Disney Plus, officially styled as Disney+, is finally coming to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the broader Middle East region.
Disney officially announced the news this morning. Esquire Middle East first broke the news last August.
In full, Disney+ will launch in 42 countries and 11 new territories, including 16 markets across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Exact launch dates and local price details are still not known.
The Middle East countries that Disney+ will launch in are: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
Marvel series such as Hawkeye and Moon Knight, starring Oscar Isaac and directed by Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Diab, as well as Star Wars series The Book of Boba Fett, will be available at launch exclusively on the service, ending the partnership with OSN.
Disney Plus first launched in November 2019 in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands, with select European countries getting the service in 2020. Its first major hit was the Star Wars offshoot The Mandalorian, which became a phenomenon across the world, especially through its breakout character Baby Yoda.
“With exclusive original content and thousands of episodes and movies from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and general entertainment from Star, Disney+ is the streaming home for some of the world’s most beloved stories,” Disney said in a statement.
In the Middle East, Disney+ original content, including Marvel Studios original series WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki and more, launched exclusively on OSN in the Middle East, though starting in the fall, the Marvel Studios films began to disappear from the service, and new Disney Plus shows did not debut at all in the region, including recent hits Hawkeye and The Book of Boba Fett.
On an earnings call last summer, Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek said that Disney Plus’s rollouts in certain markets such as Eastern Europe was being pushed from late 2021 to summer 2022. The reasoning for this, he said, is to coincide with the market roll out in “parts of the Middle East and Africa,” Variety reported.
Disney+ in other markets is currently one of the most popular streaming services on earth, with 118 million subscribers worldwide as of October, adding two million from the late summer.
In the US, the Disney Plus streaming package is $7.99 a month, a dollar increase from its launch price, which was $6.99 a month.
It is not known how, if the Disney+ streaming services does launch in the wider Middle East, what will become of the theatrical exclusivity of some films such as Luca, which opened on streaming in the US.
Here’s the full list of countries (in alphabetical order) that Disney+ will launch this summer:
1. Albania
2. Algeria
3. Andorra
4. Bahrain
5. Bosnia and Herzegovina
6. Bulgaria
7. Croatia
8. Czech Republic
9. Egypt
10. Estonia
11. Greece
12. Hungary
13. Iraq
14. Israel
15. Jordan
16. Kosovo
17. Kuwait
18. Latvia
19. Lebanon
20. Libya
21. Liechtenstein
22. Lithuania
23. Malta
24. Montenegro
25. Morocco
26. North Macedonia
27. Oman
28. Palestine
29. Poland
30. Qatar
31. Romania
32. San Marino
33. Saudi Arabia
34. Serbia
35. Slovakia
36. Slovenia
37. South Africa
38. Tunisia
39. Turkey
40. United Arab Emirates
41. Vatican City
42. Yemen