Netflix is giving subscribers a pretty super Christmas present. It looks like the biggest movie of the year, Captain America: Civil War, will be landing on the streaming platform Christmas Day, meaning after you open your presents and spend some time with the family, you can watch Cap and Iron Man duke it out from the comfort of your couch. Christmas may not be coming early, but it will be awesome. As long as you’re a Netflix subscriber.
The list of titles hitting Netflix in December is pretty hefty, but Captain America: Civil War is by far the biggest title arriving on the streaming service next month. The bulk of the new titles will drop on December 1, which should help kill some time until Christmas. The Angry Birds Movie, another reasonably big 2016 release, will hit the streaming service at the beginning of the month, but you can also watch Beverly Hills Cop, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and The Rock while you wait to watch that amazing airport sequence again.
Netflix will be graced with titles like Captain America: Civil War quite frequently in the future. This is thanks to a deal the company inked with Disney some time ago that gives them exclusive rights to all of the company’s new titles after they are released on DVD and Blu-Ray. So subscribers can also look forward to seeing The Jungle Book, Finding Dory and Doctor Strange on Netflix sooner rather than later. This deal even extends to Star Wars movies, so if you aren’t a bonus feature junkie, you may want to wait until Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hits Netflix instant streaming next year and save yourself the $20 or so on the hard copy.
With this new deal finally going into effect as of September, shortly after movies hit the shelves on DVD and Blu-Ray, they will make their way to Netflix and will never make it to other streaming services as long as the deal is in place. The movies will be available exclusively to stream on Netflix for the same period of time that they would usually be shown on standard cable TV, so though the movies will eventually find their way to more traditional outlets, it will be an even longer wait than usual. The landmark deal didn’t come cheap though, as Netflix is reportedly paying hundreds of millions of dollars per year for the rights to all of Disney‘s theatrical releases from 2016 and beyond.
Civil War is, as of right now, the highest grossing movie of 2016 at the box office. The movie made a very impressive $1.15 billion at the global box office, dwarfing the grosses of the previous two Captain America outings. That was largely thanks to the fact that the movie was received very well by critics, and because Spider-Man got to make his onscreen debut as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the movie. Be on the lookout on December 25, because that is when you’ll be able to stream Captain America: Civil War on Netflix.