Disney+ Reality Shows Reportedly “A Mess”

Since the launch of Disney+ in 2019, the streaming service has launched a number of unscripted series and while some of them, such as The World According to Jeff Goldblum and The Imagineering Story, had some initial buzz, there has been a reduced number of unscripted and reality shows being made for the streamer. Now a new report suggests that the development of unscripted programming for Disney+ is “a mess”. According to the report from Business Insider (via What’s On Disney+) the development process may be partly to blame among other factors.

Per the report, one agent described several of their agency’s projects going through “rounds and rounds of development with the most insane green light process where clients would do unpaid work that nobody else would [be asked] to do without a development deal, to then have it ultimately go nowhere.”

Another issue that the report touches on is that Disney+ doesn’t have much demand for unscripted content not somehow related to a Disney owned property such as Marvel or Star Wars, two IPs that are a major draw for the streaming platform especially in terms of its original content.

“I assume that they’re in the outgoing-call business and they call people to make the thing that they already figured out,” one production company executive said.

The report also acknowledged that the streamer has a mandate that unscripted content has to be family-friendly—not to mention the challenge of figuring out what sort of unscripted series would work alongside projects such as The Mandalorian or WandaVision. The suggestion seems to be that Disney+ doesn’t quite understand that viewers can be a fan of a specific genre or IP and also have other interests as well.

“I find them pretty depressing,” one executive is quoted as saying. “I wish they would open up the aperture, because they’ve got the most powerful brands on Earth. I wish they could open up their imagination to see that the audience that loves Hawkeye and Shang-Chi would consume content that isn’t literally bows and arrows or martial arts and instead is just the audience of people that happen to like those things.”

What do you think about the state of unscripted programming for Disney+? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.