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Disney Plus is stopping theaters screening Fox movies – and viewers will lose out

Disney Plus will no doubt be the talk of the town when it launches in November, with a host of films and franchises from across Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and even 21st Century Fox. But it seems that Disney’s acquisition of Fox – welcomed by many for the hit series and IP it brought to Disney’s streaming service – may have some unfavorable consequences for viewers.

Vulture has reported on various cinema owners and film festival programmers who are being refused the rights to show certain Fox movies, now under new ownership at Disney.

Titles such as The Omen, The Fly, Moulin Rouge, and various Alien films are now increasingly difficult to show, with Disney reportedly denying requests by establishments that had previously shown the films without trouble.

While Disney has yet to make a public declaration of its intention here, Vulture quotes a film distributor who says the restrictions won’t apply to not-for-profit businesses or public art institutions. 

What’s even more worrying is that the new law for Fox movies doesn’t seem to be enforced consistently, with different distributors finding they had rights to show certain films revoked for different reasons, without explanation, or even if they fit Disney’s criteria.

With Disney Plus set to launch in mid-November in its first few territories, a world of Disney is about to get opened wide – but at the same time, it looks like that world is getting a lot smaller.

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