Disney+ unveils raft of new content for UK and Ireland

The Full Monty

Disney+ has confirmed premiere dates for a slew of titles launching exclusively on the Mouse House flagship streamer in the UK & Ireland later this year.

Among them are FX series The Bear, which will be back for a second season set in the kitchen of a Chicago sandwich shop and starring Jeremy Allen White, while fellow FX show, docuseries Welcome To Wrexham, will also be back for season two.

Local originals include documentary Wagatha Christie (working title), with Coleen Rooney, and The Full Monty, a follow-up to the 1997 feature film of the same name, which will debut on 14 June.

Comedic murder-mystery series Only Murders In The Building, from the minds of Steve Martin, Dan Fogelman and John Hoffman, is returning for season three on 8 August, while comedy film Miguel Wants to Fight, about a high school senior who encounters a series of hilarious misadventures as he tries to get into his first ever fight, will also join the service in August.

Secrets & Sisterhood: The Sozahdahs, which follows 10 Muslim American sisters whose faith and bonds are put to the ultimate test while trying to navigate cultural expectations, their careers and love in Los Angeles; and The Jewel Thief, a firsthand account of Gerald Blanchard, one of the most accomplished criminal masterminds in modern history, are also on the 2023 slate.

Franchise expansions

Adding to Disney+’s major scripted franchises are season two of Marvel adventure Loki which will debut on 6 October, while Echo, a spin-off from 2021 Disney+ series Hawkeye, telling the origin story of Maya Lopez, will arrive on 29 October.

Ahsoka, the latest Disney+ Star Wars series launches on the platform in August, spinning out of The Mandalorian and The Book Of Boba Fett, and following the former Jedi knight Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) as she investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy.

Meanwhile, coming in December is Win Or Lose, Pixar’s first official longform episodic series, which follows the intertwined stories of different characters as they each prepare for a big championship softball game.

The Wildcats of East High will also return to Disney+ with a fourth season of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.

On the unscripted front is Epic Adventures With Bertie Gregory, which is back for a second season and takes viewers on nail-biting journeys that push into the most spectacular and secretive corners of our wild world.

Content cuts

While these series have been confirmed to returning, many others have recently been dropped, with titles ranging from The World According To Jeff Goldblum, to Dollface and Willow being removed from the service entirely.

Almost 50 shows are being removed in total, with the move expected to incurr an impairment charge of between $1.5bn to $1.8bn in Disnry’s next quarterly report, meaning the shows effectively no longer show a cost against the streaming business.

Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said that Disney is “in the process of reviewing the content on our DTC services to align with the strategic changes in our approach to content curation,” alluding to previously announced plans to return to third-party sales.