At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, it was announced that Walt Disney and Japan’s largest mobile carrier Docomo will launch a streaming service in March. The price or name have not been announced, but the service will include new releases from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm.
The release in March, comes six to nine months ahead of the U.S. release of their Disney+ streaming service, which is expected to launch in the U.S. late this year. While a specific launch date for Disney+ hasn’t been announced, they are expected to share a demo of the service on April 11th.
The early move seems as a way to jump on the Japanese market as carriers begin their 5G push. The next largest carriers KDDI and Softbank, already have agreements with Netflix, some of which include unlimited streaming on their platforms.
Out of the gate, the new streaming service in Japan won’t have original content exclusively created for Disney+, but it’s likely that it will get added as it’s released. It has already been announced that they are creating remakes of Lady and the Tramp and The Sword in the Stone exclusively for the service, as well as TV Series based on Monsters Inc., High School Musical, and Star Wars.