By Hoai-Tran Bui/Feb. 22, 2019 11:00 am EST

In an extensive interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Horn spoke about the ambitious plans for the future of Disney. The House of Mouse is going through some major change as it prepares to enter the streaming wars and complete its biggest studio acquisition ever. Will the Disney brand stay the same even as its properties become more diverse? Yes, the Walt Disney Studios chief said.

20th Century Fox, who is behind such films as the Oscar-nominated Bohemian Rhapsody, the box office behemoth Avatar, and others, generally has fewer qualms about adult-oriented fare than Disney, which has had to maintain a family-friendly standard for much of its history. “To take over a major motion picture studio with a storied history and a hundred years of history is a very bold move,” Horn said. “And the second reaction was, ‘OK, how do we assimilate this into one company and have it function productively, and how do we actually make this work in practice going forward?’”

But will that hands off approach continue? Disney began much that same way with its other studios Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Pixar, but there’s no denying that a more family-friendly bent has begun to proliferate in Marvel and Star Wars movies. But perhaps that will change as Disney continues to expand into streaming with Disney+.

Take Bohemian Rhapsody, which is PG-13. It’s a hit movie and very, very good. But there’s no way we could make it under the Disney label because the characters smoke cigarettes and other content. Nor could we have made [Warner Bros.’ R-rated] Oscar-winning Argo because the characters smoke and use the F-word. We always have to think about the smoking policy.

What to Look Forward to With Disney+

With Disney+, Horn said that the company can begin taking risks again. “The thing about these big movies is they get a lot of attention, whether positive or negative,” Horn said. “So when they don’t work, like Solo, the media says it’s a failure.” Now Disney+ is a chance for all the studios, not just Disney, to use the streaming service to test out new ideas that could be financial or creative risks. Horn said:

Disney+ is expected to launch sometime this year.