Plans call for choosing 100 to 200 participants in Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region.
The programme will feature lectures by leading creators at movie studios such as Disney and Marvel as well as executives on the business side. Disney will share the expertise it has accumulated over the years on ways to turn comics into movies and on the effective use of music, for example.
This will mark the first time Disney offers a single training programme for creators from various Asian countries. About seven lecture and discussion sessions are to be held online, once every four to six weeks. Participants will likely be granted an opportunity to visit the US to see actual production taking place, although this may depend on the Covid-19 situation. Disney will cover the costs of participation.
Disney will begin seeking participants later this month. About 30 to 40 are expected to come from Japan. Invitations will be sent to creators and others who have produced content for Disney in the past.
Disney+ had 152.1 million subscribers as of the end of June, up 14.4 million from the end of March. But growth has slowed in North America, with other regions accounting for 99% of the net increase during the April-June quarter.
The key to achieving the target of between 215 million and 245 million subscribers in 2024 will be signing up subscribers outside North America. The new training programme is meant to increase original works created locally in Asia and spur Disney+’s growth in the region.
Disney plans to stream 50 original works coming out of Asia by the end of 2023. Through the new programme, it hopes to collaborate with independent creators as well as those working for production companies. In July, Disney formed a partnership with Hybe, the agency for South Korean boy band BTS.
Meanwhile, Disney’s rival Netflix has entered partnerships with Japanese anime production houses and has launched a studio in South Korea. It is working to nurture creators through such steps as supervising animator schools hosted by anime studios and receiving interns.
Only about 30% of people in Japan use paid video subscription services, according to a March survey by research company Intage, so the market is seen as having more growth potential compared with the US, where the figure stands at 70-80%.