Star (Disney+)


Star is an over-the-top content brand owned by Disney Streaming. Launched on 23 February 2021, Star primarily operated as a content hub on Disney+ in countries outside of the United States, and now exclusively operates as a content hub on Disney+ in Japan.
Star's content is similar to that of the Disney-owned U.S. streaming service Hulu; it includes films and television series that fall outside of the core Disney+ content brands, including original productions from Hulu, ABC, FX, and Freeform, and content from the libraries of 20th Century Studios and its subsidiaries, ABC Signature, Touchstone Pictures, and Hollywood Pictures among others. Disney CEO Bob Chapek stated that the "Star" brand was used instead of Hulu because it was more recognizable in international markets.
In August 2021, Disney launched the Star brand in Latin and South America as a separate subscription service known as Star+, which also included sports content from ESPN Latin America and Brasil, and other third-party content. Star+ was discontinued in 2024, with its content merged into Disney+ under the Star brand as in other markets.
In 2023, after Disney acquired Comcast's share in Hulu to give it full ownership, the company began to similarly introduce a Hulu content hub to Disney+ in the United States for users subscribed to both services. In August 2025, Disney announced plans to replace Star with Hulu as its global general entertainment brand, which took effect on 8 October 2025, with Japan being the only country to retain the Star branding.

History

Background

The "Star" brand originated as a Hong Kong-based satellite broadcaster, which operated under that name as an acronym of "Satellite Television Asian Region", it was founded by Hutchison Whampoa in 1990, and had been acquired by News Corporation in 1993. After 2009, the Star brand was mainly restricted to the now-separately owned Star China Media, as well as Star India, which operates primarily in India, but also distributes programming internationally via services targeting viewers of Indian descent. The remainder of the Star Asia Pacific business was later brought under the Fox International Channels division.
Star India was then acquired by Walt Disney as part of its acquisition of 21st Century Fox on 20 March 2019.
During an earnings call on 5 August 2020, Disney CEO Bob Chapek announced that Disney planned to launch a new international, general entertainment service under the "Star" brand name in 2021. The plan superseded a previously announced international expansion of the majority-controlled American streaming service, Hulu, which has only expanded outside the United States to Japan. Chapek argued that, outside of the United States, the Hulu brand is not well known while Star is much more recognizable.

Launch

Disney officially announced Star and Star+ on 10 December 2020, at its Investor Day Event. During the event, it was announced that Star would launch as a sixth brand tile within the Disney+ interface. Additional parental controls would be launched alongside Star's introduction. Although Star would be available at no extra cost to Disney+ subscribers, the introduction of Star would coincide with a price increase. Star was launched in Canada, United Kingdom, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore on 23 February 2021, while the service was launched in Hong Kong and Taiwan later in 2021. Disney promoted the launch by naming several stars in the International Star Registry.
Star+ was launched in Latin America on 31 August 2021. Star was also to launch in Central and Eastern Europe, Israel, South Africa and the MENA region in 2022. Star was launched in Japan and South Korea on 27 October 2021 and 12 November 2021, respectively. It was indeed launched in May 2022 in South Africa and in June 2022 in various MENA and European countries.
Subsequently, the European feeds of Star Plus, Star Bharat and Star Gold were rebranded as Utsav Plus, Utsav Bharat and Utsav Gold, respectively, on 22 January 2021, to avoid confusion with the streaming hub. Disney plans to produce more Korean, Japanese and other Asian content under Star and Disney+ in the next few years.
In May 2023, Disney rolled out the Star hub for Disney+ Hotstar subscribers in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. In December 2023, in a similar manner to Star, Disney began to test a Hulu hub on Disney+ for subscribers in the United States that are subscribed to both services.
In March 2024, it was announced that the Star hub would be added on Disney+ in Latin America on 26 June 2024, while its separate platform, Star+, would be discontinued on 24 July of the same year.

Planned phase-out and shift towards Hulu

On 6 August 2025, after the completion of its acquisition of Comcast's stake in the service, Disney announced plans to fully migrate Hulu to the Disney+ platform in the United States. While Disney+ and Hulu will remain separate subscription products, their separate apps are to be replaced by a new "unified" platform in 2026. Concurrently, Disney also announced that it would replace Star with Hulu as its "global general entertainment brand". The launch officially occurred on October 8.

Content

General content

Star includes a range of content produced or otherwise owned by Disney and its subsidiaries, including television programs produced by ABC Signature, MTM Enterprises, Touchstone Television, 20th Television, 20th Television Animation, FXP, Freeform Studios, and their divisions and predecessors, as well as films from the 20th Century Studios, 20th Century Animation, Searchlight Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, and Hollywood Pictures libraries and some films from the Miramax Films library. Much of the TV content was originally produced for Disney-owned networks and services such as ABC, FX, and Freeform. Other programs were originally commissioned by third-party networks but have been made available on Star because Disney has retained the international distribution rights.
In Europe, Disney+ and Star offer local content from third-party distributors in addition to local in-house and co-productions. The reason for this is a regulation that requires a certain percentage of European productions. In order to comply with this requirement, Disney has entered into a partnership with various local distributors from France and Germany, among others. In Japan, besides Disney-owned contents, Star also provides anime series produced in the country.

