Disney’s burning down big chunks of its Disney+ and Hulu streaming libraries

In a move called out as “absolutely cruel” by one of the writers whose work is being affected, Disney announced on a recent earnings call that it’ll be cutting dozens of TV shows and movies, all Disney+ or Hulu originals, from their respective streaming services. Titles affected include Willow, reality series The World According To Jeff Goldblum, Hulu’s Y: The Last Man, and many more, all set to disappear from the streaming libraries as soon as next week.

The move is, of course, inescapably reminiscent of Warner Media’s treatment of HBO Max over the last two years, as executives at both companies are apparently attempting to shake loose the idea that part of what consumers get when they subscribe to these (increasingly pricy) services is an ever-growing and stable library of original content. All of these shows and films were already released, so there’s nothing quite so egregious as Warner’s David Zaslav killing off nearly-completed movies as tax write-offs, but both companies have shown a complete willingness to strip content from their services for seemingly arbitrary reasons.

Sometimes, as in the case of shows like Willow and Tony Hale’s The Mysterious Benedict Society, these cuts are occurring after letting some of their content exist on the streaming services for as little as six months. (Willow aired its final episode in January.) As usual, no specific reason was given for the cuts, beyond this sentence from CFO Christine McCarthy, which we encourage any corporate enlightenment seekers in our audience to adopt as a new buzzword koan: “We are in the process of reviewing the content on our DTC services to align with the strategic changes in our approach to content curation.” Ponder it. Seek its meaning!

Here’s a list of the shows, movies, and specials getting the cut, per Variety. Reminder that these aren’t licensed shows that Disney’s losing access to, one of those necessary evils of the streaming era that we’ve all just sort of gotten used to; these are Disney-created projects designed specifically for its libraries: