Disney India signs exclusive deal with Hotstar

Hotstar has partnered with Disney India to bring its slate of titles onto its video streaming platform. Earlier Disney India announced a television rights deal with Star India in December last year, allowing the latter’s broadcast network access to the studio’s film library. The current alliance includes the digital rights to Disney India’s movie library to Hotstar as well. In simpler terms, Hotstar now holds the rights to Hollywood content from Fox, HBO and Disney, thus gaining access to a chunk of the popular Hollywood content in India. Some of the popular titles include popular movies like the Ironman trilogy, Marvel’s Avengers, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. With the Disney titles coming to Hotstar, the Ajit Mohan led over-the-top (OTT) platform now has all the Marvel characters except Spiderman. Spiderman could come under Disney in a couple of years after Marvel’s deal with Sony Pictures expires. Credits to arrangement with Fox, all movies of X-Men, Fantastic Four and the latest Deadpool are available on Hotstar. Disney has a similar arrangement with Netflix in the US. The deal came into effect in September 2016, giving Netflix access to old and new titles from Disney. This recent alliance is a testimony to the fact that the OTT scene in India is far from settling down. If 2016 was the year of launches with VOOT, Netflix and Amazon Prime, this year is poised to be a year of innovation, acquisition and securing one’s niche. Amazon Prime Video made its grand entry into India with acquisition of Bollywood library through deals with home-grown studios like Dharma, Yash Raj and T-Series. Netflix will be ramping up its Indian content with Indian producers like Phantom Films and acquisition of indie films from India. VOOT, on the other hand, will continue with its strategy of originals, comedy, kids’ content and exclusive digital content around Viacom18’s successful television shows.