Disney will likely remove more content from Disney+ and Hulu in the coming months, all to save money on taxes. Reporters from Variety obtained a filing with the SEC last week where Disney explained why it had recently purged so many TV shows and movies from its streaming services. The company predicted that more removals would come later this year.
Disney informed the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it took a $1.5 billion impairment charge for removing dozens of titles from its streaming services last month. An impairment charge is essentially a tax write-off, meaning that Disney decided it would be more profitable to remove those titles than to keep them online. The filing also said that Disney “currently anticipates” removing more content in the third fiscal quarter of 2023 for the same purpose. Naturally, fans and media preservationists were horrified by the implications of this deal.
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Some of the titles Disney removed in May are not available anywhere else, and some never were at all. Disney+ originals like Willow were never released in a physical format like DVD or Blu-ray, meaning that there is now nowhere for fans to access them legally. That means media could be effectively lost forever, much like some of the earliest movies before film preservation became a public priority.
Disney may intend to put this content back onto streaming services eventually. The SEC filing seems to imply so, as it says that part of the purpose of their removal was “to adjust the carrying value of these content assets to fair value.” Still, this creates uncertain times for fans and critics, not to mention the casts and crews of these productions who will not be paid royalties for as long as their content can’t be viewed by anyone at all.
Over on social media, more and more commenters are wondering how Disney is able to get such a large writeoff for these productions – and why the federal government is accepting those terms. Many are speculating that Disney is following a precedent set by Warner Bros. last year and that more streamers will follow suit. They argue that it should not be legal, and that if the corporation truly feels it invested its money poorly it should have to suffer the consequences.
Disney removed over 50 titles last month including The Mysterious Benedict Society, Dollface and The One and Only Ivan, to name a few. there’s no word on what else might be on the chopping block later this year, but many fans say they have a renewed interest in collecting DVDs and Blu-rays.
