Ask and ye shall receive, I guess. The 110th Disney Channel Original Movie, Spin, premiered 8 days ago. We wrote an article a few days ago analyzing the likelihood of the DCOM window collapsing beyond the 6-month wait other DCOMS faced. Sure enough, the window has collapsed, but not as much as we’d hoped. While we were dubious regarding the “too good to be true” August 21st on-demand expiration date, the “Coming in September” list went out without any mention of SPIN, confirming our fears. Weirdly enough, the Descendants Royal Wedding special which aired the same day is coming in September. We think Disney is just intentionally holding Spin back for other reasons. Well, we can now confirm that actual arrival date for Spin is November 12th – Disney+ Day.
With this new information the upcoming 2-year anniversary celebration’s plans are slowing coming into focus. We now know 3 titles scheduled to arrive on that day:
- Home Sweet Home Alone – A brand new Disney+ Original film (aka Home Alone 6)
- Jungle Cruise – Free-for-all date for this summer’s blockbuster film (Still available for 30 bucks if you can’t wait)
- Spin – Most recent DCOM and first one with an Indian-American lead!
Disney+ Day Tangent – Is More Coming?
Bob Chapek said at the Q3 Earnings call the Disney+ Day is intended to encourage people who “haven’t signed up yet” to do so which seems likely to mean more content coming on that day. It’s incredibly risky to get your hopes up – we get that – our site was was basically born out of frustration with how little library Disney adds each month and how Originals seem to be the only thing they’re prioritizing, but it’s hard not to expect the first significant library content drop for the USA could be coming.
Here’s why we feel this way: You’re not gonna convince people to sign up during this holiday season by solely providing a recent DCOM, an Original film, Jungle Cruise, and a bunch of announcements / teasers for content coming in 2022. That’s a good way to get people to sign up… in Summer 2022, when Andor releases or Spring 2022 for Disenchanted (Enchanted 2) or whatever. Nah, they’ve gotta be doing something more immediate. Right? Here’s his exact quote – you decide:
“We’re going to have a real exciting lineup as you might guess as we approach those consumers that have not yet signed up for Disney Plus with a really attractive group of titles to be announced. But I think it is — it gives us an opportunity to provide a focal point for consumers that have not yet tripped over to Disney Plus. It is going to give us a benefit not only in the U.S., but Disney as well.”
Robert Chapek – Disney CEO (Q3 FY21 Earnings Call)
See? That does not read to me as others have interpreted it that the day itself is just gonna be announcements and trailers for next year. The “titles to be announced” are titles arriving November 12th, not planned for next year. People don’t sign up and pay to “reserve” the service for something airing 7 months later. Streaming isn’t first come first serve. Nobody signed up after Disney+ 2020 Investor day blow out for content that was announced for late 2021. They got excited, but they didn’t open their wallets unless they were excited about something like Soul that was weeks away.
There is still a solid chance of being a let down by Bob’s definition of “attractive group of titles” but maybe, just maybe, they’ll add long requested titles like Muppets Tonight, Bear in the Big Blue House, House of Mouse, Aladdin the Series and classic content like The Gnome-Mobile, Mickey Mouse Club, and Barefoot Executive. Surely after 2 years they’ve had enough data and feedback to know the titles that people have requested in enormous quantity.
It’s sadly more probable he just meant a few remaining originals that don’t have dates such as an off-Wednesday premiere of Jeff Goldblum‘s season 2, the Untitled Mickey Mouse documentary announced in 2019, and a premiere or full drop of that Will Smith Nat Geo series, Welcome to Earth which is confirmed to air between October 1st and January 1st, but let’s be real – those are NOT gonna get holdouts to sign up… That’s more of the same.
Holdouts exist for 2 reasons – library content they want isn’t there or the age restrictions make the service unappealing.
And we all know Disney isn’t gonna remove the age cap.
We’ve gone on a tangent – this article is not about Disney+ day. It’s about Spin’s release date!
What Does Spin’s Release Mean For Future DCOMS?
A 2-month window on DCOMS is a big improvement from 6 but doesn’t seem as appealing when you remember that Disney has Halloween and Christmas DCOMS planned later this year. Hopefully the window for DCOMS is actually much shorter, 1-2 weeks, and this is just a case of them intentionally holding the film back to create a good list for Disney+ Day. After all, that’s exactly what happened with Jungle Cruise. Jungle Cruise was supposed to be free-for-all 2 weeks earlier, following the same pattern of the other Premier Access titles, but instead they pushed its date to line up with Disney+ Day.
What other titles will be added that day? Is Disney planning an actual content drop with 10-400 library titles? The odds are incredibly slim based off Disney’s relationship with the library since launch but one can dream. Honestly we think they’ll only add approximately 10 more titles that day and Home Alone 4 and 5 will be amongst them as well as a few 20th Century Fox films that are pulled 3 months later for “pre-existing contracts.” Nothing too attractive. For once, we hope to be wrong.
Are you excited to watch SPIN without DisneyNow or Disney Channel commercial breaks?
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.
