Disney has made a number of movies previously removed from their streaming services, available to viewers as video on demand/digital sales titles on other platforms. Movies like Crater, which was removed from Disney+ just weeks after it premiered, and the Zach Braff/Gabrielle Union version of Cheaper By the Dozen, are now available on third-party sites like Vudu and Apple to purchase for $19.99 or to rent for $3.99. This might seem strange, since the going narrative was that most of these movies would be deleted forever in exchange for a tax writedown, but Disney isn’t the first company to go this path; Warner Bros. has made a number of properties, including animated projects based on Aquaman and The Flintstones, available to purchase after they were kicked from Max. Paramount+’s Star Trek: Prodigy is available on DVD in spite of having been cancelled and removed.
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A full list, or when it started happening in the case of the Disney movies, is not yet known. It’s likely some of these had quietly started to appear on VOD before anyone noticed, but there’s another possibility: that something about the deal struck with writers led to this. After all, it seems like streamers will now be forced to disclose viewership numbers for the first time ever. Could that hurt the case for writing down a project as a total loss?
In a tweet, a social media user going by Film Festival posted these titles are now available on demand:
- Rosaline
- Better Nate Than Ever
- The One and Only Ivan
- Crater
- Cheaper By The Dozen
- Flora & Ulysses
Most of those weren’t big stories when they were created, or when they were removed. The One and Only Ivan, a Bryan Cranston movie based on a Newberry Award-winning book, drew some criticism, including a remark from Cranston himself, when it came down, though. Cheaper By the Dozen was a surprise, since it was a highly publicized remake of a movie that had been very popular the first few times it was made. And Crater, as noted above, was removed so quickly that critics scoffed that it hadn’t been given a chance to find an audience.
Coupled with Disney+ putting a number of their exclusives out on Blu-ray for the first time, and the apparent removal of home video sections at Target stores in some locations, this news really just shines a light on how confused and chaotic the home media market is these days. It seems like some retailers, including Best Buy, are more or less giving up on physical media entirely just as studios are admitting they rushed into streaming too hastily and need to sell some DVDs. Complicating that conversation is non-physical, permanent media like digital video on demand purchases.
What do you think of these titles showing up on Vudu? Sound off in the comments below, or hit up @russ.burlingame on Threads if you want to talk all things physical media.
