TV Talk

Disney+ Announces Launch Date, MCU Show Titles, Price, and More TV News

Disney streaming service update includes new series titles, Titans casts Bruce Wayne from Game of Thrones acting pool, new Walking Dead spin-off, American Horror Story teaser trailer, plus Dragon Fire wings and Dracarys Burgers.

by | April 12, 2019 | Comments

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Disney+ announces price lower than Netflix, Hawkeye gets a series while previously announced series get titles, Game of Thrones goes licensing-mad for final season, The Walking Dead gets another spin-off, American Horror Story teaser trailer, Titans casts Bruce Wayne, and more.


TOP STORY

Avengers Assemble on Disney+

Marvel Studios

(Photo by Marvel Studios)

On Thursday evening, Disney CEO Bob Iger presented to investors, detailing the company’s streaming plans: Disney+ launches November 12, 2019, and will cost $6.99 per month. Series titles announced so far include:

  • Marvel Studios’ series Loki starring Tom Hiddleston, reprising his role as the mischief maker
  • The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, a live-action series with Anthony Mackie returning as Falcon and Sebastian Stan reprising his role as Winter Soldier
  • WandaVision, a live-action series with Elizabeth Olsen returning as Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany reprising his role as The Vision

Hawkeye might not have gotten as much screen time as his fellow Avengers in the most recent Marvel superhero team-up movies, but that will be rectified with the archer’s own series, in which Jeremy Renner will star, according to Variety. There’s a catch, however: the series will focus on Clint Barton (Renner) passing the torch to Kate Bishop, the character who took over the Hawkeye role after Clint in the comics.

Elsewhere on Disney+, the world’s first scripted live-action Star Wars series The Mandalorian will be available at launch, and Alan Tudyk will return to voice droid character K-2S0 from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in the untitled Cassian Andor show that stars Diego Luna.

Monsters, Inc. is coming back — in series form this time. The original voice cast from the Pixar film, including John Goodman (Sulley) and Billy Crystal (Mike Wazowski), returns for the series Monsters at Work. The animated spin-off is set to debut in 2020, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and will also star original cast members John Ratzenberger (Yeti), Jennifer Tilly (Celia), and Bob Peterson (Roz), along with newcomers Ben Feldman, Kelly Marie Tran, Henry Winkler, Lucas Neff, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Stanton, and Aisha Tyler. Per THR, “Monsters at Work picks up six months after the original movie with the power plant at its center now harvesting the laughter of children to fuel the city of Monstropolis. The series follows Tylor Tuskmon (Feldman), an eager and talented mechanic on the Monsters, Inc. Facilities Team who dreams of working on the Laugh Floor alongside Mike and Sulley.”

Other scripted originals previously announced for Disney+ include the exclusive new season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars; High School Musical: The Musical: The Series; Diary of a Female President; and live-action films Lady and the Tramp, Noelle, Togo, Timmy Failure, and Stargirl. Nonfiction series also announced earlier this week include Be Our Chef, Cinema Relics: Iconic Art of the Movies (working title), Earthkeepers (working title), Encore!, the untitled Walt Disney Imagineering documentary series (though the demo showed a series with the title The Imagineering Story), Marvel’s 616, Marvel’s Hero Project, (Re)Connect, Rogue Trip, and Shop Class (working title).

All 30 seasons of Fox’s The Simpsons will be available for streaming exclusively through Disney+, starting at the platform’s November launch.

The news sent Disney shares soaring on Friday and on track for the stock’s best day since May 2009. CNBC noted the value Disney+’s price point represents for families, given its “boatload” of kids’ content compared to Netflix, which recently raised the price of its standard plan again.


RELATED:Everything We Know About Disney+, the Mouse House’s Upcoming Streaming Monster


An Incomplete Guide to Every Game of Thrones Tie-In

Game of Thrones season 5 episode 8 - Hardhome (HBO)

(Photo by HBO)

Game of Thrones is coming back this weekend, have you heard?

We kid — of course you’ve heard. The only way you could’ve not heard is if you’ve been hiding out in a cave somewhere with Jon Snow (and honestly, we wouldn’t blame you if you were). If the constant HBO promos and approximately 8 billion articles on every single one of your favorite websites didn’t give it away (guilty), then the advertising for one of Game of Thrones’ 600 series-finale marketing tie-ins probably did.

The HBO licensing team has opened the floodgates for the series’ final season. In addition to the usual toys, Ommegang beer, and Vintage Wine Estates vino that plenty of people have been buying for seasons now, there’s also:

The brand has also just now announced a limited-edition GoT-themed “Dracarys Burger” and “Dragonglass Shake” from Shake Shack — only available for a short amount of time from the chain’s restaurants in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Washington D.C., Miami, Las Vegas, Denver, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Oh yeah — there’s a special Game of Thrones–themed water show at the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas through Saturday.


