Remember all the way back to yesterday when we wrote about Friends leaving Netflix? Well… another day, another round of outrage over a streaming site removing content.
Disney Plus has removed Home Alone, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and many other titles from their library as of this week. Friends leaving Netflix on January 1st was expected, but Disney Plus essentially putting their content “back in the vault” without warning is curious. And the fans are not happy about it, as evidenced by the Tweets below.
https://twitter.com/BrettLubins/status/1212481639730892805?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1212481639730892805&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcomicbook.com%2Fmovies%2F2020%2F01%2F01%2Fdisney-fans-furious-home-alone-2-removed-disney-plus%2F
I just checked and confirmed that Disney+ removed Home Alone 1 and 2 and other content as well… what’s the point!? https://t.co/qjW0NFk2EC
— DrLove (@DrLoveYT) January 1, 2020
Hey @disneyplus y’all took down Home Alone 1+2!? I’d think the bad energy being Dredged up over this wouldn’t be worth it. We pay for D+ for access to the classics and you’re gonna be removing stuff at will? No…. say it ain’t so!?
— Josh Eppard (@Weerd_Science) January 1, 2020
#disneyplus surprise release: fantastic 4: rise of the silver surfer
REMOVED: Home Alone 1 & 2, Flicka, POTC: On Stranger Tides, The Sandlot, Strange Magic, The Wonderful World of Disney: Magical Holiday Celebration pic.twitter.com/1K9HZ9sxEN
— Stitch Kingdom has BUM WORMS (@stitchkingdom) January 1, 2020
What happen to Home Alone 1 and Home Alone 2 it’s not on #DisneyPlus anymore ?
— PackerNation🏈 DenverNuggets🏀 (@JermainePrice83) January 2, 2020
Okay but why take down the Home Alone movies? Don’t be a Netflix @disneyplus
— morgan (@moblyy) January 2, 2020
So @disneyplus is getting ready to make me drop this service….how you going to drop Home Alone 1 and 2 ? Sandlot? PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4 ??????????? Like whyyyyyy!!!!? Like I’m pissed!
— BrittD (@Soon2BP) January 2, 2020
https://twitter.com/simone_molinaro/status/1212708358890934279
https://twitter.com/DrewsClues/status/1212695815032115200
Talk about buyers remorse re: #DisneyPlus. They’ve already taken Home Alone 1 & 2 off and Pirates off the Caribbean & a bunch of the flicks that I want to see aren’t available until either later this yr or 2021! Ugh, @Disney
— Paul A (@Paz2210) January 2, 2020
Man @disneyplus please put up the rest of the pirates of Caribbean movies 😩🙏🏼
— daphne eliza (@D_Elizaaa) January 2, 2020
Pretty aggravated that I got @disneyplus to watch the pirates of the Caribbean movies, but one just left and the new one isn't going to air till December 2020 LOL what?
— Mike (@Maiku_G) January 2, 2020
BRO WHY TF IS DISNEY PLUS REMOVING MOVIES! IM TRYING TO WATCH PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN! 🤬🤬😡
— Ray Luis (@RL_DOM_ESP) January 2, 2020
https://twitter.com/The_Joe_Hawk/status/1212597263505117184
https://twitter.com/catie_cang/status/1212583918014287872
Removing Home Alone is one thing, but Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides? How could they!!! Just kidding. They’re doing us a favor with that one. The Sandlot, though? Now that one’s a punch to the gut.
Remember back in the day when you would see those television advertisements about Disney telling audiences to pick up their favorite animated classics before “they’re put back in the vault?” It was an annoying marketing ploy to get you to run out to your local Walmart to buy The Lion King on DVD. And if you didn’t, you’d have to dust off that old VHS copy.
It was thought that the creation of Disney Plus would alleviate that problem for consumers, as now they had the entire Disney library at the click of a button. Apparently not, though, as Disney is once again worrying about the dilution of their content by having it readily available all the time.
Removing the likes of Home Alone makes a little bit of sense because Christmas is over and who wants to watch holiday movies in January? That feels weird to me. Based on today’s outrage though, I guess many would like to. Or they’re just upset that Disney is taking away their ability to watch anything at any time.
There were many articles over the last month or so talking about how Disney Plus was going to be the death of Netflix. But the thing is, Netflix is losing shows like Friends and eventually The Office because their license agreements are ending. Disney Plus owns all of their own content and so they decide what customers can watch. And by removing certain movies, they’re only reminding us who’s boss. Maybe that’s not the best strategy heading into a new year, though.