Several non-Disney Marvel films are beginning to arrive on Disney+ in a few territories. The history of Marvel characters is a chaotic one, as corporate ownership of the superheroes has changed hands repeatedly, affecting both film distribution and character rights over the decades. With the acquisition of Marvel Studios by the Walt Disney Corporation in 2009, the process of bringing all of the characters under the same banner began, and with the 2019 Disney/Fox merger, Disney has now acquired the rights to use almost all of the Marvel superheroes in its film and TV projects.
However, despite the fact that characters like The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man can now freely appear in MCU films, they have been notably absent from the catalogue of Marvel films available on Disney+. This is due to the fact that, while Disney has managed to wrangle deals that allow for the use of those characters in certain MCU projects, the studio does not own their distribution rights, which lie with Sony and Universal, respectively. Therefore, films like Sam Raimi’s early 2000s Spider Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire, and 2008’s The Incredible Hulk starring Edward Norton, have previously not been available on Disney's streaming service.
This won’t be the case for long, however, as certain non-Disney Marvel films are heading to the streaming platform in a few territories. According to the official Disney+ Japan Twitter, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Venom are all coming to the service on June 17. Meanwhile, Disney+ Italy tweeted that Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse will be arriving in that territory on the same date. In addition to this, Disney+ UK revealed that Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel, and Spider-Man: Homecoming will hit its service on June 17, too.
The reasons behind these non-Disney Marvel movie additions to the Disney+ service seem to be driven by one goal. The fact that so many previously unavailable Marvel films are now coming to the platform shows that Disney is beginning to bring everything under the same roof, consolidating its grip on the viewership of two highly successful franchises: the MCU and Spider-Man. What's more, it represents a major step forward in Disney’s growth within the over-crowded streaming market, as its competitors like Netflix continue to hemorrhage subscribers.
However, according to a deal that Sony and Netflix inked last year, the first-look rights to stream Sony Pictures' theatrical releases belongs to Netflix, meaning that Disney may not get its hands on Tom Holland's MCU web-slinger during that period. Therefore, the complete collection of Marvel properties, both Disney and non-Disney, won’t be on the Disney+ service for the foreseeable future. That said, this development does show that the current upward trend for Disney+ shows no sign of stopping, and the addition of the long sought-after Raimi Spider-Man films, as well as other popular Marvel flicks, will no doubt continue to increase its already massive subscriber count.
Source: Twitter (various, see above)