‘Willow’ and Several Other Original Films and Shows Are Being Removed From Disney Plus and Hulu; ‘Star Wars’ Safe From Cuts
Several streaming originals for both Disney Plus and Hulu, including Lucasfilm’s Willow sequel series, are being removed from the service to save on costs, with no word of where they may be seen again. If you want to check them out, then you have until May 26, or a week from today.
According to Deadline, Disney has opted to clean house on their library of streaming originals on two platforms by cutting down on unprofitable projects that don’t draw eyeballs to their streaming services. While Disney Plus was prided as being the end of the dreaded “Disney Vault” practice, it appears that the company has opted to bring it back to address the issues that there are with creating a massive streaming platform. This is coming as a result of many companies realizing that streaming is a very expensive business, and Disney has opted to take part in over a billion dollars in spending cuts to get their services closer to profitability. The strategy of indefinitely removing content cuts down on originals that costing money for little financial benefit to the streaming service, and also decrease the amount of residuals that they need to pay out to talent (which is perhaps not-so-coincidentally what writers are striking over right now).
Let’s get the good news out of the way, because there’s little of it: Star Wars fans have nothing to fear! None of the Disney Plus original programming for that franchise is getting affected. That means that their massive backlog of content – including the live-action shows The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Andor, the animated series The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch, Visions, Tales of the Jedi, and Young Jedi Adventures, the feature presentations The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special, LEGO Star Wars: Terrifying Tales, and LEGO Star Wars: Summer Vacation, the live-action and animated shorts Star Wars Biomes, Star Wars Vehicle Flythroughs, Star Wars: Galaxy of Sounds, Zen – Grogu and Dust Bunnies, Maggie Simpson in “The Force Awakens From Its Nap”, Maggie Simpson in “Rogue Not Quite One”, the behind-the-scenes documentaries Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, Star Wars: Visions Filmmaker Focus, Under The Helmet: The Legacy Of Boba Fett, Disney Gallery: The Book of Boba Fett, Light & Magic, and Obi-Wan Kenobi: A Jedi’s Return, and all of the legacy content that’s part of the Star Wars backlog – is all staying put, with no cuts. No future Star Wars programs that have been announced are being cancelled and written off for tax purposes, either.
When it comes to Lucasfilm, Willow and The Making of Willow happen to be the only casualties. Last we heard from Jon Kasdan, development on additional seasons of Willow were merely indefinitely postponed, with the cast and crew being released to work on other projects. In practical terms, however, this usually means that a show has been cancelled, even if they don’t call it that, and the latest move to pull the show from Disney Plus seems to be the nail in the coffin of the show continuing, despite there being plans for two additional seasons.
The full list of casualties for Disney Plus are as follows:
- Big Shot
- Turner & Hooch
- The Mysterious Benedict Society
- The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers
- Willow (2023)
- The Making Of Willow (2023)
- Diary of a Future President
- Just Beyond
- The World According to Jeff Goldblum
- Marvel’s Project Hero
- Marvel’s MPower
- Marvel’s Voices Rising: The Music of Wakanda Forever
- Cheaper by the Dozen (2022)
- The One and Only Ivan
- Stargirl
- Encore!
- A Spark Story
- Black Beauty
- Clouds
- Weird but True!
- Timmy Failure
- Be Our Chef
- Magic Camp
- Earth to Ned
- Foodtastic
- Stuntman
- Disney Fairy Tale Weddings
- Wolfgang
- It’s a Dog’s Life with Bill Farmer
- Best in Snow
- The Quest
- Artemis Fowl
- The Princess
- America The Beautiful
- Better Nate Than Never
- The Real Right Stuff
- The Big Fib
- Rogue Trip
- More Than Robots
- Shop Class
- Pick of the Litter
- Own the Room
- Among the Stars
- Harmonious Live!
- Pentatonix: Around the World for the Holidays
And the full list of casualties for Hulu are as follows:
- Rosaline
- The Premise
- Love in the Time of Corona
- Everything’s Trash
- Best in Dough
- Maggie
- Dollface
- The Hot Zone
- Y: The Last Man
- Pistol
- Little Demon
- Darby and the Dead
Bob Iger previously stated that the company plans for Disney Plus going forward will be to lean heavily into their biggest brands, like Marvel and Star Wars, so as it stands, it seems that their flagship releases will not be affected at all, and we’ll likely be getting more of them. Future content from them will likely not be subject to this treatment. As it stands, there is no indication as to what will happen to the cut movies and shows; they can either be put back into the dreaded Disney Vault to maybe resurface one day, or Disney can opt to license them out to other streamers like Roku or Tubi, much like Warner Bros. Discovery did with a number of original projects for HBO Max.
You have until May 26 before items on this list start getting pulled from Disney Plus and Hulu, so if any of these were on your “to-watch” list, then get cracking.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
