Disney will be launching their own streaming service next year. Given the various franchises that is under Disney’s umbrella, it did not come as a surprise to learn that Star Wars content would be exclusive to the platform. However it seems that Disney might have run into an issue with that.
In a report from Bloomberg, it appears that the original Star Wars movies might not be included in Disney’s streaming service. This is because several years ago, Disney sold the TV rights to those movies to AT&T’s Turner Broadcasting. Naturally Disney has since tried to see if they might be able to get those rights back, but apparently were met with resistance.
This means that there is a possibility that Disney’s streaming service will not include the original Star Wars movies. This deal also means that Turner will be able to broadcast the movies on its networks such as TNT and TBS until 2024, which admittedly isn’t that long of a wait, although at the same time we imagine that Disney will want to use the fact that they have all the Star Wars movies as a way to market its streaming service.
Perhaps Disney could come up with an offer that will entice Turner to sell them back those rights, or at least share those rights, but for now it doesn’t seem likely. In any case we have about a year or so to the streaming service is launched, so who knows, perhaps Disney could secure a deal by then.
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