With less than 31 hours to go until the release of new Disney+ Original Weekend Family, Disney has done nothing to promote it. Let’s rewind, then come back to this at the end.
Disney+ USA has shown ongoing disrespect towards their international originals. Going back to Intertwined, the first Original to receive a simultaneous global release with localized audio tracks (the way Netflix does), we can’t forget how Disney improperly titled it “Disney Intertwined.” This incorrect name remains to this day despite our reports. Obviously that’s a minor issue overall, but it’s certainly a slight, as “mixing up people’s names” is often considered.
A bigger issue is that the ENGLISH-DUBBED TRAILER NEVER GOT SHARED IN THE UNITED STATES. Yep, their social media NEVER promoted this series as if it was an “actual” new, original series that people should watch! In the weeks leading up to it’s prime Disney+ Day launch we couldn’t believe that Disney let each day tick by without sharing the English-language (or any language) trailer on its social media. They would NEVER skip posting a trailer for an original made in USA.
Shortly after that, their much hyped, first-ever K-Drama, Snowdrop, released across different markets randomly between December and February. There was no simultaneous launch for the controversial series. This series also does not include localized audio tracks so if you are visually impaired and do not know Korean, this series is not accessible to you. Note: as we are preparing this article we have learned Disney has just started adding dubbed audio to Snowdrop, but no English track yet. Odd to add dubbed audio after the release instead of waiting to release. Another minor issue – the title page does not feature the Disney+ Original watermark even though the thumbnail image does.
We could also rewind earlier, back to 2020, when Disney+ released Soy Luna: El Ultimo Concierto and Bia: Un Mundo Al Revés. Nevermind that Disney+ USA received Soy Luna a couple months after launch and that Bia season 1 had also appeared on Disney+ USA by the time the film premiered. Why hold back the Originals from a franchise that is already streaming? We already covered recently the insane 15-month wait (now going on 16) for Bia season 2 to arrive in America.
Things seemed to be changing when the March press release (sent out in mid-February) suggested 3 international originals were on their way. But let’s take a closer look at how they handled that. One of them, new French Original Parallels, appears to be coming without a hitch.
Another, an Italian Original released in 2020 by the name of I Cavalieri di Castelcorvo (The Knights of Castelcorvo), was listed as LIBRARY in the press release. Not ORIGINAL. The March 1st video completely neglected to acknowledge the title, suggesting it’s no longer coming anyway.
The Weekend Family
The rest of this article focuses specifically on the aforementioned release another French Original, Week-End Family. This series first released 2 weeks ago in France. A simultaneous global release would be preferred, but a 2-week delay isn’t the worst. Except the title released in Canada the same day it released in France. Not only that, it released with an ENGLISH AUDIO TRACK! Yes, they dubbed this one! It should have released same day in USA too.
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The first slight came when the March press release e-mail listed it as library, not original. Just like Knights of Castelcorvo. Minor slight.
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The March 1st video relegated it to the end of the video, surprisingly with two other original titles (Mickey Mouse and Embrace the Panda). Laziness or another minor slight. Adding 3 second clips for these 5 titles wouldn’t have made the monthly video any longer than most of them. March’s video was a disaster anyway.
Sidebar: March Video Fails
Imagine announcing Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, The Punisher, and Agents of SHIELD 4 hours before posting a video that leaves them all out. The comments on the video are savage with almost every other person calling Disney out for leaving these massive, game-changing titles out of their video.
Some people tried to reason when we brought this up on Twitter and say “well, the video was probably already done.” Ridiculous. They JUST held the February 1st video back until February 4th. Don’t tell me they couldn’t have delayed the video 1 day to throw in clips of the Defenders? Do you know how video editing works? It’s not hard to do. Disney is also using a service that posts and schedules their social media content. They don’t have to manually redo every social media post… just add the edited video and tweak their scheduled post times. Instead, Disney added a second video which added Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones in with the other highlights.
Where Is The Weekend Family Promo?
Back to complaining about the primary topic.
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As can be expected, Disney never made a “Coming Soon” page for this title. We hit them hard for their misuse of their Coming Soon section a few days ago. Since the title streams in Canada and other countries, there would be no extra effort other than making the page visible and slapping the date on it in their yellow “Coming to Disney+…” text.
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The only poster we’ve seen / official art is the one with French language. Disney’s media site DMED doesn’t include media kits for content that didn’t originate in USA…
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Finally, and this is perhaps the most egregiously disrespectful move, despite the series receiving an English dub, no trailer has ever been released in the USA. In Canada, the English language trailer got released on release day.
Honestly, do better. We’re so tired of saying this, but do better. There is a major disconnect between their marketing department and Operations team. It’s time to fix it.
Drew Ryan is a film, TV, and Disney geek. He has degrees in English, Student Personnel Administration, and Library & Information Science from Lawrence University, Concordia University-Wisconsin, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Interested in the minutia and licensing of streaming service content, he is always publishing lists, suggestions, and advocating for Disney’s missing library to be added to Disney+. Drew subscribes to Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max, and Paramount+. You can find him waxing nostalgic over classic Disney Channel or geeking out over Marvel, CW shows, & Disney on Twitter.
