Hey Michael! As someone who loves digging for gold in the depths of Disney+ (has anyone ever watched the 1971 family comedy Million Dollar Duck?), it has come to my attention that the streaming service has been removing quite a few films and TV shows and some people are getting pretty sore about it. What’s going on?
First of all, I am not convinced that the 1971 family comedy Million Dollar Duck is a real movie even if Disney+ says it is. Plenty of other extremely real shows and films, on the other hand, are no longer available on the platform. On 10 May, Disney CFO, Christine McCarthy, made the ominous announcement that they would be “removing certain content from streaming platforms”.
Classic titles bounce around streaming services all the time because of rights negotiations – but Disney+ was removing content that they made. Soon 76 titles, many of them high-profile offerings, disappeared from the Disney-owned streaming services Disney+ and Hulu. These include: remakes of Black Beauty and Cheaper by the Dozen; Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of the YA fantasy lodestar Artemis Fowl; the TV show of the classic fantasy film Willow; and the docuseries The World According to Jeff Goldblum. And more!
But it’s not just Disney+ right?
As much as I love to blame the house of mouse, this is industry-wide. Paramount+ has removed its Twilight Zone revival, helmed by Jordan Peele, as well as its ill-fated Grease remake Rise of the Pink Ladies and Star Trek spin-off Prodigy. HBO Max said goodbye to Westworld and Minx. Showtime cut the Jeff Daniels crime drama American Dust; Starz bid farewell to the period drama Dangerous Liaisons. Netflix, which has inured its users to frequent cycles of content disappearing from the system, drew headlines earlier this year when it announced that it would be removing Arrested Development, the last two seasons of which were made by Netflix – though that decision was later reversed.
Why are they doing it?
One answer is that it’s a cost-cutting measure: removing content from their libraries enables streamers to write them off as losses at tax time and pay out less in residuals – the fees paid to actors, writers, directors, and other creatives when TV shows and films are broadcast. Some streaming services have also tried to sell their titles to other companies: the free, ad-supported platform Tubi, for example, is now streaming HBO’s Westworld and FBoy Island in the US. Some HBO shows are now being shopped to Netflix.
But another is that the streaming industry is entering its flop era. The bubble around the streaming boom of the 2010s has well and truly burst: last year Netflix reported its first subscriber loss in a decade. But at least it managed to swing an overall profit, unlike its competitors: in the last quarter of 2022, Disney’s streaming services lost $1.05bn; Warner Bros Discovery – which owns HBO Max – reported $217m in streaming losses.
But wasn’t part of the appeal of streaming services that we could watch anything we wanted, whenever we wanted?
Exactly! But like most things from the 2010s – say, planking or digital media – those halcyon days now feel like a distant fever dream. The streaming landscape is increasingly crowded; we all complain about the number of companies we have to subscribe to now just to have some breadth of access. That’s not to mention the marsh of rights issues which mean that some titles – classic, beloved, or niche – have just never been available on streaming! Luckily for you, Million Dollar Duck is not one of these titles.
How does this affect the people who make these shows and films?
The most obvious impact is that after shows and films are taken off streaming, all exposure for the people who worked on the titles vanishes into thin air. It’s often difficult to obtain a physical copy after a show has disappeared online, which means it’s then more difficult for creators to land other jobs based on their previous work.
One actor who appeared in HBO Max show Gordita Chronicles, said its cancellation and subsequent removal was like a break-up: “It’s an added punch to just say, ‘Now we’re going to wipe the evidence of you ever having been here.’” Other creatives have said that they received no warning. “You at least deserve to understand a little bit what’s happening with your work,” comedian Eliza Skinner told the Hollywood Reporter after Disney+ removed her alien comedy Earth to Ned. “But it’s a whole climate of devaluing.”
The other impact, of course, is financial. After a series is removed, creators stop receiving residual payments. This is actually one of the flashpoints in the current US writers’ strike: where broadcast television uses a “reward-for-success” model, which means writers can earn more money if their show is a hit, the same success matters little to streaming services, who pay flat fees based on a range of factors, including how long the show stays on the service and their own subscriber numbers (which they’re often hesitant to share). And when your show isn’t on a streaming service, you don’t get paid.
So if I want to watch, say, the 1971 family comedy Million Dollar Duck, should I maybe try to find a physical copy, to guarantee I can?
I will not be convinced that Million Dollar Duck is real until I see a physical copy. Where is the Million Dollar Duck Criterion release???
By 2045 we’re all going to be back browsing in new Blockbuster stores, aren’t we.
Quack quack.
