Earlier this year, Disney launched Lionsgate+(formerly known as StarzPlay) on its Latin American streaming service, Star+, as a premium add-on.  The add-on includes a deep library of entertainment told from fresh perspectives. Stream or download bold original series like “Pennyworth”.

The reason why Lionsgate+ was available within Star+, was due to a legal battle throughout Latin America over a dispute over the Starz brand following the launch of Star+ throughout the region.  The agreement offered a bundle including Disney+, Star+ and StarzPlay, launched last summer, but required three separate apps.

However, it was revealed this week during Lionsgate’s quarterly investors’ call by the CEO, Jon Feltheimer, that they will be closing down Lionsgate+ throughout Latin America by the end of the year.

On the international front, after being approached by a key distributor in Latin America, we transacted a favorable agreement that motivated us to exit the territory by December 31, as we move towards focusing the service on the U.S. and other English-speaking territories, the UK, Canada and Australia, while also continuing to take significant cost out of the business.

The CFO, Jimmy Barge, also explained further:

As Jon announced in his prepared remarks, subsequent to the end of the quarter, we decided to exit the Latin American market. We expect that we will fully exit LatAm down by the end of calendar year 2023. As part of this decision, and subsequent to quarter in, we received accelerated payment of unpaid future contractual revenue guarantees from one of our largest bundling partners. This consideration more than offsets the remaining in territory, content commitments and shutdown cost.

It’s currently unknown what key distributor Lionsgate’s content will be moving to; it could be possible that Disney has licensed the Lionsgate content, or another platform like Netflix, Amazon or a local partner has acquired the content to distribute.  But it looks like Disney may have just found itself out of a situation with the bundle option in Latin America (which maybe opens the door for a future merger between Disney+ and Star+ in the region).  While it doesn’t specify Disney as the bundling partner, it may have had to pay out some money to get out of the contract following the lawsuit over the Star brand.

The CEO, Jon Feltheimer, was also asked about the situation during the Q&A session during the investor call, revealing a little more about them leaving the region.

But, broadly speaking, as we said, there’s going to be in cash has been received that will more than cover our exit costs so to speak in our commitments in that territory. You’ll see that play out over the next two quarters, but it’s not overly impactful. But it’s beneficial, it’s beneficial way to exit the territory.

Hopefully, more details on what will be happening within Latin America, will be revealed later this year.

What do you think of Lionsgate+ leaving Star+?  Let us know on social media!

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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