On May 26, Disney will remove many original materials from its streaming services, including Willow, Black Beauty (2020), and Y: The Last Man.
If there is a program that you have been meaning to watch on Disney Plus or Hulu, you should probably make it a priority to do so as soon as possible before it is permanently removed from both platforms. Willow, Y: The Last Man and Turner & Hooch are just some of the shows that will be removed from both of Disney’s streaming services, according to a report published by Deadline. This move will reportedly occur as part of the more extensive cost-cutting measures the entertainment giant is taking.
After disclosing that Disney Plus had lost 4 million members in the first three months of 2023, Disney CEO Bob Iger and chief financial officer Christine McCarthy revealed intentions to remove particular material from its streaming services earlier this month during the company’s earnings call for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2023.
McCarthy said at the company’s post-earnings conference: “We are reviewing the content on our DTC services to align with the strategic changes in our approach to content curation.” McCarthy also said that Disney anticipates the content withdrawals to result in a charge for content impairment between $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion. After spending roughly $30 billion on content for the Disney Plus streaming service the previous year, Iger reportedly has set a goal of $3 billion in savings for 2023. As a result of the outrage that it received over its decision to delete Howard, a documentary about Howard Ashman, a homosexual man who helped create the songs in Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, Disney has subsequently changed its mind about removing some of its material. Howard is a documentary about Howard Ashman, a gay man who helped write the songs in Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. A spokeswoman for the firm told Deadline that “the list of titles coming off of Hulu and Disney+ next week is still being finalized.” According to Deadline, the company will no longer take the picture down.
Following similar cost-cutting steps by HBO Max and Showtime to avoid paying out for underperforming library items, Disney has removed programming from its services. Given that it had just begun running in November, the presence of Willow on the list of series being canceled comes as somewhat of a surprise. The show is a revival of Ron Howard’s fantasy film of the same name, released in 1988. According to Jeff Goldblum, Disney has been quite active in promoting various shows, including Willow and The World. They allotted us six months. Not even the Willow author John Bickerstaff responded to the news on Twitter when it was announced. This industry has evolved into one that is brutal.
After a challenging couple of years for the company’s financial prospects, this round of content reductions was implemented. At the beginning of this year, the corporation made layoffs of 7,000 workers and announced intentions to reorganize essential aspects of the business. Disney has also been unwilling to buy out Comcast’s 33 percent ownership in Hulu as it wanted to do in 2019, and it just announced the closing of its excessively pricey Star Wars-themed hotel experience. Both of these events occurred in 2019.
According to Deadline, the following titles are scheduled to be pulled from both Disney Plus and Hulu on May 26:
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
- Wakanda Forever’s Music from Marvel’s Voices Rising
- Rosaline
- Cheaper by the Dozen remake
- The One and Only Ivan
- Stargirl
- Artemis Fowl
- The Princess
- Encore!
- A Spark Story
- Black Beauty
- Clouds
- America the Beautiful
- Better Nate Than Ever
- Weird but True!
- Timmy Failure
- Be Our Chef
- Magic Camp
- Howard
- Earth to Ned
- Foodtastic
- Stuntman
- Disney Fairy Tale Weddings
- Wolfgang
- It’s a Dog’s Life with Bill Farmer
- The Real Right Stuff
- The Big Fib
- Rogue Trip
- More Than Robots
- Shop Class
- Pick the Litter
- Own the Room
- Among the Stars
- Harmonious Live!
- Pentatonix: Around the World for the Holidays
Hulu:
- Y: The Last Man
- Pistol
- Little Demon
- Maggie
- Dollface
- The Hot Zone
- The Premise
- Love in the Time of Corona
- Everything’s Trash
- Best in Snow
- Best in Dough
- Darby and the Dead
- The Quest
Update, May 19, 5:42 PM Eastern Time: It has been brought to our attention that Disney no longer intends to terminate Howard’s employment.
