Kids' Movies That Got Pulled From Streaming

The modern age of streaming entertainment is full of amusing little oddities, like when "Suits" broke a major streaming record out of nowhere in 2023 — four years after the series ended. In this Wild West terrain, though, some troublesome norms have cropped up as well. For one thing, artists and consumers alike have complained about vital communal experiences that have gone missing thanks to streaming our entertainment on Netflix and other platforms. In other words, as entertainment consumption has transformed, our new reality has lost some of the glorious virtues of the past.

More pressingly, though, is that audiences don't actually own any of the movies they watch on Max, Netflix, Disney+, or other streaming platforms. These titles can be taken away at any time by the big conglomerate owners, which is especially a problem when it comes to motion pictures made exclusively for said streamers. These projects are often unavailable on physical media or other platforms. In other words, when Paramount+ or Disney+, among other services, removes these original films from their libraries, they're gone.

This brutal aspect of Hollywood's new reality hit the following 11 kids' movies that were once the pride and joy of major streaming services, only to vanish once they got pulled from the platforms. A variety of factors went into why these titles were removed, and the type of afterlife these titles have experienced after being plucked from their small-screen homes is equally eclectic. The fate of all of these features, though, epitomizes the precariousness of a still-new entertainment landscape often seen as just shiny and virtuous.

In the late 2010s, Walt Disney Pictures seems to focus almost exclusively on remakes of its old animated films and sequels to big live-action hits like "Pirates of the Caribbean." One bizarre exception to this was a mighty expensive adaptation of Eoin Colfer's book "Artemis Fowl." Directed by Kenneth Branagh, "Artemis Fowl's" production was plagued with problems, including a hasty, last-minute delay from an August 2019 release date to May 2020, despite the film's marketing campaign starting in late 2018.

Of course, that new date, once meant to mimic previous late-May Disney hits like "Maleficent," ensured that COVID-19 canceled "Artemis Fowl's" 2020 theatrical release. By April 2020, Disney shuffled "Artemis Fowl" off to a Disney+ launch on June 12. Once it hit the streamer, "Artemis Fowl" was greeted with dismal reviews and subsequently vanished from people's radars.

Three years later, though, "Artemis Fowl" unexpectedly returned to entertainment news websites everywhere when it was removed from Disney+ (along with lots of other programming) in a cost-cutting move. This maneuver did not speak highly of the kind of viewership "Artemis Fowl" was getting on the platform, and its toxic reputation among both "Fowl" fans and the general public meant few wept over losing the film on Disney+. "Artemis Fowl," along with a handful of other Disney+ exclusive features, hit PVOD (premium video-on-demand) in fall 2023, thus concluding the tormented saga of a bizarre and despised anomaly in Disney's late 2020s cinematic landscape.

"Artemis Fowl" wasn't the only Disney adaptation of a children's book to see its theatrical release plans capsized in 2020. "The One and Only Ivan," an adaptation of a Katherine Applegate text of the same name, was set for an August 2020 release date before Disney made it a Disney+ exclusive movie. Garnering much better reviews than "Artemis Fowl," "Ivan" took advantage of a depleted 2020 cinema slate to score a Best Visual Effects Oscar nomination at the 93rd Academy Awards.

Beyond joining a canon of primate-centric Disney movies like "Mighty Joe Young" and "Monkeys, Go Home!," "The Only and One Ivan" largely went unnoticed in the immediate years after its release. However, that all changed once "Ivan" became one of the many casualties of Disney taking programming off Disney+. Since "Ivan," like most other non-Pixar Disney+ exclusive movies, didn't get a physical media release, audiences were now unable to enjoy "Ivan's" exploits.

This seemed like an initially cruel end to "Ivan's" cinematic journey, as the feature's creative team had sacrificed a theatrical run to give Disney+ more programming in 2020. Their reward was "The One and Only Ivan" becoming inaccessible to the public less than three years after its release. This tragedy would come to an end once "The One and Only Ivan" joined "Artemis Fowl," among other titles erased from Disney+, on PVOD platforms in September 2023. With that, all the monkey's business surrounding "Ivan" finally quieted down.

