Disney might now be able to have the Star Wars movies on their upcoming streaming service until 2024.
There are a few places that you can watch Star Wars movies right now. Some are on Netflix and you can catch them on TBS and TNT. Of course, there’s always the option to buy them so you don’t have to keep track of who has the rights to them at any given moment.
With Disney’s upcoming streaming service, the company was looking to buy back the rights to the films. However, they just made a deal with Turner Broadcasting (part of At&T Inc.) in 2016. At the time, they made an eight-year deal with them, which means the rights wouldn’t revert back to Disney until 2024.
According to Bloomberg, inside sources said that when Disney went to buy the rights back, it didn’t have much luck. In 2016, Turner paid a sum of $275 million for the movies. Netflix has the rights to new releases like The Force Awakens and Rogue One, but not the older films and Disney doesn’t plan to renew that deal.
If Disney isn’t able to get the rights back from Turner, that won’t bode well for the streaming service. Although there will be new Star Wars content, fans might think twice about subscribing if they’re more interested in the older films.
Just because Disney’s first attempt didn’t succeed, though, there’s still plenty of time for them to continue to negotiate a deal with Turner. We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out, but Disney will still have The Clone Wars coming back on the platform.
Would you buy Disney’s streaming service if the originally trilogy Star Wars movies were not on them?