Marvel Studios will finally fulfill its seven-year-old promise for Disney+ next month. In April 2019, seven months before Disney+ launched to the world in November, Marvel Studios made a promise for its presence on the service. The superhero brand confirmed that "Disney+ will bring the entire MCU together in one place for the first time," but that has never truly been the case (via Marvel).
Disney+ officially announced that Spider-Man: No Way Home will join the streaming service on Wednesday, April 15. The 2021 blockbuster's imminent arrival marks the first time that every MCU canon movie and series will be available to stream on Disney+, a promise made seven years ago
While Marvel Studios was able to place all of its Disney-distributed movies and shows on the streamer, some projects were held up elsewhere. For instance, as the MCU's Spider-Man trilogy was distributed by Sony Pictures, they were omitted from the original catalog, with Homecoming and Far From Home arriving in 2023 and No Way Home only just joining Disney+ in the U.S. three years later.
Similarly, as the distribution rights to The Incredible Hulk are tied up at Universal, the forgotten MCU blockbuster wasn't added to Disney+ until June 2023. While the House of Mouse was able to acquire the streaming rights to its Universal collaboration, a gamma-infused solo flick remains unlikely to ever happen.
The six shows that make up the Defenders Saga also weren't added to Disney+ until March 2022, when their streaming agreement with Netflix lapsed. Those 11 seasons of Marvel TV wouldn't be officially confirmed as MCU canon until 2024 with the release of Echo ahead of their true revival in Daredevil: Born Again.
When Disney first acquired 20th Century Fox, the studio still had streaming deals in place with other services that prevented the X-Men and Fantastic Four movies from immediately landing on Disney+. Still, they all made their way to the House of Mouse's streamer in time for their rise in relevance with Deadpool & Wolverine.
Disney+'s Complete MCU Catalog Will Be Short-Lived - Here's Why
If Marvel Studios had the choice, there's no doubt that the entire MCU catalog would have been available on Disney+ from Day One. However, as the rights to certain characters are more complicated than others, arranging their Disney+ inclusion has taken years of deal-making to finally make a reality.
2026 marks the perfect time for the complete MCU catalog and most of the Marvel Legacy library to finally be available for streaming on Disney+. Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars will culminate everything that has come before it, bringing together characters and storylines from almost three decades of media, making this year the perfect time for audiences to binge the MCU's two sagas.
Disney+'s newfound MCU completion status will be short-lived, as after Spider-Man: Brand New Day releases this July, it won't be available on the service until after its 18-month exclusivity on Netflix. That could sadly leave the MCU incomplete on Disney+ once again until mid-2028, by which point it could be time for Spider-Man 5 to swing into theaters to repeat the same cycle.
Disney+ may be the home to the superhero brand's long history and plenty of MCU original content, but Marvel's biggest TV show of 2026 will be released elsewhere in a blow to the streamer as Sony finally enters the small-screen game.
