Two Episodes of ‘The Mandalorian,’ Other Originals to Drop This Week as Disney Plus Goes Live
New episodes of Disney Plus original series dropped Tuesday as the streaming service went live in three countries, with second installments of “Star Wars” spinoff “The Mandalorian” and other shows set to become available just a few days later.
Disney’s new direct-to-consumer service launched Tuesday in the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands, with company chief Bob Iger calling it “a historic moment for our company that marks a new era of innovation and creativity.”
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As well as existing Disney, Marvel, National Geographic, Pixar, and “Star Wars” movies and series, there are a raft of originals from launch. These include the hotly anticipated “The Mandalorian,” the first live-action “Star Wars” series, plus “High School Musical The Series,” doc series “The World According to Jeff Goldblum,” “Marvel’s Hero Project,” Kristen Bell-exec-produced “Encore!” and short-form series “Pixar IRL.”
Eschewing the Netflix model of dropping original series in their entirety, Disney Plus has opted for a pattern of weekly releases for its own shows. New episodes will go live on the SVOD platform at 12:01 a.m. PT on Fridays, starting this week.
Disney Plus is scheduled to launch in Australia, New Zealand and Puerto Rico on Nov. 19, and in major European territories in March. The Netherlands was among the three markets first out of the gate Tuesday because it has already been a testing ground for Disney Plus since September.
At launch there are about 500 movies and 7,500 episodes of TV fare. The movie selection includes the “Star Wars” and “Avengers” pictures as well as 18 Pixar films and classic Walt Disney Animation Studios titles, such as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “Beauty and the Beast.” On the TV side, the lineup includes Marvel, National Geographic, Disney Channel and Disney Junior series as well as 30 seasons of “The Simpsons.”
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