Disney is not having a great summer.
The House of Mouse is facing massive losses of over $890 million on its last eight studio releases, not including its most recent film, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” which is destined to lose upwards of $260 million.
Now, the slump is starting to affect the company’s streaming service.
“Crater,” a $53 million sci-fi adventure movie that premiered exclusively on Disney+ on May 12, was quietly removed from the platform exactly seven weeks after its release, according to the Independent.
The outlet reported that Disney scrapped the film to cut its losses by saving on licensing deals, though no official comment from the entertainment giant has been provided.
Before the plug was pulled, “Crater” followed a group of friends who travel to a legendary crater on the moon. The Disney+ original had a 63 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Underneath the plot lay sociological themes of inequality and anti-capitalist and pro-union messaging — the reason why Breitbart’s John Nolte called the movie a “woke sci-fi failure.”
The news comes after CFO Christine McCarthy revealed during the company’s quarterly earnings call in May that Disney+ and Hulu, also owned by Disney, would lose some content in the coming months.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, more than 70 movies and TV shows got the axe between the two streaming services, including “Willow,” “Mighty Ducks,” “The Mysterious Benedict Society,” “Earth to Ned” and “Y: The Last Man.” “Crater” was pulled from Disney+ on June 30.
As part of the mass content removal, Disney took a $1.5 billion write-down.
Disney+ faced a loss of 4 million subscribers in the first three months of 2023, as also revealed during the May earnings call, The Verge reported.
Disney’s box office flops in the last year, most of which fell under the Pixar or Marvel banners, included “Lightyear,” “Thor: Love and Thunder,” “Strange World,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Elemental.”
Most recently, the $300 million “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” underwhelmed at the box office on its opening weekend with a domestic gross of $60 million.
The franchise sequel even fell behind Angel Studios’ “Sound of Freedom” on the Fourth of July, the latter unexpectedly becoming the No. 1 movie in America.
If Disney can’t reverse course, it will sink under the weight of its financial losses — ironic considering the iconic studio turned 100 this year.
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Source: Western Journal Rephrased By: InfoArmed