According to a Deadline report, Disney is preparing to remove over 50 series and specials from Disney Plus and Hulu starting next week published on Thursday. Disney announced its intent to remove content on a earnings conference call last week. Titles that will soon be removed from Disney Plus and Hulu include: pasture, Y: The last man, Diary of a future President, The Mysterious Benedict Society, Little demon, star girl.
On the earnings call, Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said the removal of the series and films should be “consistent with strategic changes in our approach to content curation.” and that the company would expect to “absorb approximately $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion in impairment.” The move echoes decisions by Warner Bros. Discovery, which removed content from HBO Max last year for financial reasons, but with a few key differences: There’s no news yet on whether any of the streaming-exclusive titles will be removed from their respective services will be made available for purchase, rent, or streaming on other services. The makers behind the shows and films are also groping in the dark.
“Devastated that the movie poured me out [heart emoji] & soul into is leaving @DisneyPlus,” Stargirl writer-director Julia Hart tweeted following the news.
I am devastated that the film I put all my heart and soul into is going @disneyplus. Watch while you can! Proud of the work my amazing colleagues and I have done. I was 8 weeks postpartum when we started. The process was worth the sacrifice even if the outcome wasn’t. Concentrate on the process. Always. pic.twitter.com/Ft2nOjddZl
— Julia Hart (@juliahartowitz) May 19, 2023
“Well you work on something for years and put your heart and soul into it just like hundreds of other artists,” he tweeted Y: The last man Showrunner Eliza Clark. “You make it during a global pandemic, far from home. Then it’s canceled before it can even finish airing. Then it disappeared…”
If you haven’t seen Y The Last Man yet (or want to see it again), you have until May 26th. It’s really good. Amazing work by talented people at their best. Really. ten episodes. please look https://t.co/Db0R4BIHQ0
— Eliza Clark (@TheElizaClark) May 18, 2023
In addition to announcing that Disney would soon be removing content from streaming platforms, Disney CEO Bob Iger told investors that the company plans to make Hulu content available on Disney Plus by the end of the year, while doing a similar “One App Experience” approach to Warner Bros. Discovery’s move to integrate the Discovery Plus streaming library with HBO Max, renaming the latter “Max.” Iger also announced that Disney intends to increase the price of the ad-free tier of Disney Plus to “better reflect the value of our content offerings.” This follows a report a loss of 4 million subscribers for Disney Plus in the last three months.
Disney’s decision comes amid the Writers Guild of America contract negotiations and subsequent strike. One of the key items on the table is the payment of balances to streaming content creators. While the sudden decision to remove shows, films and specials from streaming services in order to claim a tax write-off may not be entirely related to the strike, it comes at a crucial time for the entertainment industry.
Courtesy of VarietyHere’s a list of titles expected to be available on Disney Plus and Hulu starting May 26:
DisneyPlus
- America the beautiful
- Under the stars
- Artemis Fowl
- Be our chef
- Better Nate than ever
- The big fib
- closeup
- Black Beauty
- Cheaper by the dozen (2022)
- Clouds
- Diary of a future President
- Disney fairy tale weddings
- Earth to Ned
- encore!
- Precious
- Harmonious Live!
- Howard
- It’s a dog’s life with Bill Farmer
- Only over
- magic camp
- The Making of Willow
- The Mighty Ducks
- Marvel’s Hero Project
- Marvel’s MPower
- More than robots
- The Mysterious Benedict Society
- The one and only Ivan
- Own the space
- Pentatonix: Around the World on Holidays
- Choice of litter
- The princess
- The real thing
- villain trip
- Rosaline
- shop class
- A Spark story
- Star Girl (2020)
- Stuntman
- Great/natural
- Timmy failure
- Turner & Hooch
- Strange but true!
- pasture
- wolfgang
- The world according to Jeff Goldblum
hulu
- Best in dough
- Best in the snow
- Darby and the dead
- doll face
- Everything is garbage
- little demon
- Love in times of Corona
- maggie
- gun
- The condition
- The pursuit
- Y: The last man