Mulan may have overcome some serious controversy to generate a huge amount of revenue and The Mandalorian has finally returned for season 2 much to the joy and excitement of subscribers around the world, but that’s still just papering over the cracks. Disney Plus has a phenomenally deep and diverse library of content, but one recurring and entirely valid criticism of the streaming service is that must-see original titles are very thin on the ground.
Artemis Fowl grabbed some headlines based entirely on how awful the literary adaptation was, while Mulan and Pixar’s Soul are only debuting as Disney Plus exclusives due to the Coronavirus pandemic, which forced the Mouse House to pull them from the theatrical schedule. And with the obvious exception of The Mandalorian, the platform doesn’t have any TV shows that generate the same sort of buzz as Netflix, Amazon or even HBO Max’s marquee titles, at least until WandaVision debuts.
This month’s Next on Disney Plus trailer teases more new arrivals, but the majority of them are movies that were released years ago and didn’t perform too well from either a critical or commercial perspective. There’s an updated version of Black Beauty with a decent cast that includes Mackenzie Foy, Kate Winslet and Claire Forlani, but it marks the tenth adaptation of Anna Sewell’s 1877 novel, so there won’t exactly be much originality to it.
That being said, Disney Plus is hardly going to shed many subscribers given the extent of the studio’s back catalogue, and with the company recently announcing that their streaming output will soon become their number one priority, we could see an influx of exciting and wholly original content in the not too distant future that should eventually rival all of the other major combatants in the streaming wars.