For his big directorial follow-up to best picture Oscar winner "Spotlight," director Tom McCarthy embraced "Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made," a live-action Disney kids' movie that he also wrote and produced. This adaptation of the Stephen Pastis children's book "Timmy Failure" wasn't as inexplicable a choice for McCarthy as it may seem. This was just the latest instance of McCarthy working with Disney after he wrote scripts for "Up," "Million Dollar Arm," and "Christopher Robin" for the studio.

"Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made" debuted on Disney+ over the first weekend of February 2020. Unlike "Artemis Fowl" and "The One and Only Ivan," "Timmy Failure" was conceived for the small screen streaming platform. However, neither that nor its much smaller budget (compared to "Fowl," at least) could prevent "Timmy Failure" from suffering the same fate bestowed on the more costly Disney films that were sent to Disney+.

"Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made" got swept up in late May 2023's infamous elimination of countless hours of Disney+ programming. It was an especially quiet and disconcerting ending for a title Disney once pushed so prominently that it was given a premiere on the big screen at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. With Disney cleaning house on its streaming service to save some bucks, though, "Timmy Failure" couldn't be saved. Eventually, "Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made" was also unleashed on PVOD services. Even after this development, though, McCarthy, once a Mouse House staple, has unsurprisingly not reunited with Disney for additional projects. 

Once scheduled to be a traditional theatrical release in April 2018, the Adam DeVine Disney comedy "Magic Camp" found itself stuck in limbo for years before it finally hit Disney+ in August 2020. Part of that could've simply been Disney holding back projects for Disney+'s first year of programming, though sexual misconduct allegations leveled at "Magic Camp" co-star Jeffrey Tambor may also explain "Magic Camp's" delay as well as the super-subdued marketing campaign for its eventual streaming bow. Whatever informed its weird, tormented history, "Magic Camp" came and went rather quickly, inspiring neither the Oscar nomination of "The One and Only Ivan" nor the infamous ire of "Artemis Fowl." It was unsurprising, then, when it was included as one of the many projects removed from Disney+ in late May 2023.

What was unusual, though, was "Magic Camp's" fate after getting pulled from the streamer. "Artemis Fowl," "Ivan," and "Timmy Failure" all ended up on PVOD services a few months after being exiled from Disney+. However, as of this writing, "Magic Camp" has not hit a PVOD service or any other streamer, like an ad-supported service like Tubi, where audiences can access it. "Magic Camp" has simply vanished, even as critically reviled live-action Disney films like "Snow Dogs" and "Inspector Gadget" are available both on Disney+ and various PVOD services. With this feature not having a fanbase that will rally for its release, "Magic Camp" seems doomed to remain hidden behind a cinematic curtain until further notice.

Paramount Pictures had such supreme confidence in "Rumble" that the studio started advertising it almost a year before its planned January 2021 theatrical debut with a trailer that played before the February 2020 hit "Sonic the Hedgehog." All signs looked promising for this monster-wrestling movie starring Will Arnett, Geraldine Viswanathan, Terry Crews, and many others. However, once COVID-19 shut down theaters in March 2020, studios frantically began reconfiguring release plans for various titles, including "Rumble."

Initially delayed to theatrical launches in 2021 and 2022, Paramount eventually decided that the theatrical marketplace wasn't (at that point) kind enough to original animated features. With CBS All-Access fully transforming into the Paramount-adjacent Paramount+ earlier in 2021, the streamer immediately needed family-friendly programming. Thus, "Rumble" debuted as a Paramount+ exclusive in December 2021 with hopes that it would catch on as a holiday season streaming treat.

