What we know for sure about the Disney+/Hulu merger
Business Insider recently uncovered an internal company document indicating that the Disney+/Hulu merger is, indeed, still in the works.
According to Business Insider, the document said that “the Hulu tech stack and app will be decommissioned after all the users have transitioned” in a process codenamed “Project Gemini.” (This has no relation to Google’s A.I. agent, Gemini. Disney likely chose the name because Gemini is the Latin word for twins, as Disney+ and Hulu have become twin streaming services.)
One anonymous Hulu employee even went so far as to tell Business Insider that “Hulu is on life support at this point, with no active development. As CableTV.com’s anime correspondent, this sounds really familiar. Funimation was in a similar state before Crunchyroll completely absorbed it in 2024.
It doesn’t even make sense for customers to subscribe to standalone Hulu anymore. As of writing, a standalone Hulu subscription is $11.99/mo. with ads and $18.99/mo. without. A Disney+ subscription costs the same. Meanwhile, a Disney+/Hulu bundle is $12.99/mo. with ads and $19.99/mo. without. A bundle is only a dollar more than a standalone subscription, giving us a hint at what the newly combined streaming service may cost in the future.
So I’d say that all signs point to the two apps merging. Maybe the Hulu app branding won’t totally go away—maybe they’ll call it Hul-sney+. There’s probably a focus group workshopping new streaming service names right now, just as there’s probably one over at Paramount Skydance figuring out what Paramount+ will be called once it eats HBO Max.
At the very least, a combined Disney+/Hulu app would do away with the headache of so many Disney Bundle package varieties.
