This is quite the situation and it’s one that surprisingly (and thankfully – ha) nobody else has covered. If they did and we missed it let us know and we’ll tweak this appropriately. The official announcement posted on September 1st regarding the October 27th Disney+ relaunch in Japan features some… interesting sentences. By far the most head-scratching is this bit:
“ディズニープラスだけで楽しめるオリジナル作品にも注目。11月にはマーベル・スタジオの最新ドラマ『ホークアイ（原題）』、大ヒット映画のシリーズ最新作『ホーム・スイート・ホーム・アローン（原題）』、さらにスター・ウォーズの最新ドラマシリーズ『ザ・ブック・オブ・ボバ・フェット（原題）』が配信開始。”
~DisneyPlus.JP
Translated to English it spotlights the originals coming in November. Disney Plus Japan’s proper launch is October 27th so it makes sense they’d be hyping up the first month. As expected they mention Hawkeye (November 24) and Home Sweet Home Alone (November 12), but nobody expected to see The Book of Boba Fett listed as a November release. They even said last year it would premiere “Christmastime.” Yet there it is, plain as day. Notably they don’t mention The Beatles: Get Back documentary series so could they have confused the two?
Did Japan Make A Boo Boo Or A BOO BOO?
The more we think about it the more we’re relatively certain Japan’s marketing team blew a big Disney+ Day surprise. This isn’t a “typo.” It’s a leak. It wouldn’t be the first time by far. Most recently Disney’s marketing team in Italy spoiled numerous upcoming title arrivals and premiere dates in July – September including the upcoming Disney’s Broadway Hits at Royal Albert Hall and the premiere of Diary of a Future President back in August. They even spoiled the existence of a series called Olaf’s Retellings that was scheduled for the last week of August.
Every original premiere they spoiled shifted back a week as Disney moved series releases Fridays to Wednesdays which pushed this mysterious Olaf series into September. When Dug Days was promoted for September 1st we speculated it had switched places with Olaf. We think that still. It makes sense – launch a new Olaf cartoon in November when all the other Frozen franchise series and shorts have been released.
Healthy skepticism is important which is why unlike most sites we aren’t reporting this as a “fact.” People may say, “Disney would never overlap Hawkeye and Boba Fett!” Well to that we say… poppycock! Tell that to HBO or Netflix. When you have a massive amount of weekly, popular content it’s unreasonable to keep holding your work back until “the other thing” is over. There’s been an attitude that Star Wars or Marvel fans who only like one of the two brands shouldn’t be able to see a series until the other brand’s series is over because they would canibalize each other. At some point Disney has to at least experiment with overlap of their biggest brands and even if Boba Fett released at Christmas it would still overlap 1-2 weeks with Hawkeye.
Update: Thanks to @RogPalmerUK (What’s on Disney Plus) for sending along that the US Press Release says Boba Fett releases in December. Since the Japanese version says November it remains possible they spoiled a surprise, but we told you to be skeptical! Always be skeptical.
Disney+ Day “Fantasy Football”
If Disney really wants to push Disney+ Day what better way than providing a the premiere of their newest Star Wars series. We actually had speculated when they announced the 2-year anniversary soiree that they would bump Hawkeye premiere up 2 weeks and make an exception premiering it on a Friday before moving it to Wednesday the next week. CEO Chapek said it would be a BIG celebration because they promised a “really attractive lineup” to get people who had been holdouts to finally sign up or has he said, “trip over to Disney+.”
With this possible leak Disney+ Day looks to truly be Disney’s attempt at recapturing the magic of launch November 12th, 2019. The subscriber community widely agreed the 1-year anniversary last year was a bust and a misstep. There were zero titles added! There was no pomp and circumstance. People joked about how Disney decided to release merchandise with a +1 on it and that was the extent of the day.
How could Disney top 2019’s launch day lineup when Original Christmas film Noelle premiered right alongside High School Musical the Musical The Series season 1, The Mandalorian season 1, and season 1 of Jeff Goldblum Around The World? We think this is the plan and at the least it probably comes close!
| November 12, 2021 (Speculative) | November 12, 2019 |
|---|---|
| Star Wars The Book of Boba Fett (Season 1) | Star Wars The Mandalorian (Season 1) |
| The World According to Jeff Goldblum (Season 2) | The World According to Jeff Goldblum (Season 1) |
| Home Sweet Home Alone (Original Christmas Movie) | Noelle (Original Christmas Movie) |
| Marvel Studios Hawkeye (Season 1) | Marvel’s Hero Project (Season 1) |
| Olaf’s Retellings (Season 1) | High School Musical The Musical The Series (Season 1) |
| Sneakerella (Original Movie) (Possibly moving to Disney Channel in 2022) | Lady and the Tramp (Original Movie) |
| Spin (Disney Channel Original Movie #110) We scooped its arrival this day. | Hundreds of additional library titles |
| Aladdin: Live From West End (Original Movie) (Maybe saved for December) | |
| Home Alone 4 | |
| Home Alone 5 | |
| Alita: Battle Angel | |
| A handful of other highly requested library titles. Such as House of Mouse? Probably a total drop of 30 or less. Nowhere near the size of the original launch or Star launch internationally. We think the monthly average of 25 library titles arriving in one day isn’t unreasonable but we’ve been burned numerous times before. That, and we know Disney remains unable to access most Fox and Touchstone films in the USA thanks to our Expiration Dates page. |
This would include a major premiere from all of Disney’s brands except for Pixar.
DISCLAIMER: Some of our predictions may be out there and this could ultimately prove to be a simple mistake by Japan so everyone should be very prepared to be “let down.” Still, we think Disney may be planning a bit more for Disney+ Day then we previously imagined and it’s hard not to get excited. If we wanted to get really crazy we’d suggest the order of content thumbnails on their site may even suggest a Christmas release for Peter Pan & Wendy as well as Ms. Marvel.
What do you think? Did Japan mess up or did they REALLY mess up? It’s one or the other! How far off do you think our Disney+ Day lineup is? Share yours in the comments!
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.