American Horror Story Season 9 Gets a Theme and Veronica Mars Teaser Released

American Horror Story is throwing it back for the show’s upcoming ninth season. FX announced via a creepy teaser video that the newest installment, which is set to premiere in the fall, will be titled “AHS 1984.” Judging from the clip, the genre this season will tackle is ’80s slasher movies.

Plus, Hulu series Veronica Mars got a teaser and premiere date: July 26.


The Walking Dead World Keeps Growing

The Walking Dead SDCC season 9 panel poster (AMC)

(Photo by AMC)

The Walking Dead is getting another spin-off: The as-yet-untitled drama will follow “two young female protagonists and focus on the first generation to come of age in the apocalypse as we know it,” according to AMC. The new series, which is set to debut in 2020, was created by Scott M. Gimple and Matt Negrete, and Negrete will serve as showrunner.

“Showing audiences an unseen pocket of the Walking Dead universe steeped in a new mythology is a very cool way to celebrate a ‘Decade of the Dead’ on TV and over fifteen years of Robert Kirkman’s brilliant comic,” Gimple said in a statement announcing the news. “Matt Negrete is one of the best writer-producers in TWD’s long history — I’m thrilled to be working beside him to tell stories unlike we’ve seen before, taking our first step into an even larger world.”


Two New Music-Focused Movies to Ease Your Coachella FOMO

Can’t make it to California for Coachella? Relive Beyonce’s record-breaking 2018 performance at the annual music festival with a new behind-the-scenes documentary on Netflix. The concert documentary Homecoming: A Film By Beyonce debuts April 17 and will offer an intimate, in-depth look at the performance.

In more Coachella/musician-fronted streaming movie news, Donald Glover and Rihanna star in the new film Guava Island, which Glover will screen for fans following his (or Childish Gambino’s) Coachella headlining slot on Saturday night (which is when it’ll be available to stream worldwide, too). The one-hour film, directed by frequent Glover collaborator Hiro Murai and filmed in secret in Cuba last year, will be available beginning at 12:01 a.m. PT on Saturday night.


Casting Update: Titans Casts Bruce Wayne and More

Game of Thrones, Episode 66 (season 7, episode 6, "Beyond the Wall"), debut 8/20/17: Iain Glen as Jorah Mormont. photo: Helen Sloan/courtesy of HBO

(Photo by Helen Sloan/courtesy of HBO)

The most famous resident of Gotham is headed to Titans for season 2: Iain Glen (Game of Thrones) will star as Bruce Wayne on the upcoming season of the DC Universe series, Deadline reports.

Cold War star Joanna Kulig will costar alongside Andre Holland in Damien Chazelle’s new Netflix series The Eddy, what the streaming service describes as “a contemporary musical drama set in Paris.” She’ll play Maja, “an incredible singer who is adrift in life.”

Netflix’s The Crown has found its Princess Diana: newcomer Emma Corrin will play Prince Charles’ first wife in the upcoming fourth season of the British royal family drama, which is set to begin filming later in 2019. Season 3 has not yet debuted.

“I have been glued to the show and to think I’m now joining this incredible talented acting family is surreal. Princess Diana was an icon and her effect on the world remains profound an inspiring. To explore her through Peter Morgan’s writing is the most exceptional opportunity and I will strive to do her justice,” the actress said in a statement announcing the news.

Over on Hulu, Deadline reports that Kate McKinnon is set to star as disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes in a limited series, though the deal has not been made official quite yet.

HBO has cast Winona Ryder, Zoe Kazan, and more in its new six-part miniseries The Plot Against America, which is based on the 2004 Philip Roth alternate history novel that follows a Jewish family in New Jersey as they watch the rise of aviator-hero Charles Lindbergh “as he becomes president and turns the nation toward fascism.”


Development News: A Downton Abbey Followup and More

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes’ newest TV project has begun filming in England. Belgravia is a six-part limited series about the secrets and scandals in upper-class London society in the 19th century, and is based on Fellowes’ own novel.

Ryan Murphy is turning Broadway musical The Prom into a “movie event” for Netflix. Read the super-producer’s Instagram announcement below.

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THE PROM is one of the most uplifting, heartfelt and special musicals I have ever seen on Broadway. It's truly an original that celebrates the underdog and says in a loving spectacular way that LGBTQ rights are human rights. I feel a special connection to it because it's set in Indiana, and that's where I grew up, too. I'm thrilled to announce I'm turning it into a MOVIE EVENT for Netflix, and I'm bringing producers @billdamaschke and @dori.berinstein and the amazing creative team with me — Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw, Tony Award winner Bob Martin, Tony award nominee @sklarbar73 and Tony Award nominee @Chadbeg. See it first at the Longacre Theatre. It has a musical score that will leave you singing for days, a hilarious and moving book and some of the most showstopping direction, choreography and performances I've ever seen on Broadway. @theprommusical

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