If you haven't caught up with every episode of Willow yet, you'd better hurry: it's one of dozens of shows that'll be pulled from streaming at the end of this month. Disney is removing all kinds of shows from Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK.
According to Deadline, Disney hasn't said why the content is being killed off. But more than 50 shows are going, and the consensus is that it's all about saving money: Disney is famously undergoing a massive cost-cutting exercise and it wants to get shot of shows that don't bring in enough viewers to justify paying for them. Most of the shows are pretty old, but Willow is a surprise: it only started streaming in November.
So which shows are going? Here's the list according to Deadline.
What shows are being pulled from Disney+ in May 2023?
- A Spark Story
- America the Beautiful
- Artemis Fowl
- Be Our Chef
- Best in Dough
- Best in Snow
- Better Nate Than Ever
- Big Shot
- Black Beauty
- Cheaper by the Dozen
- Clouds
- Darby and the Dead
- Diary of a Future President
- Disney Fairy Tale Weddings
- Dollface
- Earth to Ned
- Encore!
- Everything’s Trash
- Foodtastic
- Howard
- It’s a Dog’s Life with Bill Farmer
- Just Beyond
- Little Demon
- Love in the Time of Corona
- Maggie
- Magic Camp
- Marvel’s MPower
- Marvel’s Project Hero
- Marvel’s Voices Rising: The Music of Wakanda Forever
- Pistol
- Rosaline
- Stargirl
- Stuntman
- The Hot Zone
- The Making Of Willow
- The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers
- The Mysterious Benedict Society
- The One and Only Ivan
- The Premise
- The Princess
- The Quest
- The World According to Jeff Goldblum
- Timmy Failure
- Turner & Hooch
- Weird but True!
- Willow
- Wolfgang
- Y: The Last Man
It's a lot, I know. But in all honesty there are plenty here I hadn't heard of, and plenty more I'd forgotten about; the fact that pretty much all coverage mentions Willow but not, er, the remake of Cheaper By The Dozen does suggest that these departures aren't going to have the average Disney+ subscriber weeping and wailing. But it's part of a wider trend that's seeing lots of content disappear from streaming services, and that trend also includes streamers being much more ruthless with new shows: Netflix may get the lion's share of criticism for canning current shows, but all the other streamers are at it too.
I don't think this is going to change any time soon, so if you're a fan of older shows I think it's wise to assume that their online presence is strictly temporary: if you want ongoing access, it might be best to buy the box set instead.
