In Move Reminiscent of ‘Batgirl’ Cancelation, Disney+ Pulls Original Movie ‘Crater’ Just 7 Weeks After Release
Disney+ fans can be forgiven for wondering just what will disappear from the service next. It’s been nearly two months since Disney executives announced during a conference call with investors and analysts that it would start removing titles from its streaming services in order to cut costs. In that time, dozens of titles have been pulled from Disney+ and Hulu.
The news of cuts continued this week, as Disney has made its most brazen content removal yet. Its original movie “Crater” has been taken off Disney+, a mere seven weeks after it was originally added to the platform on May 12. “Crater” now joins Disney and Hulu titles like “Willow” and “The Mysterious Benedict Society” on the discard pile. Neither title is currently available digitally or on physical media.
The elimination of “Crater” from Disney+ is highly reminiscent of Warner Bros. Discovery’s cancelation of its streaming-exclusive movie “Batgirl.” That film never even made it to Max (HBO Max at the time), having been mothballed by company executives despite being nearly finished. That allowed WBD to mark the film as a $90 million tax write-off, and Disney’s reasoning behind the removal of “Crater” could be similar.
The film had a budget of around $53.4 million, though Disney may not be able to write off that entire number, as it did actually release the film before tossing it in the can. A sum of more than $50 million may seem like a big number to the casual observer, but Disney is grappling with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from its streaming segment alone every quarter. Its financial issues are being felt company-wide, as evidenced by an estimated 7,000 layoffs across Disney departments, including numerous high-profile ESPN reporters last week.
Fans of Disney streamers will need to hold on a bit longer, as the cuts may not be over just yet. In an SEC filing, the company said it expected to face one-time impairment charges of nearly $2 billion for taking all this content off its platforms. The filing stated that Disney expected cuts to continue through the fiscal quarter which ended June 30, so while the bulk of cuts is likely over, there may be a handful of removals announced in the next few weeks.
It’s hard to say if “Crater” will get another life elsewhere. Paramount Global has promised it will shop its canceled TV series from Paramount+ to other streamers to see if they’ll catch on, but there has been no such promise from Disney. There are plenty of Disney-owned free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels, but the company does not have a FAST service of its own to put the movie on immediately.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”