Greetings! Welcome to another edition of The Monitor, WIRED’s entertainment news roundup. What’s happening? A lot, actually—and quite a bit of it has to do with Disney+. Let’s hop to it!
Netflix Nabbed the Sundance Hit The 40-Year-Old Version
Continuing its trend of going shopping at film festivals, Netflix announced earlier this week that it has picked up the worldwide rights to The 40-Year-Old Version, a movie about a struggling playwright who develops a rapper alter-ego. The movie, which won the directing award in the US dramatic category at Sundance, is the debut feature of writer-director Radha Blank. “It’s my love letter to NY and its struggling artists as well as the NY artistic institutions that raised me—hip-hop and theater,” Blank said in a statement. “As a new member of the Netflix family, I’m excited about the global audience that this film will reach.” Netflix says the film will be released in theaters and on the streaming service later this year.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Finally Has a Release Date
Friends, the wait is almost over. During a conference call with investors this week, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that the long-hyped Marvel TV series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will debut on Disney+ in August. That show will be followed by the Scarlet Witch series WandaVision in December. Iger didn’t give a date for the other Avengers-adjacent show in the pipeline, Loki, but it’s expected in 2021.
Disney+ Is Racking Up Subscribers
Speaking of Disney+, it turns out the streaming service is already proving wildly popular. Since launching in mid-November, the service has already signed up some 28.6 million subscribers as of this week. What’s more, that number is poised to grow. According to a forecast from Digital TV Research analyst Simon Murray, Disney+—which offers original programming as well as movies from Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Marvel—could reach 126 million subscribers by 2025.
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