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Disney+ Subscribers Surge as Netflix Stumbles

Photo: Reuters
Photo: Reuters
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Disney+ Subscribers Surge as Netflix Stumbles

Photo: Reuters
Photo: Reuters

The Disney+ streaming service saw its number of paying subscribers leap beyond expectations in the last quarter, as rival Netflix's client count ebbed, results showed Wednesday.

The number of people subscribing to Disney+ topped 152 million, up some 31 percent from the same period a year earlier, the entertainment giant said in an earnings report.

Disney's bottom line was also boosted by rising revenue from its theme parks, which showed signs of recovering from stifled attendance during the pandemic, AFP reported.

Better-that-expected earnings reported by Disney came as many of the tech titans that flourished during the pandemic curb costs in the face of inflation and people get back to living life in the real world instead of online.

Disney shares were up more than 6 percent in after-market trades that followed release of the earnings figures.

"We had an excellent quarter, with our world-class creative and business teams powering outstanding performance at our domestic theme parks, big increases in live-sports viewership, and significant subscriber growth at our streaming services," said Disney chief executive Bob Chapek.

The 14.4 million Disney+ subscribers added in the recently ended quarter raised the overall number of subscriptions to its streaming services, which include Hulu and ESPN+, to 221 million, Chapek added.

The overall number of subscribers to Disney streaming services topped those of Netflix for the first time.

"Investors will breathe a sigh of relief from Disney’s robust fiscal (quarterly) earnings," said Insider Intelligence principal analyst Paul Verna.

"The streaming figures will be seen as an indicator of the health of the market, especially after lackluster subscriber figures from Netflix and Comcast."

Disney also announced that an ad-subsidized version of its streaming television subscription service will be offered in the United States starting December 8 at a monthly price $3 less than the ad-free offering.

- K-pop and superheroes -
Taking a page from Netflix's playbook, Disney has been investing in shows created in places outside the United States.

The company plans to "step up" investments in such local original content, Chapek said, pointing out a film concert and docu-series focused on South Korean music sensation BTS.

He expressed confidence in Disney theater films in the works, including an eagerly anticipated "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" addition to its Marvel superhero line-up.

A trailer for the Black Panther film logged more than 170 million views in the 24 hours after its release, Chapek said.

"Disney still faces economic uncertainty and intense competition, but performance should at least temporarily put to rest some of Wall Street's gloomier perceptions about the company, and more broadly about the entertainment industry," said Paul Verna, an analyst at Insider Intelligence.

Rival Netflix has reported losing subscribers for two quarters in a row, as the streaming giant battles fierce competition and viewer belt tightening, though the firm assured investors of better days ahead.

The loss of 970,000 paying customers in the most recent quarter was less than expected, leaving Netflix with just shy of 221 million subscribers.

"Our challenge and opportunity is to accelerate our revenue and membership growth... and to better monetize our big audience," the firm said in its earnings report.

After years of amassing subscribers, Netflix lost 200,000 customers worldwide in the first quarter compared to the end of 2021.

Netflix said in its earnings report that it had expected to gain a million paid subscribers in the current quarter.

Netflix executives have made it clear the company will get tougher on sharing logins and passwords, which allow many to access the platform's content without paying.

In an effort to draw new subscribers, Netflix said it will work with Microsoft to launch a cheaper subscription plan that includes advertisements.

The ad-supported offering will be in addition to the three account options already available, with the cheapest plan coming in at $10 per month in the United States.

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Movie Review: Coon, Olsen and Lyonne Await a Father’s Death in ‘His Three Daughters’ 

This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne in a scene from "His Three Daughters." (Netflix via AP)
This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne in a scene from "His Three Daughters." (Netflix via AP)
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Movie Review: Coon, Olsen and Lyonne Await a Father’s Death in ‘His Three Daughters’ 

This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne in a scene from "His Three Daughters." (Netflix via AP)
This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne in a scene from "His Three Daughters." (Netflix via AP)

Death isn’t like it is in the movies, a character explains in “His Three Daughters.” Elizabeth Olsen’s Christina is telling her sisters, Katie (Carrie Coon) and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), a story about their father, who became particularly agitated one evening while watching a movie on television in the aftermath of his wife’s passing.

It’s not exactly a fun memory, or present, for any of them. This is, after all, also a movie about death.

The three women have gathered in their father’s small New York apartment for his final days. He’s barely conscious, confined to a room that they take shifts monitoring as they wait out this agonizingly unspecific clock. But even absent the stresses of hospice, tensions would be high for Christina, Katie and Rachel, estranged and almost strangers who are about to lose the one thread still binding them. Taken together, it’s a pressure cooker and a wonderful showcase for three talented actors.

Writer-director Azazel Jacobs has scripted and filmed “His Three Daughters,” streaming Friday on Netflix, like a play. The dialogue often sounds more scripted than conversational (except for Lyonne, who makes everything sound her own); the locations are confined essentially to a handful of rooms in the apartment, with the communal courtyard providing the tiniest bit of breathing room.

Jacobs drops the audience into the middle of things, dolling out background and information slowly and purposefully. Coon’s Katie gets the first word, a monologue really, about the state of things as she sees it and how this is going to work. She’s the eldest, a type-A ball of anxiety, the mother of a difficult teenage daughter and the type of person who can barely conceal either disappointment or deep resentment.

Katie also lives in Brooklyn, not far from her father, but rarely ever visited. Caretaking duties were left to Lyonne’s Rachel, an unemployed stoner who never left home, likes to bet on football games and is poised to inherit the apartment – to the not-so-subtle resentment of her sisters. The youngest is Christina, a head-in-the-clouds, conflict averse yogi and Grateful Dead follower who lives across the country and has had to leave her 3-year-old for the first time.

Jacobs is unafraid of allowing both drama and humor to coexist, to seep into moments unexpectedly. There is an undeniable absurdity to the act of writing an obituary for a loved one in a fraught time like hospice that actually captures a life and a person and doesn’t sound like a laundry list of biographical facts and positive attributes. Add to that the fact that Katie is also frantically trying to get a medical professional to the apartment to witness a DNR order. The women are torn in premature grief, wanting him to stay alive but also go quickly.

They’re all richly drawn and perfectly mysterious too, even to themselves; Jacobs is too smart and attuned to how humans are to give anyone a simple, straightforward explanation. Everyone is making assumptions about others — many of them are wrong, or, at the very least misguided. Coon, with her booming, theatrical voice, is particularly suited playing this slightly terrifying, massively judgmental perfectionist. Lyonne, so good at cool deflection, gets to use that otherworldliness to hit a different kind of note: quiet heartbreak. And Olsen, playing a character, really shines in her non-verbal choices: A reaction, a moment alone that she doesn’t know is being observed. It won’t be surprising if any or all get some recognition this awards season (unfortunately in a system that is uniquely ill-equipped to fete small ensembles with three leads).

There are some movies that die quiet deaths on streaming-first (this did receive a bit of a theatrical run), but “His Three Daughters” is one that seems right on Netflix just for its ability to reach a larger audience than it would stand a chance to at the multiplex. It’s never not riveting watching it all unfold, even with the temptation of the phone nearby. Whether you make it a solo viewing experience or a group one might have everything to do with your own relationship with family members.

And to that initial indictment about movies not getting death right? It’s still probably true. But movies like “His Three Daughters” might help us all make a little bit more sense of the inevitable.