Hello, all. Can anyone who understands these things better than me explain why Disney doesn’t release self-produced content on Disney plus across the world? Surely things like Harmonious Live and the Christmas parade would serve as great advertising to international guests, with no additional production or licensing costs?
Is it more complicated than I am understanding or is it just a case of “they couldn’t be bothered”?
Great question. Will Harmonious not be released anywhere except U.S.?
Just the US and Canada.
Actually while I’m on it - the handling of the Mandalorian was really peculiar as well - it wasn’t released outside of the US until several months afterwards, and even the Grogu merchandise was released before the series started. We had to avert our eyes from memes in case there were spoilers. Many non-Disney-fan friends who would’ve willingly bought Disney Plus just for that didn’t and just downloaded it from torrent sites.
It was like “do you not know that the internet is international? Do you want people to just pirate it?”
THis is not exactly true. I don’t know that actual reasons, but licensing costs can vary dramatically and it will vary based upon how many markets, when, for how long, etc.
Actors, writers, composers, musicians, all get paid different amounts for release in different markets, etc.
So, the costs can increase considerably from a US/Canada release to a global release.
Okay, so that does make sense - particularly with something major like a full-length film or series.
I guess I thought that as it was such a Disney-specific product that the contracts could factor a multinational release easily enough. Like the content on their YouTube channels.
But perhaps the very nature of the big-name celebrities they use for these specific events means that the contracts are more restrictive.
So, you are correct both ways, Disney could write the contracts any way they wanted (assuming that the other side accepted them). However, Disney may also not want to front that kind of $$$ before they know how the product is received. There could be options clauses for them to explore, or just deal with the international stuff in a separate contract.