The Creator, Barbarian, The Banshees Of Inisherin and Amsterdam are all gone from Disney+

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Four major recent releases from Disney have disappeared from the Disney+ streaming service in the UK ā€“ one of which is now exclusive elsewhere.


I’m going to have a go at trying to work out how the ins and outs of Hollywood studios go, but still confess it baffles me a bit. Back when Disney acquired the 20th Century Fox movie studio and its assorted projects, it infamously laid out thousands of staff and culled dozens of movies that were in development. For anything to sneak through that process was a bit of a minor miracle.

Thus, when we learned that Gareth Edwards’ sci-fi film The Creator – originally known as True Love – was being backed by Disney money, it was something of a surprise. Released under the 20th Century Studios label, this was a standalone, non-franchise sci-fi original, costing $80m to make, and just as much to release and market.

Fair does to Disney, too. It put in a shift marketing the film, and even when it then went to the Disney+ streaming service, it still gave it a full physical media release.

Bizarrely though, this Disney-backed release is one you can no longer see on its own streaming service. Instead, it popped up on my screen as exclusive, at least for the minute, to Amazon’s Prime Video. I doubled-checked: it’s definitely gone off Disney+, and in the UK at least, if you want to stream it, Amazon is now your go-to.

Amazon, in fact, lists it in the UK under its ā€˜originals and exclusivesā€™ carousel:

The Amazon Prime UK originals carousel on 29th January 2025
The Amazon Prime UK originals carousel on 29th January 2025

So what happened?

My initial best guess is the fact that The Creator was originally set up at New Regency, and independent production company that then co-produced the film with two other firms, Entertainment One and Bad Dreams. New Regency had a deal in place with Fox at one stage, and it also put Amsterdam and Barbarian through 20th Century Studios. Those two films are gone as well from the Disney+ service, all of which came through New Regency originally.

Read more: The Creator review | The best science fiction film of 2023

However, the theory is derailed slightly by the fact that The Banshees Of Inisherin appears to have disappeared too. A film notably rushed to streaming fast, even as it was packing out independent cinemas.

Martin McDonagh’s 2022 acclaimed feature appeared to have been directly set up with Searchlight Pictures in 2020, and even though there are independent companies involved, Searchlight bought up the world rights.

Barbarian and Amsterdam never received a UK physical media release, and are available to digitally buy and rent. Disney issued a DVD and Blu-ray of The Banshees Of Inisherin, that remains in print. It too is available to buy and rent via video on demand services.

But none of them are available via Disney+, the streaming service of the company that backed and distributed the four films concerned in the first place.

Other Searchlight Pictures releases, such as See How They Run and The Menu, released around the same time, remain on Disney+. Why they’ve survived and the other four haven’t is unclear.

My fear is it’s something to do with the ‘content impairment charges’ budget that Disney set aside, to delete its own films and TV shows off the Disney+ service as part of a cost-cutting measure. You can read more about that here. In truth, the likelihood is that Disneyā€™s deal to stream the films came to an end, and it opted not to renew it for whatever reason.

Itā€™s still a bit baffling, and if there was any doubt that streaming services were not archivists, let this be it. If a streaming service can’t be a permanent home to its own company’s recent films, then what hope is there for catalogue titles, niche features and such like?

This may be a temporary move, of course, and it may be that streaming rights to those titles – as part of the original acquistions – have expired. But also, I do wonder if that gives too much of the benefit of the doubt, in an era where material is being deleted from streaming services before our own eyes, with little notice or explanation.

A good time, as always, to tap the physical media sign. Not that it helps Barbarian and Amsterdam much…

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