is — especially in an age where there are so many Jedi roaming the universe. But given what we know is fated to happen after The Acolyte’s story is through, it feels safe to assume that the show is going to be a bloodbath when it premieres on June 4th. Source

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Cox and D’Onofrio’s characters are becoming a larger part of the MCU Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk in Marvel’s Daredevil. Disney Plus The unexpected return of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin in Hawkeye and Charlie Cox’s Daredevil in Spider-Man: No Way Home were both highlights in their respective stories that made clear Marvel’s plan to work those characters back into the MCU post-Netflix. While a new Daredevil series is in the works, it turns out that Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk will actually be making their next appearance in Disney Plus’ upcoming Echo show. According to The Hollywood Reporter, both Cox and D’Onofrio have signed on to reprise their roles as crime-fighting lawyer Matt Murdock / Daredevil and brutal crime lord Wilson Fisk / Kingpin for Echo, the Hawkeye spinoff centering Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox). Hawkeye’s final few episodes gradually revealed that in addition to working with Maya, Fisk had also come to see her as a kind of daughter figure, making his return in a story focused on her life unsurprising. Wherever Fisk goes, Murdock’s never all that far away. But Maya’s relatively heroic turn toward the end of Hawkeye could point to Echo being more about how encounters with Defenders like Daredevil help solidify her new worldview and further develop her special abilities. Daredevil and Kingpin popping up in another Disney Plus show raises the obvious question of what Marvel might be planning to do with other street-level characters from shows like Luke Cage and Jessica Jones whose stories came to abrupt and generally unfinished ends. It’s quite possible the topic of Matt’s fellow Defenders will come up during Echo once it starts airing in 2023, but it’s also probably worth keeping an eye out on She-Hulk: Attorney At Law next month, given how all of these shows are increasingly beginning to link together. Charlie Cox’s Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin will appear in Disney Plus’ Echo series