Warner Bros Discovery surprised viewers when a variety of titles were cancelled in an effort to receive tax breaks. Now Disney Plus has likewise removed numerous titles from its streaming service, allegedly to receive the same kind of tax breaks. This is part of Disney’s efforts to cut costs after years of spending large amounts of money.
Surprisingly, there have been a dozen films removed from the platform. This is a pretty huge number, especially since the films could be locked away forever. Especially if they hope to acquire tax breaks for them. Otherwise, they could appear on the streaming service at a later point in time, if they’re not licensed to another. Overall, we’ll just have to see what happens. But it’s certainly a major move at a time when both subscribers and industry employees are concerned about streaming services removing content forever.
Here’s the full list, via ComicBook, of just the feature films that have so far been removed from Disney Plus for the alleged tax breaks:
Artemis Fowl
Better Nate Than Never
Black Beauty
Cheaper by the Dozen
Darby and the Dead
Flora & Ulysses
Hollywood Stargirl
Magic Camp
Stargirl
The One and Only Ivan
Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made
Wolfgang
It’s worth noting that Disney has similarly made efforts to remove content from Hulu to save money. Furthermore, this has clearly become a massive purge which, if not used for tax breaks, could be a way for the company to save on paying residuals to the associated cast and crew. Either way, Disney is doing their best to save money.
Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional updates as we have them. It’s possible that we’ll see plenty of other titles removed in the future. Especially if this tactic proves fruitful for Disney and their cost-cutting efforts. Overall, though, it’s certainly a scary sight to have fully-released films removed from public access.