Numerous exclusive original titles are disappearing from Disney+: you can only watch these films and series for a few more days

At the start, series like “Willow” or “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” got a lot of attention, movies like “Artemis Fowl”, which was originally planned for the cinema, the action movie “The Princess” or the remake “I’m dozen even cheaper” and numerous documentaries such as “Howard” about the legendary Disney songwriter Howard Ashman (including “The Little Mermaid”): all of this and much more disappear from Disney+. The time has already come on May 26, 2023.

Disney has so far only confirmed the cleanup itself, but is not giving details yet. However, the major American trade magazines have already discovered many titles, all of which are being removed from the streaming platform worldwide. Here is a list of selected and high-profile titles, but it is not exhaustive:

These films will disappear from Disney+ on May 26

• “Artemis poultry“
• “Black Beauty”
• “clouds”
• “The One and Only Ivan”
• “Howard“
• “Even cheaper by the dozen“
• “Magic Camp”
• “More Than Robots”
• “Rosaline”
• “Star Girl”
• “Stunt Man”
• “the princess“
• “Timmy Flop – Failure Across the Board”
• “Wolfgang”

These series will disappear from Disney+ on May 26

• “Great shot”
• “The best pizza”
• “The Secret Society of Benedict”
• “Doll Face”
• “Earth to Ned”
• “Everything Is Garbage”
• Just over
• “Little devil”
• “maggie”
• “gun”
• “Scott & Hutch”
• “Diary of a Future President”
• “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers“
• “The Starting Point”
• “The World According to Jeff Goldblum”
• “Under the Stars”
• “willow“
• “Y: The Last Man”

But why are so many Disney+ films and series disappearing? In addition, these are also exclusive titles that have actually been recorded for the streaming service, and for the most part cannot be viewed in any other way at the moment and can therefore not be viewed in the future. This is a phenomenon that has already been dubbed “The Streaming Purge” in the US.

That’s Behind “The Streaming Purge”

Warner made the start in the US, where numerous series and titles have disappeared from streaming service HBO Max in recent months, while they were only available there. It has long been speculated that Netflix will soon follow and that there will also be a major takedown campaign, in which numerous discontinued series and less successful films will disappear, similar to Disney +. The reason, of course, is money.

Than even though the films and series have been recorded for a long time, the services continue to cost them money And not just for storage space on the server. Creative people who once worked on it, for example, receive the so-called residuals, or royalties that are very low for streaming titles, but still exist. Most importantly, these costs can rise. It’s a major bone of contention in the current Hollywood writers’ strike.

That’s why streaming services are now starting to remove the titles that only a few people watch. It is therefore likely to be assumed that hardly anyone will cancel their subscription because they are no longer “The Secret Benedict Society“ on Disney+ … and almost no one takes out a new subscription anyway to catch up on two seasons of a canceled series.

Is there now a further evaluation of the deleted titles?

The absolutely overwhelming majority of titles on the verge of disappearing from Disney+ are exclusive there so far. That means: it will be nowhere to be seen in the future.

However, that may change and is likely another motive behind the removal. Although it cannot be assumed that they will all appear on DVD and/or Blu-ray at once (after all, there is not much interest), it is now easier to license them to, for example, small TV channels where people without Disney Plus subscribers, who don’t mind or don’t know that “Willow” ends after one season, are rediscovering the fantasy series for themselves.

For example, Disney itself is already shining in Germany on May 25″Timmy Flop – Failure across the boardat 8:15 p.m. on its own Disney Channel. Many of the family films could continue to be used there. Some titles could come back in this and other ways, but whether that applies to everyone and is more than just partially the case in TV broadcasts, for example, is the big question.

The dark side of the streaming era

Overall, “The Streaming Purge” shows a problem that goes far beyond the current Disney+ example that many have warned about early on: The model of filling your own platform with content over and over again, as Netflix in particular has done so far, is not sustainable. No one can view all of this content. At a certain point there will be so many titles that hardly anyone will watch them anymore and that will only add to the costs. And when these are then erased, as is partially the case now, they are gone forever, unlike the age of physical media.

Because DVDs and Blu-rays are no longer reproduced if there is no demand for them, but the old ones are still in circulation. Fans who bought the titles still own them. If you really want to get a movie, you can find it on the used market. Here too there were titles that were simply not available, but these were exceptions. In the streaming era, many films and series are now in danger of disappearing forever.