Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos announced in a company blog post today that the agreement the streaming giant forged with Disney back in 2012 will finally start to bear fruit.
“From September onwards,” he writes, “Netflix will become the exclusive U.S. pay TV home of the latest films from Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Pixar.” This means that Netflix will stream all Disney films released in 2016 and beyond within the same window that they would normally air on pay TV networks like HBO, Showtime, and Starz. This time frame, roughly seven to nine months after a film’s theatrical release, also refers to the window after films are made available for purchase or rental.
Netflix is paying $300 million per year for the privilege, according to reports, and the deal will last for a total of three years. Starz previously had rights to all of Disney’s films within this window.
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At the same time, Netflix announced a slew of new titles that are slated to arrive this summer — given that movie watch time in the U.S. typically increases by up to 20% over Memorial Day Weekend, according to Sarandos. On Friday, Netflix’s second Adam Sandler film, The Do Over, will premiere. And, in coming months, Netflix will premiere titles such as The Fundamentals of Caring and Tallulah — original films that it picked up at Sundance — as well as Brahman Naman, which it describes as American Pie set in India in the 1980s.
In August, Netflix will premiere The Little Prince, which it picked up after Paramount suddenly scrapped the animated film’s theatrical release. In the fall, original titles Mascots, a comedy helmed by Chirstopher Guest, and War Machine, a military comedy starring Brad Pitt, are also set to debut.
