Looking to further trim EBITDA losses on video streaming in its current fiscal third quarter, Disney said in an SEC filing a month ago that it expects to write down as much as $400 million as it removes more original movies and TV shows from Disney Plus and Hulu.
And making one of its more conspicuous trims to date, the conglomerate just took down a teen-targeted original movie from Disney Plus that cost a reported $53.4 million to produce and was only on the platform for 48 days.
A teen-casted drama set on a moon base in the year 2257, Crater features, in the words of our sibling pub TechRadar, a "schlocky coming-of-age narrative."
But evidenced by the 64% Rotten Tomatoes score, the reviews weren't terrible.
Earlier this year, Disney pulled more than 50 titles from Disney Plus and Hulu, including recent series The World According to Jeff Goldblum, Y: The Last Man, The Mysterious Benedict Society, Dollface, The Mighty Ducks, Turner & Hooch, Willow, Maggie, Dollface and Cheaper by the Dozen.
It's a cost-cutting strategy that's been widely adopted by both Silicon Valley and Hollywood entertainment companies since August of last year, when then newly minted Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav shockingly whacked a $90 million movie shot just for the erstwhile HBO Max, Batgirl, in order to save on taxes, royalties and other costs.
But the brevity of Crater's Disney Plus lifespan stands out.
According to The Independent, Crater was accompanied in its June 30 subscription streaming exit by Alaska Daily, the ABC series starring Hilary Swank as a grizzled newspaper reporter (is there any other kind now?), which was cancelled by the network in May before just getting jettisoned by Hulu.
Two other Disney-produced series that didn't make it beyond their first seasons, ABC's Company You Keep and Freeform's The Watchful Eye, are getting the boot from Hulu in July, Disney told The Independent.
