You might want to hurry up and watch a Disney Plus or Hulu show you’ve always wanted to see before they remove it from their platforms. Deadline reported that Disney was about to remove dozens (and a few movies) from the streaming services. These include Willow, Y: The Last Man and Turner & Hooch as part of its broader cost-cutting initiatives.
Disney CEO Bob Iger, and Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy announced their plans to remove certain content from the streaming services during Disney’s Q2 earnings report earlier in this month. This was after it was revealed that Disney Plus lost 4 million subscribers within the first three-months of 2023.
McCarthy said on the company’s earnings call that Disney will pay an impairment charge between $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion in order to remove the removed content. According to variety Iger is targeting $3 billion in savings by 2023, after spending nearly $30 billion on Disney Plus content last year.
Disney reversed its plans to remove certain content following backlash. The company had planned to remove Howard a documentary on Howard Ashman who was a gay writer of Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. According Deadline the company won’t remove the film. A company representative stated that “the list is still being finalized of the titles coming off Hulu and Disney+ in the next week.”
Disney’s decision is a cost-saving move, similar to HBO Max or Showtime that have made similar moves to avoid paying for titles in the library that are not performing well. The revival of Ron Howard’s 1988 fantasy movie of the same title, Willow is included in the list of shows that are being removed, despite it only having started airing on November. Disney heavily promoted many series, including Willow or The World According To Jeff Goldblum. They gave us six months. John Bickerstaff , a writer for Willow , responded to the news on Twitter by saying “Not even.” This business has become cruel.
Disney has had a tough couple of years in terms of its economic outlook. This content removal wave is a result of that. In the first half of this year, the company announced plans to restructuring key parts. Disney was reluctant to buy out Comcast’s 33 percent stake of Hulu in 2019 as it had planned. It also announced recently the closure its ridiculously expensive Star Wars themed hotel experience.
According to deadline, the following titles will be removed from Disney Plus on May 26th.
Disney Plus:
- Big Shot
- Turner & Hooch
- The Mysterious Benedict Society
- The Mighty Ducks – Game Changers
- Willow
- The Making Of Willow
- Diary of a future President
- Just Beyond
- The World According To Jeff Goldblum
- Marvel’s Project Hero
- Marvel’s MPower
- Marvel’s Voices Rising – The Music of Wakanda Forever
- Rosaline
- Cheaper by the Dozen remake
- The One and Only Ivan
- Stargirl
- Artemis Fowl
- The Princess
- Encore!
- Spark Story
- Black Beauty
- Clouds
- America the Beautiful
- Better Than Ever
- It’s Weird, but it’s True!
- Timmy Failure
- Be Our Chef
- Magic Camp
- Howard
- Earth to Ned
- Foodtastic
- Stuntman
- Disney Fairy Tale Weddings
- Wolfgang
- Bill Farmer’s It’s a dog’s life
- The Real Right Stuff
- The Big Fib
- Rogue Trip
- More Than Robots
- Shop Class
- Pick up the Litter
- Own the Room
- The Stars
- Harmonious Live!
- Pentatonix – Around the World in the Holidays
Hulu:
- Y: The last man
- Pistol
- Little Demon
- Maggie
- Dollface
- The Hot Zone
- The Premise
- Love in Corona
- All Trash
- Best in Snow
- Best in Dough
- Darby and the Dead
- The Quest
