Moana is leaving Netflix — and a trail of broken hearts along with it. The highly-successful Disney animated film is leaving Netflix on Dec. 20 to make way for a new lineup of films for the holiday season and new year.
While Moana is not currently available on Netflix, there is no definitive answer as to whether it will ever come to the popular streaming platform. As mentioned earlier, Disney has been reclaiming the rights to their content as they prepare to launch their own streaming platform, Disney+.
These removals are due to licencing deals coming to an end. Often, the titles make their way back to Netflix in the following year, but sometimes they leave to go to other platforms. This month sees a selection of Netflix Originals being taken down, also.
Disney is the latest media company to purge content from its streaming platforms in a cost-cutting measure as the industry is rethinking costs and strategy in that arena with a renewed focus on profitability. Warner Bros.
The 100 is currently on Netflix in most regions as of the time of publishing, but its days on the service are ultimately numbered as Netflix simply had the first run rights to the show.
It might have taken the Walt Disney company less than three years to overtake Netflix in streaming subscribers, but its road to domination started more than 15 years ago with a carefully planned $100bn (£81bn) strategy to reinvigorate its empire for 21st century viewers.
Most of the remaining Disney titles licensed to Netflix are under legacy contracts and their estimated date of removal can be guessed with decent accuracy. If you search “Disney” on Netflix it returns 30 results. However, there are more than 30 titles still on the service.
What's leaving Netflix in October 2023: Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pride & Prejudice, Collateral, and more. Reservoir Dogs, Coming to America, The Expendables movies, and many more titles are also exiting the service by the end of the month.
"They only want people in your household, at your address, watching." Netflix says on its website that the company uses "IP addresses, device IDs, and account activity from devices signed into the Netflix account" to determine which devices are in the same household.
Premiering in 2016 as Walt Disney Pictures' 56th feature film, Moana follows the bold title character as she leaves her Polynesian island of Motunui to return the magical heart to the goddess Te Fiti in order to restore balance to nature.
A thousand years later, the ocean chooses Moana, daughter of Motunui's chief Tui, to return the heart to Te Fiti. Tui and Sina, Moana's father and mother, try to keep her away from the ocean to prepare her to become the island's chief.
Moana Waialiki leaves to save her island and all the villagers on it. Motunui is slowly succumbing to the spreading darkness that began when Maui stole the Heart of Te Fiti.
And as of Q2 2022, Disney's streaming empire (Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+) has more combined subscribers than Netflix, and are gaining at a rapid pace. Other streaming services like HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video also continue to pick up steam, which begs the question: has the Netflix empire started to tumble?
When it comes to subscribers, the great streaming race always has been a two-horse sprint with Disney+ and Netflix trading wins by a nose. A late-2022 surge at Netflix and Disney's loss of cricket rights in India have put Netflix back in the winners circle.
Despite being relatively new to the market, Disney+ has a sizable content library that includes 752 movies and 197 TV shows. Netflix also offers subscribers a huge amount of content, with over 3,500 movies and over 1,600 TV shows. The two services offer similar price points, but Disney comes in at $1/mo.
Though we strive to keep the titles you want to watch, some titles do leave Netflix because of licensing agreements. Whenever a TV show or movie license is expiring, we consider things such as: If the rights to the title are still available. How popular it is in a region, and how much it costs to license.
As for the Netflix streaming service, it will continue to run during 2023 and beyond. Anyone worried by the rumors of Netflix shutting down in 2023 should not be concerned, as it's only the DVD rental service shutting down, and I'd wager that most subscribers don't use (or aren't even aware of) it.
If a TV show or movie is leaving Netflix in the next month, we show a “Last day to watch on Netflix” message: On the Details page of the TV show or movie. At the top of the screen for a few seconds when the title starts playing.
Moana's age, 16, is less of an issue in her story as it doesn't include a romantic plot, but it still relies on a young girl to overcome dangerous challenges and save the world. Disney princesses have always had an age problem, with characters as young as 14 falling in love, defying parents, and getting married.
