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Eliza Skinner had no idea that her Disney+ series Earth to Ned would be permanently taken off the platform until a text on the show’s writer group chat in mid-May shared an article about Disney removing more than 70 films and series from its streaming services that month. Among the disappearing titles was the comedic talk show — which launched in 2020 with Skinner as head writer — centering on an alien welcoming celebrities to his spaceship.
Due to its classification as a streaming variety series, Skinner says the writers and performers weren’t receiving residuals, although the show’s team had heard rumors blaming Disney’s tax bill. But while her loss isn’t a financial one, Earth to Ned can no longer serve as a calling card to help land future gigs for Skinner, who also doesn’t own a physical copy of the show.
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“It’s part of this overall mindset of the value of art and creativity that like, ‘Wow, you spent all this time on this, then you at least deserve a phone call,'” Skinner, who has been picketing with fellow Writers Guild members, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “You at least deserve to understand a little bit what’s happening with your work. But it’s a whole climate of devaluing.”
During a May 10 earnings call, Disney CFO Christine McCarthy announced that it would be “removing certain content from streaming platforms.” The company, which has been undergoing rolling layoffs, disclosed in a securities filing on June 2 that it would take a $1.5 billion write-down from the axed programming. More content is expected to disappear in the third quarter.
“I would certainly just be curious to know more about what influenced the decision,” says filmmaker Ashley Avis, whose 2020 Disney+ feature, Black Beauty, which adapted the classic novel and featured the voice of Kate Winslet, was part of the exodus. “It’s tough as an artist to try to know where to navigate.”
Among the titles permanently pulled May 26 from Disney-owned platforms Disney+ and Hulu were a mixture of shows ranging from Y: The Last Man, Dollface and The Mysterious Benedict Society to series based on the films Willow, Mighty Ducks and Turner & Hooch. Also gone are such features as Kenneth Branagh’s Artemis Fowl and last year’s Cheaper by the Dozen remake.
Phoebe Robinson, star and creator of comedy series Everything’s Trash, which debuted on Freeform in July, was similarly not notified that it would be delisted from Hulu, which she quips is “not the way I would have handled it.” Robinson laments that the show wasn’t given more time to find an audience, especially considering the voices it was aiming to amplify. “It’s quite curious that at a time when TV shows are, at a somewhat glacial pace, becoming more inclusive in front of and behind the scenes, there is suddenly no money left,” notes the 2 Dope Queens alum. “We out here, worked hard to develop our skill sets, got in the room — and now there’s no coins?” (Other affected titles include Ilana Peña’s Diary of a Future President and trans creator Silas Howard’s Darby and the Dead.)
But Disney appears to be following a playbook of other large media companies that are belt-tightening. In January, Warner Bros. Discovery signed deals with Roku and Tubi to feature some of its content — including Westworld, The Time Traveler’s Wife and FBoy Island — after WBD announced late last year that it would be pulling those and other titles to license bundles of its shows to free, ad-supported television platforms. The same month, Showtime made a move to trim short-lived original series as Kidding, Super Pumped and American Rust from the Paramount Global-backed cable channel’s streaming platform.
If providing an infinite home for an endless array of titles had appeared at one point to be part of the allure of the streaming era, devoid of the constraints inherent to linear TV channels, the bloom may be off the rose. “This is bad, both for the creators and potentially for the platform,” says Michael D. Smith, professor of information technology and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University, and author of Streaming, Sharing, Stealing. “Streaming platforms should be able to direct people to the right content.”
For creators, having their work disappear is only the latest in a running list of reasons why streaming projects bring frustrations. “All things being equal, most people would prefer to work on a network or cable show as opposed to a streaming show because the rates are better, and you’re more likely to see residuals,” says Nick Wiger, an Earth to Ned writer whose credits include both cable and streaming. “But in terms of jobs that are offered, it’s like, ‘I got this streaming job, or I could not work,’ and that’s a calculation a lot of people are making.”
Creators say they’re open to tackling the kinds of projects that studios perceive as valuable, but that remains easier said than done, due to the lack of transparency regarding not only why certain titles were shed but just general viewership intel. Smith also notes the fragmentation inherent with FAST platforms, leading to a lack of widespread user data to inform ad selection.
According to Skinner, creatives have been led to believe that working with celebrities or proven IP is a way for projects to get attention, but the fact that Disney recently cut titles in both categories perpetuates the lack of clarity. “We have no idea how to plan ahead in any direction because it’s very hard to tell what’s going on,” she says. “If you go into a museum, no one says, ‘People don’t stop at this painting for very long anymore — let’s throw it in the trash.’ Or if you did, we would all have to assume, ‘Well, that painting is worthless.'”
A version of this story first appeared in the June 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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