WIRE Buzz: Disney+ taking preorders; Frankie Muniz in middle of horror trailer; more

Subscription services are the talk of the day, as Disney+ has begun accepting preorders for its content leviathan.

Available on its website for $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year, Disney+’s Star Wars, Marvel, and classic Disney offerings can be at fans’ fingertips — as soon as it launches on Nov. 12, that is. There’s a free week trial included with the offer, which cut its own brief promotional video on Twitter:

Though there doesn’t seem to be too much incentive to preorder the subscription — especially since a bundle with Hulu and ESPN+ is coming on Nov. 12 — fans that know what they want can save the few minutes of sign-up time so they can check out The Mandalorian earlier than anyone else.

Genre fans can check out SYFY WIRE’s list of all the good stuff heading to Disney+ here.

Google is following suit today with a subscription service of its own, only with games. Aiming to compete with Apple Arcade, which launched last week, Google Play Pass will include hundreds of games under a similar pricing plan — no Apple devices required.

The $4.99-a-month service ($1.99 if fans sign up before Oct. 10) offers five shared logins rather than six, and no exclusive games, but the idea is the same: Gamers can stream favorites to their devices from the Google library. According to The Hollywood Reporter, fan-favorite games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Stardew Valley, and more are available at launch, with new titles coming each month.

This mobile service will lead up to Google’s hopefully revolutionary service Stadia, which aims to make game streaming an industry standard upon its November launch. Mobile games are one thing, but bringing AAA games to anything that can run Google Chrome? Well, gamers will have to wait and see how it all works out.

Finally, a new horror movie puts Malcolm in the middle — of a psychological nightmare. The Black String, a horror film from director Brian Hanson (who co-wrote with Richard Handley), stars Frankie Muniz as a man affected by a tempting woman. Sounds normal ... until his mind begins to unravel, freaking out family and friends. Something dark is going on in this trailer — and it’s not just the late-night infomercial.

Check it out:

R-rated, gory, and with a “sex will kill you” stance right out of a teenage slasher, The Black String should look familiar. And that’s not a bad thing.

"The Black String is made for anybody who has felt lonely, isolated, stuck in a dead-end situation and desperate for companionship,” Hanson said in a release. “This movie is also made for genre fans who love Lovecraftian themes, body horror, paranoia and a dose of trans-dimensional witchcraft. Like two sides of a coin, this film flips between two possibilities, is Jonathan suffering from mental illness or is he the hapless victim of an evil occult conspiracy?"

So Shutter Island meets every witchy film under the harvest moon — sounds like a perfect fit for horror junkies.

The Black String connects us all upon its digital and DVD release Sept. 24.