This weekend, Disney is hosting its D23 Expo, and the Walt Disney Company’s CEO Bob Chapek hinted during the Legends Ceremony that Disney+ is going to become more interactive.  In previous corporate presentations, Bob Chapek has spoken about Disney’s desire to build it’s own Metaverse, which often leaves people scratching their heads about what Disney is up to.

In a recent interview with Deadline, Bob Chapek shared a little bit more information on what this would be:

We call it next-gen storytelling. We tend not to use the M word too often, because it has a lot of hair on it. But yes, Disney+ will not just be a movie-service platform, but it’s going to become an experiential lifestyle platform. A platform for the whole company to embody both the physical things that you might be able to experience in a theme park, but also the digital experiences that you can get through media.

Recently, on Disney+ Day, subscribers were able to get into the theme parks 30 minutes earlier than anyone else and also offered a variety of promotions to subscribers for ShopDisney, Disney Cruise Lines, Hotels and much more.

While Disney+ is currently just a platform for movies and shows, things could become a little more interactive, as Bob explained:

So, we wish every person would have the opportunity to come to our parks, but we realize that’s not a reality for some people. In order to reach the 90% of people that will never ever be able to get to a Disney park, we have before us an opportunity to turn what was a movie-service platform to an experiential platform and give them the ability to ride Haunted Mansion from a virtual standpoint. The utility isn’t just to have the same experience. Maybe we’ll give them the opportunity what every single person in the park wants to do, and unfortunately too many of them do it, just to get off the attraction. See how it works, see how those ghost dancers move…

Also, just this past week, Disney released an experimental new short on Disney+ called “Remembering”, which had a special augmented reality app to go alongside it.  But it looks like we are going to see more VR experiences coming to Disney+, through devices like Oculus.

We want to give people the ability to experience digitally, something that’s akin to a physical experience that they necessarily can’t be at that place in that time. But it’s even more important than that. So, when a family comes to our parks, we know exactly what you did. Let’s say you stay a week. We got seven days, 24 hours a day. We know everything that you do in the park. And if you give us the permission and ability through the membership app, we’ll program your Disney+ experience, not according to what you watched last or what other people who watch this show, but to what you did, what you experienced.

Disney is constantly evolving, and developing new technology is always a major part of its plans.  Disney+ is going to be a major part of the company going forward, and it certainly sounds very interesting.

Are you excited about more interactive experiences being in Disney+?

Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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