Disney+ is about to name a new commissioner in Australia and has not ruled out a return to production in Southeast Asia, Jon Wax, executive VP of international original television at Disney Entertainment, said Wednesday at the Busan International Film Festival. Wax, set out the streamer’s Asia-Pacific plans at a fireside chat at the Park Hyatt Busan, backed by the Motion Picture Association, the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), the festival and Disney+. The session came as Disney+ moves to triple its local-language output around the world.
Disney+ is ramping up local original spending in Australia, Wax said. Turning to the rest of Asia, he said: “There’s many other countries, and, you know, we’re not in many of them yet, but, again, in the spirit of we need to walk before we run, we’re sort of doubling down on the territories that are working, but the hope is, given a long enough timeline, we will be in many more countries than where we currently are.” Asked whether production would resume in markets such as Indonesia after earlier cutbacks, Wax said Disney+ is exploring specific titles there. We just need some time to execute,” he said.
Local versions of Korean unscripted hit “Battle of Fates,” confirmed in development in March, are now in prep, Wax said. In the supernatural competition series, practitioners of shamanism, tarot, face reading and saju go up against each other. It became the biggest series premiere ever on Disney+ in Korea and has since led to a spinoff, “House of Fates.” Wax said the U.S. team moved quickly when Choi Yeon-woo, who runs the Disney+ content operation in Korea, and her team first brought the show to them.
Wax said the show felt culturally distinct, given the privileged position its subject holds in Korean society, “but every society on Earth has their practitioners of this. And we felt like if this works, this could be something that could be shot in other countries.” Unscripted is part of “any global streamer’s healthy diet of a well-rounded slate,” Wax said, pointing to the long tradition of the genre across the region. Wax acknowledged that Disney came to local originals “maybe a little bit later than Netflix, but really we’re playing catch-up in a way that’s very exciting now.” He pointed to recent quarterly earnings calls, where non-U.S. content has featured prominently.
For creators weighing their options in an established streaming market, Wax set out what he sees as Disney’s approach. The aim, he added, is to give those creators a wide berth while keeping the quality bar high. Disney+ will keep adapting known IP when it has a built-in audience, Wax said, but “part of Disney’s brand is also, I think what is expected of Disney, brand-wise, from audiences all around the world, is to generate new stories, not just adapt existing stories.
And you may quibble with that in terms of some of the recent track record, certainly on the Disney movie side.” He said he regularly tells the Korean development team that he doesn’t want to rely only on big IP or a big actor. On Korea, Wax said the market had matured to the point where its shows face the same tests as U.S. content. It has to have a good character journey,” he said.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