By mid-2023, though, in line with other companies removing projects from their respective streaming companies, "Rumble" left Paramount+ alongside other family-friendly titles tied to the Nickelodeon brand. This wasn't quite as devastating as other streaming kids' movies being pulled from their small-screen homes since "Rumble" had been released on physical and digital home media in late 2022. With alternative ways of accessing the film, its removal from Paramount+ was more peculiar than anything else. A once high-profile addition to the Paramount+ library ended up vanishing with minimal fanfare. What a strange contrast to Paramount's originally super-confident marketing approach to "Rumble."

You've seen Owen Wilson in many different roles, but 2022's "Secret Headquarters" asked audiences to view Wilson in a whole new light as a superhero. This Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman-directed family film didn't just offer Wilson a chance to be a crime-fighter known as The Guard; it was also a project designed from the ground up to appeal to a new generation of superhero movie fans, as seen by comments from Owen Wilson and the "Secret Headquarters" directors on how the young cast informed the film's super relevant pop culture references.

Once set for a theatrical release, "Secret Headquarters" dropped on Paramount+ in August 2022 instead. Going directly to the small screen meant this project would never have a chance to be among Owen Wilson's highest-grossing movies, but the hope was that audiences could discover it for years to come on the streamer.

That became a lot more difficult when "Secret Headquarters" was removed from Paramount+ in the summer of 2023, less than a year after its debut.This development coincided with a slew of other Paramount+ original films — especially family-friendly programs — leaving the streamer, a signal that Paramount+ bosses had decided to shift the platform's target demographics. "Secret Headquarters" was a casualty of the switch to an emphasis on adult-skewing programs rather than original movies or kid-friendly features. At least "Secret Headquarters" is available on PVOD and physical media, thus ensuring future generations have the chance to witness Owen Wilson's superhero exploits.

The second film adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's book "The Witches" was once set for a high-profile, Halloween-friendly October 2020 theatrical release date. However, "The Witches" instead went straight to HBO Max that month thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down theaters. While Warner Bros. was willing to release "Tenet" and "Wonder Woman 1984" in domestic theaters in 2020's final months, "The Witches" was a different story. However, unlike other family-friendly movies sent to streaming because of COVID, like "Secret Headquarters" or "Artemis Fowl," "The Witches" actually did hit the big screen in some international territories throughout late 2020 and early 2021. Once those theatrical runs wrapped up, that was the last anyone really talked about "The Witches" — until it was abruptly removed from HBO Max in North America.

This removal came in August 2022, when new Warner Bros. owners WarnerDiscovery began severely overhauling the company and finding ways to trim costs, including culling numerous productions from the HBO Max library. Warner Bros. did finally put "The Witches" out on some form of physical media through a North American DVD release in June 2022, which meant the elimination of the film from HBO Max wasn't a tremendous loss to its fans. Still, this was a perplexing outcome since "The Witches" sacrificed a potentially lucrative domestic theatrical run for a streaming home that didn't even last two years. What a fall from pre-COVID plans for it to be Halloween 2020's major family movie attraction.

One of the most drama-free instances of a streaming-exclusive kids' movie losing its small screen home belongs to 2016's "The Little Prince." This acclaimed take on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's classic children's book was directed by Mark Osborne and was once set for a traditional domestic theatrical release from Paramount Pictures in March 2016. This never came to pass, though, and the movie was instead released by Netflix in North America in August 2016. In almost all of the rest of the world, "The Little Prince" played on the big screen as intended and even ended up grossing just under $100 million worldwide without a North American theatrical run. Meanwhile, in the USA, Netflix housed "The Little Prince" for years even as the streamer's homegrown animated film library began to grow and include features like "Over the Moon" and "Klaus."

In summer 2021, "The Little Prince" finally vanished from Netflix in North America. It was the inevitable end to its stint on the platform, as Paramount had only licensed the title to the streamer for a limited time. As a sign of Paramount regaining domestic ownership of "The Little Prince," the studio finally gave it a physical media release in North America in 2021. Given these circumstances, the saga of "The Little Prince's" Netflix departure is far more mundane than Disney removing Disney+ exclusive movies that can't be accessed anywhere else. In this case, it was simply time for "The Little Prince" to fly to other home video mediums.

