Disney Reveals When Hulu Will Replace Star On Disney+ Internationally

At the last quarterly investors call, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that the Star hub on Disney+ internationally would be rebranded to Hulu during the fall, just ahead of the unification of Hulu and Disney+ in the United States in 2026.

Hulu has existed in the US for over a decade, and has brand recognition in the US as a general entertainment streaming service, which Disney obviously wants to bring into Disney+, but due to the complicated nature of the ownership of the platform until recently, Disney has had its hands tied behind its back in bringing Hulu to other regions around the world. 

Ever since Disney launched its general entertainment brand, Star, on Disney+ around the world in early 2021, there has been speculation that, once Disney acquired the final third of Hulu from Comcast, the Star hub would eventually be rebranded to Hulu.

While we know the rebrand from Star to Hulu is scheduled to happen between September and November, we didn’t know the official date for the international launch of Hulu until now.  During a live-stream marathon of classic episodes of “Futurama”, ahead of the release of the new season, the official description of the video stated that Hulu would be launching internationally on Disney+ on October 8th 2025.

Disney has already been slowly creeping the Hulu branding into Disney+ in Canada since May, with the Hulu Originals logo being added to trailers and posters for this summer’s big original releases.  However, outside of North America, that’s not been the case.

When the Star brand initially launched, there was a marketing campaign to go along with it, and it’ll be interesting to see if Disney runs a similar campaign for the rebranding to Hulu, or if it will keep it lowkey, with just some social media posts and let people get used to it.  

For Disney+ subscribers outside the US, we can expect to see the hub rebranded, with the Star logo replaced on thumbnails and intro bumpers, to resemble the US version of Disney+.    However, we will likely see more changes to Disney+ once the US merger of Hulu and Disney+ takes place in 2026, when everything is more uniform globally. 

Roger’s Take:  This is a long time coming, and I’ve never been a big fan of the Star brand within Disney+.  I always felt it was too generic and didn’t mean anything, so shifting it to Hulu won’t be a big loss.  I do find it weird when looking back at the company’s history, at how much money Disney wasted on lawsuits and rebranding in some regions like South America, over the Star brand. 

But ultimately, the main reason Disney didn’t want to use the Hulu brand around the world, was that it would increase the value of the Hulu brand, resulting in Disney having to pay Comcast even more money.  So ironically, they might have saved more money on using the Star brand for years as a stopgap. 

Bringing the Hulu brand into Disney+ globally will help realign the platform in terms of branding and make it much easier for Disney to promote new shows and films from the Hulu brand, ahead of the merger of Hulu and Disney+ in the United States.

Are you looking forward to the rebranding of Star to Hulu?  Let me know on social media!