Disney Is Considering Marvel and Star Wars Stand-Alone Streaming Services

While the just-announced Marvel/Netflix breakup will not include the Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm properties, Disney CEO Robert Iger said today during an earnings call -- but each of those brands are being considered for stand-alone streaming services.

Disney's first priority is to pull their Disney and Disney/Pixar-branded films from Netflix and bring them to a new streaming service that Disney will own, and which Iger says the company will invest heavily in. At present, there are no specific plans to move Marvel and Lucasfilm material to that service, although the company has not yet closed the door on the idea.

"There's been talk of launching a proprietary Marvel service and Star wars service,e but we are mindful of the volume of content that would go into that service," Iger told investors, suggesting that they don't want to create a service so specialized that fans will not get value for their subscription.

He said that while Disney would continue to work with existing partners until a final decision is made.

"Disposition of Marvel and Star Wars will be announced at a later date when we know what we want to do," Iger added.

The family-friendly Disney brand makes the studio unique among major movie studios; while no major competitor has nearly the intellectual property library that Disney has, nobody else has the same kind of branding associated with their name, either. That could impact the process, as Iger said that Disney is currently looking into how much overlap there is between the Marvel and Star Wars fandoms with classic Disney fans.

DC Entertainment will launch a similar service in 2018. The details are not yet clear, except that there are two new series -- a revival of the fan-favorite animated series Young Justice, and a live-action Titans series that centers on Dick Grayson and his peers -- will be included with the DC service.