Disney Set To Pull At Least 50 Titles, Many Of Them Originals, From Disney+ And Hulu

Christine McCarthy, you're on all our watches

During Disney’s latest earnings call on May 10, Disney Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy announced that "certain content" would be removed from their streaming platforms, with Disney expecting a write-down/impairment charge of $1.5-$1.8 billion next quarter. She stated “We are in the process of reviewing the content on our DTC services to align with the strategic changes in our approach to content curation”.

On Thursday, people got a glimpse of what that looks like for Disney+ and Hulu, with the expected removal date being May 26. At the time, it was more definitive, but in the time since, there have been titles spared but a lot more have been added.

The list of original series currently marked for removal on Disney+ is

• Big Shot, featuring John Stamos as a temperamental college basketball coach who is fired and relocates to California to coach an elite high school girls’ basketball. (2 seasons, 20 episodes)

• Turner & Hooch, the sequel series to the 1989 film which sees Turner’s son, played by Josh Peck, inherit Hooch, and they discover that the death may not have been so peaceful (1 season, 12 episodes)

• The Mysterious Benedict Society, starring Tony Hale and Kristen Schaal, where Mr. Benedict (Hale) gathers four children to stop a global emergency (2 seasons, 16 episodes)

• The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, sequel series to the Mighty Ducks film trilogy starring Lauren Graham (2 seasons, 20 episodes)

• Willow, Lucasfilm’s 2022 sequel TV series to their 1988 fantasy film starring Warwick Davis (8 episodes)

  • The Making Of Willow, its behind the scenes documentary

• Diary of a Future President (2 seasons, 20 episodes)

• Just Beyond, the most recent R.L. Stine horror anthology series. (8 episodes) Disney+ is set to get a new Goosebumps series inspired by the films

• The World According to Jeff Goldblum, a launch title highly touted at the time (2 seasons, 22 episodes)

• Marvel’s Project Hero

• The Quest, a reality show from 2014 on ABC rebooted last May for the service (8 episodes)

• The Right Stuff, a limited series drama about how the US space program grew

• The Real Right Stuff

• Encore! Launch title hosted by Kristen Bell where elders return to musical theater. Started as an ABC special (12 episodes)

• America the Beautiful

• Weird But True! Using crafting with paper products, the Engelman siblings explore "weird but true" things about a broad range of subjects, mostly focusing on science. Moved from National Geographic Kids for season 3 (3 seasons, 43 episodes)

• Be Our Chef (11 episodes)

• Earth to Ned, a talk show starring Paul Rugg (Freakazoid!) as the voice of an alien trying to learn about Earth, the planet he fell too in love with to invade. Made by The Jim Henson Company, feels very Farscape-y in design (one two-part season, 20 episodes)

• Foodtastic (11 episodes)

• Disney Fairy Tale Weddings

• Wolfgang

• It’s a Dog’s Life with Bill Farmer, a show about dogs hosted by Disney’s biggest dog, the voice of Goofy and Pluto (10 episodes)

• The Big Fib (30 episodes)

• Rogue Trip

• Shop Class (8 episodes)

• Pick of the Litter (6 episodes

• Among the Stars

• Harmonious Live!

• Pentatonix: Around the World for the Holidays

• Cheaper by the Dozen, the remake starring Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union

• The One and Only Ivan, based on the 2012 children's novel of the same name by K. A. Applegate, Oscar-nominated for visual effects, stars Ramón Rodríguez, Ariana Greenblatt, and Bryan Cranston, and the voices of Sam Rockwell as Ivan with producer Angelina Jolie, Danny DeVito, Helen Mirren, Brooklynn Prince, Chaka Khan, Ron Funches, Phillipa Soo, and Mike White

• Stargirl

• Hollywood Stargirl, Stargirl’s 2022 sequel

• Flora & Ulysses, a film about a comic book enthusiast girl who meets a seemingly superpowered squirrel. Features four castmembers from the DuckTales reboot animated series in supporting roles

• Artemis Fowl, the derided book series adaptation

• Black Beauty, a remake of the horse story

• Timmy Failure

• Better Nate Than Ever

• Magic Camp, starring Adam DeVine and Gillian Jacobs. filmed in 2017 and intended for a 2018 theatrical release that was canceled. By the time it became a Disney+ original film released in 2020, its star Josie Totah had come out and transitioned.

• Clouds a film about a young musician who gets cancer

• More Than Robots

• Stuntman

• Own the Room, a NatGeo documentary film about five students competing in the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards for a grand prize

The list of Hulu titles include

• Y: The Last Man, from FX on Hulu

• Pistol an FX on Hulu title

• Little Demon, an FXX animated series featuring Aubrey Plaza as Chrissy, Satan’s daughter

• Maggie, a sitcom ABC had no room for its schedule so it was semi-quietly shuffled off to Hulu

• Dollface

• The Hot Zone

• The Premise

• Love in the Time of Corona, a Freeform original

• Everything’s Trash, a Freeform original

• Best in Snow

• Best in Dough

• Darby and the Dead

• Rosaline

And the National Geographic titles on Hulu that are leaving

• National Geographic Investigates: LSD and Psychedelics

• 9/11: One Day in America

• The Armstrong Tapes

• Bin Laden’s Hard Drive

• Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller

• Drug Lords: The Next Generation

• Extreme Rescues

• Most Wanted Sharks

• Locked Up Abroad

• North Korea: Inside the Mind of a Dictator

• To Catch A Smuggler Rome

• The Princess

Also listed are other National Geographic titles like Life Below Zero: Next Generation, Ultimate Survival WWII, Buried Secrets of WWII, and The Croc That Ate Jaws. They are available on Disney+ in the United States, but listed under Hulu in the updated list from the source. Howard, the documentary about The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin songwriter Howard Ashman was saved from removal after initially being marked for removal the day The Little Mermaid’s live-action remake is set to hit theaters, with his songs, and just before Pride in June. The backlash led a company representative to clarify that the list was being finalized. Many of the NatGeo titles were not on the list at the time. Since then, A Spark Story, Marvel’s MPower and Marvel’s Voices Rising: The Music of Wakanda Forever were also spared.

The company claims it’s a cost-cutting measure, but it’s more about circumventing paying residuals to cast and crew, and that’s why the Writers Guild of America is striking and one from SAG-AFTRA looms. Never forget that.

Source: Deadline