Multi-year deal with Sony Pictures

In April 2021, Disney and Sony Pictures reached a multi-year deal to let Sony's titles stream on Hulu and Disney+ or premiered on Disney linear television, it also merged separated existing deal between Funimation and Hulu. While title begins to add on Hulu and Disney+ until September 2022, Marvel related titles starting with Spider-Man films added to Disney+'s Marvel hub in June 2022. This also included the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. All three Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man films and The Amazing Spider-Man would eventually be made available on the American version of the platform on 21 April 2023, with Spider-Man: Homecoming and Venom, a film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, being made available the following month. Other mature and non-Marvel related Sony Pictures titles that premiered on Disney's linear networks available on the Star hub include ABC's The Good Doctor, For Life and Schooled, FX's Justified, Damages and Rescue Me and Hulu's Future Man. Initially, non-Marvel related titles and Crunchyroll-licensed titles were only available on Hulu in the United States, and multiple titles started to be available on Disney+ in March 2024 through the Hulu on Disney+ hub.

Exclusive content

Many productions for which the local first release is carried out by Star are advertised and offered as Star Originals or Star Exclusives. Most of these productions come from the streaming services and TV channels of the Walt Disney Company. Selected productions from its sister services Star+ and Disney+ Hotstar may come to Star, Disney+ original series and movies that are not labelled under Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars or National Geographic are also released to Star outside of the United States and Latin America but retain their Disney+ Originals status. Disney also has local partnerships with licensors and distributes selected productions worldwide. One Such partnership, for example is with the Japanese TV broadcaster TBS.

Availability

Star has been exclusively available as part of Disney+ in Japan since 8 October 2025. It was previously available in numerous other countries outside of the United States before the Star brand was replaced with the Hulu brand.
Release dateCountry/territory
23 2 2021Australia
23 2 2021Austria
23 2 2021Belgium
23 2 2021Canada
23 2 2021Denmark
23 2 2021Finland
23 2 2021France
23 2 2021Germany
23 2 2021Iceland
23 2 2021Ireland
23 2 2021Italy
23 2 2021Luxembourg
23 2 2021Netherlands
23 2 2021New Zealand
23 2 2021Norway
23 2 2021Portugal
23 2 2021Singapore
23 2 2021Spain
23 2 2021Sweden
23 2 2021Switzerland
23 2 2021United Kingdom
27.10.2021Japan
12.11.2021South Korea
12.11.2021Taiwan
16.11.2021Hong Kong
18 5 2022South Africa
8 6 2022Algeria
8 6 2022Bahrain
8 6 2022Egypt
8 6 2022Iraq
8 6 2022Jordan
8 6 2022Kuwait
8 6 2022Lebanon
8 6 2022Libya
8 6 2022Morocco
8 6 2022Oman
8 6 2022Palestine
8 6 2022Qatar
8 6 2022Saudi Arabia
8 6 2022Tunisia
8 6 2022United Arab Emirates
8 6 2022Yemen
14 6 2022Albania
14 6 2022Andorra
14 6 2022Bosnia and Herzegovina
14 6 2022Bulgaria
14 6 2022Croatia
14 6 2022Czech Republic
14 6 2022Estonia
14 6 2022Greece
14 6 2022Hungary
14 6 2022Kosovo
14 6 2022Latvia
14 6 2022Liechtenstein
14 6 2022Lithuania
14 6 2022Malta
14 6 2022Montenegro
14 6 2022North Macedonia
14 6 2022Poland
14 6 2022Romania
14 6 2022San Marino
14 6 2022Serbia
14 6 2022Slovakia
14 6 2022Slovenia
14 6 2022Turkey
14 6 2022Vatican City
16 6 2022Israel
17.11.2022Philippines
3 5 2023Indonesia
3 5 2023Malaysia
3 5 2023Thailand
26 6 2024Argentina
26 6 2024Bolivia
26 6 2024Brazil
26 6 2024Chile
26 6 2024Colombia
26 6 2024Commonwealth Caribbean
26 6 2024Costa Rica
26 6 2024Dominican Republic
26 6 2024Ecuador
26 6 2024El Salvador
26 6 2024Guatemala
26 6 2024Haiti
26 6 2024Honduras
26 6 2024Mexico
26 6 2024Nicaragua
26 6 2024Panama
26 6 2024Paraguay
26 6 2024Peru
26 6 2024Suriname
26 6 2024Uruguay
26 6 2024Venezuela