Well, it turns out that Hulu and Disney Plus are Born to Run.
After the success of Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) and The Beatles: Get Back, Disney’s streaming services are getting a documentary flick from The Boss. Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will land on both Hulu and Disney Plus in October 2024 – an exact premiere date will be shared closer to launch.
The forthcoming flick will take viewers behind the scenes of The Boss’s 2023-2024 world tour, all the way back to its inception as Springsteen and the E Street Band shape the show and prep for the tour. Road Diary promises to offer glimpses of the first rehearsals in Red Bank, New Jersey, as well as high-res footage from concerts and behind-the-scenes moments.
You’ll also hear from Springsteen himself, and band members, discussing the rehearsal process, the live experience, and “how they keep the magic of The E Street Band as potent as ever.” The film will also pair modern concert moments with archival footage.
Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band was directed by Thom Zimny, who has worked with Springsteen several times – including for Western Stars and Springsteen on Broadway – and is both an Emmy and Grammy winner. Producers for the film include Springsteen himself, Jon Landau, Adrienne Gerard, and Sean Stuart.
The film itself is a welcome addition to Springsteen’s autobiography Born to Run, as well as the Springsteen on Broadway, Western Stars, and Letter to You films. For fans of Springsteen, it will pull behind the curtain of how the setlist is shaped – and maybe how the band is so skilled at handling Springsteen’s off-the-cuff changes to the playlist and interactions with the crowd – as well as the themes encompassing the tour and a true look at the creative process.
Seeing glimpses of rehearsals, how song arrangements are produced, and more spur-of-the-moment at-venue decisions is especially exciting. The news of this documentary comes as the band wraps a United States leg that featured 60 different songs across 11 shows, and kicks off a 25-show run in Europe. It’s unclear if we’ll see moments from these last few shows, including what was by all accounts a particularly epic opening night in Cardiff, Wales. Still, given that it’s set to stream in October and a trailer has not yet been released, more recent footage could be incorporated.
From a streaming service perspective, this will be the first appearance of a Springsteen film on Disney+ and Hulu. Springsteen on Broadway dropped on Netflix in December 2018, and Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You premiered in 2020 on Apple TV Plus. Western Stars did get a theatrical release, but is not currently on a streaming service.