"Stargirl," Julia Hart's movie adaptation of Jerry Spinelli's children's book of the same name, had the misfortune of hitting Disney+ on March 13, 2020, just as the world was shutting down in response to COVID-19. With everyone's attention on pandemic-related news headlines and higher-profile features like "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" being rushed to streaming, "Stargirl" was basically background noise even for the most ardent Disney+ subscriber. Still, something went right with this movie since Disney greenlit a 2022 sequel titled "Hollywood Stargirl," also helmed by Hart. This technically made "Stargirl" one of the first original franchises produced by the Disney+ platform, an achievement that you might expect would shield it from any corporate shenanigans that might lead Disney+ projects to vanish into thin air.

Alas, for all involved in "Stargirl," the 2020 feature and its sequel were both removed from Disney+ in May 2023 along with a deluge of other Disney+ exclusive programming. Unlike other Disney+ original movies plucked from the service, "Stargirl's" creative mastermind spoke out about this film's removal from Disney+. When this news broke, Hart used her Twitter account to express how devastated she was over "Stargirl's" fate. Not only that, she said that she saw this development as a signal that Hollywood itself was rotten. This nonchalant removal of "Stargirl" and its sequel signaled to the films' director that major studios had no interest in mid-budget movies for the foreseeable future. Hart's raw and powerful reaction to "Stargirl's" Disney+ removal distilled all the problems with removing streaming-exclusive movies from their small-screen domicile.

Julia Hart and the "Stargirl" fanbase weren't the only ones disturbed by a Disney+ kids' movie being removed from the streamer in Summer 2023; there was also a brouhaha over "Crater's" elimination from the platform. This particular project's Disney+ launch was preceded by ages of development. The project originated at Fox, which developed the sci-fi movie "Crater" with "Stranger Things" director Shawn Levy, though Kyle Patrick Alvarez would ultimately helm the film. Disney inherited the film in the Disney/Fox merger of March 2019, and the Mouse House sent "Crater" to Disney+ in May 2023. Six years after it was first announced, "Crater" debuted, a survivor of eons of development, a studio merger, and a change in directors ... only to get pulled from Disney+ after 48 days.

While other Disney+ original movies like "Stargirl" got to exist on the platform for a few years before being eliminated, "Crater" had only existed as a general release for a little over a month and a half. That wasn't anywhere near enough time for the original sci-fi kids' movie to generate a fanbase or impressive viewership, especially in the crowded and competitive streaming entertainment ecosystem. It was a staggering blow to "Crater," which left Disney+ almost as soon as it had debuted; luckily, the film has since been available as a PVOD release since September 2023.

While few would place it among Willem Dafoe's best movie roles, the Hollywood veteran lent tremendous gravitas to the 2019 Disney+ original film "Togo." A period piece that takes place largely in 1925, Dafoe plays musher Leonhard Seppala, whose trusty Siberian Husky Togo is called upon to transport a serum for a diphtheria outbreak. Much of "Togo" is predictable, but flourishes like Dafoe and Julianne Nicholson's performances, the film's commitment to period-era verbiage, and lively filmmaking from Disney veteran director Ericson Core (who previously helmed the 2006 feature "Invincible") make it a much better movie than you might expect.

While "Togo" could've easily worked as a theatrical release, it premiered as a Disney+ exclusive in December 2019, making it one of the first feature films to debut on the then-new streamer. "Togo" actually survived the summer 2023 culling that resulted in many Disney+ original movies being removed from the service. However, the kids' film didn't last much longer, and the feature was erased from Disney+ in fall 2024, just a few months shy of the five-year anniversary of its Disney+ debut.

Most distressingly, this mid-budget movie starring a four-time Oscar nominee has never been released on physical media and is currently unavailable through digital retailers. Somehow, a 2019 Willem Dafoe movie now qualifies as lost media. This is the ultimate horrific fate for any movie, kid-friendly or otherwise, removed from a streaming service. "Togo" — and Dafoe's work in it — deserved better.