It is already considered “The Streaming Purge”, the great purge: After HBO Max now Disney+ cleans up its offer mighty, soon possibly follows Netflix. And there are a lot of titles that are already disappearing from Disney Plus in just a few days.
Series like “Willow” or “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” that received a lot of attention at the start, films like “Artemis Fowl” that was once actually planned for the cinema, the actioner “The Princess” or the remake “Cheaper by the Dozen” that was not released until 2022, and numerous documentaries: All of them and many more are supposedly disappearing from Disney+. As early as May 26, 2023, the time has come.
Disney has so far only confirmed the clean-up action itself, but has not yet given any details. However, the major US industry magazines have already been able to get hold of many titles that the Mouse House has communicated to partner companies and that are all to be deleted from the streaming platform worldwide. Here is a list of selected and high-profile titles that are to disappear according to the US industry magazines. However, this list is not exhaustive and is subject to change:
Update: Disney has meanwhile announced that the documentary “Howard” about the legendary Disney songwriter Howard Ashman (among others “Ariel, the Mermaid”), which was originally also part of the listing, will not be removed. The alleged deletion of the documentary caused a lot of criticism because Ashman’s work played a significant role in the new upswing of Disney animated films at the end of the 1980s/beginning of the 1990s (the so-called Disney renaissance) and the documentary was supposed to disappear when the remake of “Arielle” was released. That the doc about LGBTQ icon Ashman would also disappear right before Pride Month drew further criticism. According to Disney’s statement to Deadline, the final track list is still being updated anyway, so there may still be changes.
Disney+’s documentary’Howard’ will not be removed from the service. “The list of titles coming off of Hulu and Disney+ next week is still being finalized ,” a rep for the company said, indicating that there could be additional changes https://t.co/0ePCWcdpMP
– Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) May 19, 2023
But why are so many movies and series disappearing from Disney+? In addition, these are also exclusive titles that were actually shot for the streaming service, and for the most part currently on no other way and therefore in the future can not be watched at all. Behind this is a phenomenon that has already been dubbed “The Streaming Purge” in the U.S.
THIS IS BEHIND “THE STREAMING PURGE “
In the U.S., Warner made the beginning, where already in recent months numerous series and titles disappeared from streaming service HBO Max, although they were only available there. It has long been speculated that Netflix will soon follow suit and that a major deletion action will also take place there, with numerous cancelled series and less successful films disappearing in a similar way to Disney+. The reason is, of course, money.
Even if the films and series have long since been shot, they continue to cost the services money – and not just for storage space on the server. Creatives who once worked on them, for example, get the so-called residuals, or royalties, which are very low for streaming titles, but still exist. Most importantly, these costs could go up. It’s a big point of contention in the current Hollywood screenwriters* strike.
As a result, streaming services are now starting to delete the titles that are only watched by a few people. So one probably suspects that hardly anyone will cancel their subscription because they can now no longer watch “The Secret Benedict Society” on Disney+ … and hardly anyone will take out a new subscription to catch up on two seasons of a canceled series anyway.
