Disney Orders 20 Episodes From Dhar Mann Studios in New Youth and Family Partnership
Disney has ordered 20 episodes of new youth- and family-oriented programming from Dhar Mann Studios, with the deal announced on Friday, according to Variety.
The partnership begins with that 20-episode order. Disney and Dhar Mann Studios said further details about the series will be announced at a later time, so titles, premiere dates and which Disney platforms will carry the shows remain undisclosed.
Dhar Mann Studios operates from a three-stage, 125,000-square-foot production facility in Burbank — just down the road from The Walt Disney Company's own headquarters. The company says it reaches more than 170 million followers globally and pulls in nearly 300 million views each week across platforms, Variety reports.
Those numbers come from Dhar Mann Studios itself rather than an independent measurement body. Even so, the scale is hard to ignore for any platform looking at younger audiences.
The studio already has a footprint across streaming and broadcast. It produces original programming for Samsung TV Plus, where it runs a FAST channel — a free, ad-supported streaming television channel — that was the platform's first creator-led original content deal. Dhar Mann Studios also has a global vertical video slate with Fox Entertainment, and counts Adobe, the NFL and Gap among its brand partnership deals.
For Disney, the deal brings a creator-driven production company with an established young audience into its orbit. For Dhar Mann Studios, it is a step onto one of the largest family-entertainment stages in the world. The 20-episode order is a straight commission — meaning Disney has committed to producing the episodes without first requiring a pilot episode to prove the concept.
What the shows will look like, when they will arrive, and where exactly they will sit across Disney's platforms — Disney+, Disney Channel, or elsewhere — are details still to come.
