From Die Hard to 24: Disney+ Star reveals launch titles

Staff Writer

Disney+ is readying to launch its new adult section, Star, this February, and the launch line-up for the channel has been confirmed.

On 23rd February, Star will join Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, National Geographic and Disney as having a dedicated home on the House of Mouse’s streaming platform. It will become home to thousands of hours of grown-up TV and movies from Disney’s creative studios, including Disney Television Studios, FX, 20th Century Studios and 20th Television (the two rebranded arms of 20th Century Fox).

Two originals in the line-up will be Big Sky, from David E. Kelley, and Love, Victor, which is set in the world of the original 2018 film Love, Simon. The rest is a collection of titles, primarily from Fox, that read like a best-of TV watchlist from the beginning of prestige TV, with The X-Files, Lost and 24 all on the way.

Parental controls will separate Star from the rest of the platform, while the larger overall library will also lead to a higher subscription price: the fee for Disney+ will rise to £7.99 a month, up from the current £5.99 a month.

Here’s the line-up of titles currently confirmed for February’s launch:

Big Sky (Star Original)

From visionary storyteller David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies) comes Big Sky, an intense thriller that follows private detectives Cassie Dewell and Cody Hoyt as they join forces with his estranged wife and ex-cop, Jenny Hoyt, to search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. But when they discover that these are not the only girls who have disappeared in the area, they must race against the clock to find the women before it’s too late.

Big Sky stars Katheryn Winnick as Jenny Hoyt, Kylie Bunbury as Cassie Dewell, Brian Geraghty as Ronald Pergman, Dedee Pfeiffer as Denise Brisbane, Natalie Alyn Lind as Danielle Sullivan, Jade Pettyjohn as Grace Sullivan, Jesse James Keitel as Jerrie, with John Carroll Lynch as Rick Legarski and Ryan Phillippe as Cody Hoyt.

Love, Victor (Star Original)

Set in the world of the original 2018 film Love, Simon, the series follows Victor, a new student at Creekwood High School on his own journey of self-discovery, facing challenges at home, adjusting to a new city, and struggling with his sexual orientation. When it all seems too much, he reaches out to Simon to help him navigate the ups and downs of high school.

24

Kiefer Sutherland stars in this precedent-setting television series where the entire season takes place in one day, with each of the 24 episodes covering one hour – well, 45 minutes when you don’t have adverts – told in real time.

Lost

Mysteries abound as the 48 survivors of Oceanic Air Flight 815 find themselves stranded on an unidentified island with little hope of rescue.

Desperate Housewives

Looking down on her friends and family is a way of death for Mary Alice after she took her own life in her perfect house. Now, from beyond the grave, she takes us into the lives of her friends and neighbours: Susan is a divorcee and single mom who will go to any length for love; Lynette is an ex-career woman who traded the boardroom for boredom and mania as the mother of four unmanageable kids; Bree Van De Kamp is like Martha Stewart on steroids, with a family on the verge of mutiny; Gabrielle Solis is an ex-model with a rich husband and a big house, so what is she doing with the 17-year-old gardener? And serial divorcee Edie Britt’s conquests have everyone buzzing. Mary Alice sees more now than she ever did alive and she’s planning to share the secrets that hide behind every door in this seemingly perfect American suburb.

How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother is a comedy about Ted (Josh Radnor) and how he fell in love. It all started when Ted’s best friend, Marshall (Jason Segel), dropped the bombshell that he was going to propose to his long-time girlfriend, and now wife, Lily (Alyson Hannigan), a kindergarten teacher. At that moment, Ted realized that he had better get a move on if he too hopes to find true love. Helping him in his quest is Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), a friend with endless, sometimes outrageous opinions, a penchant for suits and a foolproof way to meet women. When Ted met Robin (Cobie Smulders), it was love at first sight, but when things didn’t work out, Ted realized destiny must have something else in store. The series is narrated through flashbacks from the future.

Prison Break

Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) is a desperate man in a desperate situation. His brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell), is on death row and scheduled to die in a few months for an assassination Michael is convinced Lincoln did not commit. With no other options and time winding down, Michael holds up a bank to get himself incarcerated alongside his brother in Fox River State Penitentiary. Prison Break combines the hope of The Shawshank Redemption, the camaraderie of The Longest Yard and the tense procedure and spectacle of The Great Escape. This intriguing series reveals additional pieces of the puzzle each episode as Michael carries out his daring plan to mastermind the ultimate prison break – and solve the far-reaching national-scale conspiracy that landed his brother there in the first place.

The X-Files

Unconventional FBI agent, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), takes it upon himself to investigate a group of unsolved cases, known as the “X-Files,” that he believes involve paranormal phenomena. To keep tabs on his work–and in the hopes of debunking his theories–the FBI teams him up with Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), a young, skeptical agent who has a degree in medicine and a strong bias toward the scientific. As the pair works to solve these unexplained cases, Mulder’s strong belief in the forces of the unknown continues to challenge Scully’s rational mind. Their relationship grows more complex with each case, slowly emerging as a heady mix of professional competitiveness, witty repartee, and a mutual attraction that is heightened by the intensity of their tasks and the close proximity in which they work.

Atlanta

Atlanta revolves around Earnest “Earn” Marks (Donald Glover), a loner who returns to his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia (The Peach State) after dropping out of Princeton. Upon his arrival, he discovers his cousin Alfred has become Atlanta’s hottest new rap act. The show follows the cousins on their way up through the Atlanta rap scene, where their opposing views on art, commerce, success, and race will make their quest anything but easy. Earn is extremely smart, observant, and lost. As a disillusioned millennial, he struggles to find his calling or “brand” and feels that the game of life is fixed so that he can never win. He recognises that Alfred’s overnight YouTube popularity has the potential to become a life changing opportunity for them both – if he can reign in his cousin’s “act first, think later” attitude and get used to his drug-addled, possibly psychic (but definitely odd) sidekick Darius. As Alfred’s manager, Earn may finally find something to which it’s worth committing his energies.

Black-ish

Like any parents, Andre “Dre” (Anthony Anderson) and Rainbow (Tracee Ellis Ross) Johnson want to give their children the best. But their offspring’s childhood is turning out to be much different than theirs. They now realize at least two things: There is a price to pay for giving their children more than what they ever had, and these loving parents are totally unprepared for the fallout. “Pops” (Laurence Fishburne), Dre’s dad, takes every opportunity to offer his old school opinion on family issues.

Die Hard

A “selection of titles” from the Die Hard franchise will be available at launch, although Disney has not yet confirmed which ones.