Good news for UK viewers – two Disney Plus shows will make their way over to a UK streaming site where they can be watched completely for free.
As reported by Variety, Disney Plus has struck up a deal with UK streamer ITVX where two of their shows, Extraordinary and Under the Banner of Heaven, are set to drop onto the popular British broadcaster’s on-demand site in 2024.
Season 1 of the British Disney Plus original Extraordinary will also be broadcast on ITV2 sometime next year. The edgy superhero comedy follows 25-year-old Jen (Máiréad Tyers), vulnerable and powerless in a world full of heroes. With the help of her friends, Jen attempts to uncover her abilities and starts on a journey to find her special power. The Disney streamer has recently commissioned a second season of the show.
Starring The Amazing Spider-Man’s Andrew Garfield and Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-Jones, Under the Banner of Heaven follows a detective investigating the murder of a woman and her baby daughter in a deeply religious suburb of Utah. The crime drama, created by Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, is based on the true story of Brenda Wright Lafferty’s murder in 1984.
The deal, which was negotiated by ITV’s head of content acquisitions Sasha Breslau, is one example of the shift in strategy proposed by Disney boss Bob Iger. Since his return to the company, Iger has been on a mission to reestablish some of Disney's old models by distributing movies in theaters and licensing TV shows across multiple platforms, rather than hoarding them on one site.
