It was announced a while back that Disney would take another look at how their streaming model works. Apparently, content removal is a part of that.
It’s not abnormal for streaming services to add and remove featured content. That’s pretty much the norm. But when you look at something like Netflix, the reason that usually happens is that the license that Netflix has to stream any given piece of content ends after a finite time frame. When that license expires, Netflix no longer has the rights to host the content.
That same principle doesn’t really apply to Disney+, since they’re streaming films and shows from the Disney (and now Fox) libraries which they essentially control forever. But as we saw Warner Bros. Discovery do with HBO Max recently, Disney can also remove content from streaming in order to take an “impairment charge” and then write-off of certain content-related expenses for tax purposes. And that’s what Disney+ has done in recent days, removing a dozen notable recent movies from streaming.
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The list of films on the chopping block is as follows: Artemis Fowl, Better Nate Than Never, Black Beauty, the 2022 remake of Cheaper by the Dozen, Darby And The Dead, Flora & Ulysses, Stargirl, Hollywood Stargirl, Magic Camp, The One And Only Ivan, Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, and Wolfgang.
Granted, most of these films were not major hits. (A few, like Artemis Fowl, were major critical flops.) But as these were largely films made expressly for Disney+, many of them haven’t received any sort of physical release. Which means by taking them off streaming, they are essentially lost until Disney releases them in some other form or fashion.
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