Captain Marvel Will Be the First Film Held Back from Netflix as Disney Prepares Its Streaming Service Launch

Well, we all knew it was coming sooner or later. Get ready for your streaming budget to get one step more complicated, because Disney+ is coming soon, and it’s bringing all of the company’s most valuable properties with it. That will include Captain Marvel, which will be the first MCU film withheld from Netflix after its theatrical run, according to Deadline.

Disney+, interestingly enough, doesn’t have an exact launch date just yet, besides being expected “by the end of 2019.” That should give Disney some time to withhold other releases after Captain Marvel and wait for other licensing deals to run out. In the meantime, they’ll eat a loss of operating revenue of up to $150 million, which CEO Bob Iger described as an investment into the framework of the streaming service. More details will apparently be coming on April 11, when the company is hosting “a major demo of the Disney+ app.”

“What we’re basically trying to do here is invest in our future,” Iger said, saying all these moves are “all designed so that long-term this business will become an important part of Disney’s bottom line. It’s almost the equivalent of deploying capital to build out our theme parks. This is a bet on the future of this business.”

It’s hard to imagine Disney+ ultimately not becoming a huge money-maker for the company. Just look at the ESPN+ app, which Disney says can already boast 2 million subscribers, less than a year after its launch. And with the strength of the Marvel Cinematic Universe behind it, one would assume that the sky is the limit for Disney+.

As for the viewers, you might just have to wait a bit longer to stream Captain Marvel, if you miss it in theaters.