It might look like Disney is positioning Disney+, its upcoming geek-friendly streaming service, as a one-stop spot for everything Star Wars, but if you’re eager to keep tabs on what’s happening in a galaxy far, far away you still need to make the occasional stop at your local box office. While Disney+ will be home to both live action and animated Star Wars television shows, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that original Star Wars feature films will only debut in theaters, not on the small screen.
“We wouldn’t make a Star Wars movie for this platform,” Iger said during an interview with Barron’s. “When everybody goes out on the weekend and you have a movie that opens up to $200 million, there’s a buzz that creates that enhances value. We like that.” Disney+ will be the landing spot for some original films, Iger said, but nothing with a budget in the $100 million-plus range, which seems to take feature-length Star Wars projects out of the running.
That’s not to say that future Star Wars movies, like The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson’s stand-alone trilogy, won’t make their way to Disney+ eventually, of course. They will simply appear on the streaming service once their theatrical runs are over.
Even so, it sounds like Disney+ will be a must-subscribe for Star Wars fans. Disney is prepping two separate live-action Star Wars shows for the service. The Mandalorian, which stars Pedro Pascal, will bridge the gap between the original Star Wars trilogy and The Force Awakens, while an untitled series based on Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor will function as a Rogue One prequel. In addition, the fan-favorite animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars will return on Disney+ for a final 12-episode season.
It’s not just Star Wars that’s getting a bunch of Disney+ love, either. As previously reported, Disney+ will also host live-action miniseries featuring big-screen Marvel characters like Loki, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier.
Disney+, The Mandalorian, and The Clone Wars revival are all scheduled to launch in late 2019, right around the time that Star Wars: Episode IX will hit theaters and cap off the Skywalker saga for good. That is a lot of Star Wars, so start planning your schedule now: There’s even more — much, much more — currently on the way.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.