It’s being reported that Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 will be the final Disney disc released in Australia and New Zealand.
Well, if this is true, it isn’t happy news. According to the Australian news network 7News, Disney will cease releasing physical media in Australia and New Zealand. The disc release for Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is said to be the last physical media release that both countries will see.
The outlet states that Disney has confirmed this, although stops short of providing a statement or link to said confirmation. Still, with physical media sales dwindling in the country in the face of streaming uptake, the report isn’t a welcome one.
Disney’s penchant for releasing some of its films onto its Disney+ platform just weeks after cinema releases has clearly accelerated matters here, shaping consumer expectations and stoking the idea that a physical media release is an element of a film’s lifespan that is now surplus to requirements.
In the long run, this helps nobody. Disney are severing a potentially lucrative source of revenue, physical media collectors lose out and it’s surely only a matter of time before Disney or another major studio pulls a major film from its streaming service and licenses it out to another streaming platform, to increase revenue and gain a new foothold in ‘the streaming wars.’
We’ve seen companies like Disney and Warner Bros do so already with smaller-profile programming, so when it happens with a piece of major IP, it will expose the idea that a studio’s film library will be perennially available on a single streaming platform as false, and have folks facing the prospect of subscribing to multiple streamers just to access one studio’s library – and wishing they owned a copy of the films that they love on disc, of course.
If and when other territories meet the same fate as Australia and New Zealand is unknown. Time will tell, but should this worrying report prove to be accurate, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 could be the last ever Disney disc release in those two countries.
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