At the beginning of the new year, Disney Plus customers were outraged that the streaming site had pulled a number of titles including Home Alone 1 and 2, Dr. Dolittle and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Unlike other streaming competitors like Netflix and Hulu, Disney owns all of the content they put on the service. So why would they pull anything?
As it turns out, some movies were still under licensing agreements, meaning they would eventually expire on Disney Plus. While most of the attention went to Home Alone leaving (and understandably so), another beloved film taken off was the ‘90s classic, The Sandlot.
For those who haven’t seen it – but really, who hasn’t? – the film follows a boy who moves to a new town in the early ‘60s. Bored at the beginning of summer, he befriends a group of kids who all share the same passion, baseball. The Sandlot is one of the great sports movies of the ‘90s and unlike Home Alone, it can be watched year round. So, to see it leave was disheartening. But fear not, fans, because on February 1st, the movie will be back on Disney Plus, as whatever legacy deal the film had on January 1st has already expired.
While this is obviously great news, the real lesson Disney should be taking from this is that other streaming services publish what’s leaving and coming to their service each and every month. The Mouse House needs to be more proactive in getting ahead of any potentially bad news by sharing whatever reshuffling is going on with the service. With any luck, they probably learned their lesson on day one of the new year and hopefully, the sudden and unexpected removal of titles on Disney Plus won’t happen again without a little warning.
Anyways, we’re just around the corner from spring training now, so it might be the perfect time to catch up on the adventures of Scotty Smalls and the gang in The Sandlot.
