It's official, Disney+ is leaving Canal+ and taking its new films with it

It was in the pipeline for several monthsand it's now official: the Disney+ streaming service will leave the offers of the French encrypted channel. Worse still: new Disney films will also no longer be accessible there.

Disney films streaming… not for 17 months

In an official press release shared this Monday, November 4, The Walt Disney Company therefore confirmed the non-renewal of the distribution agreement it had with Canal+ since its launch in France in 2020. This notably allowed the encrypted channel to offer the service in its offers, including the Ciné Séries subscription.

Disney stated: “From January 1, 2025, Canal+ customers will no longer be able to watch our new films, nor access Disney+ or our television channels via their subscription. However, all of our productions – films, series, documentaries – will remain accessible to all directly on Disney+.”

For its part, Canal+ wanted to show a reassuring face despite the loss of this major partner. Gérald-Brice Viret, Managing Director of Antennas and Programs of the group, declared on France Info: “This is a fairly marginal consumption by our subscribers (…) We are not safe from meeting again one day.”

Christophe Pinard-Legry, DG in charge of the budget, declared: “We have not found acceptable terms with them for our subscribers which would allow us to renew this partnership. We wish to remain accessible from a pricing point of view.”

The loss of Disney+ is not insignificant for Canal+, which will be deprived of new films from the American firm. Indeed, the distribution agreement also allowed priority distribution of Disney films, just 4 months after their cinema release, as part of the media chronology.

Canal+ subscribers will therefore no longer be entitled to Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel and company films from January 1, 2025, and will have to wait 17 months before finding them exclusively on Disney+. The latest production of the firm available on the encrypted channel will thus be Vice-Versa 2 in December.

This decision indicates that Disney is deciding to continue “the streaming war” alone, on a French market already well saturated with offers, and facing major rival platforms including Max arrived last June. Time will tell if this was a wise choice…

As a reminder, the distribution of cinema films on platforms is governed in France by media chronology. Each broadcast mode (television, on-demand or subscription streaming, etc.) has a dedicated operating window. Here are the deadlines from the current media timeline:

• DVD/Blu-ray/VOD: 4 months (3 months if the film has had fewer than 100,000 admissions)
• Canal+ / OCS: 6 months after the cinema release of a film
• Netflix: 15 months after release
• Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+…: 17 months after release
• TF1, M6, France Télévisions, Arte: 22 months after release, and broadcast exclusivity for up to 36 months

Note that discussions to modify the deadlines of the media timeline are underway, and that these should be changed (and shortened?) in 2025.