Credit: DisneyIt’s the start of 2024, and already Disney+ is working on its cancellation list for the rest of the year. First on the chopping block? American Born Chinese, an original series starring Ben Wang, Michelle Yeoh, and Ke Huy Quan.
Last year, Disney+ caused a storm in the streaming industry with the announcement that it was canceling and removing dozens of original series and movies. Included in that list were Willow, Crater, Howard, and more. Despite facing backlash on social media, the only series the platform un-canceled was Howard, a documentary series about Howard Ashman, the legendary Disney composer and songwriter.
Disney was just the tip of the iceberg, as streamers like Amazon Prime, Paramount+, and HBOMax announced cancelations and removals of their own. It sparked conversations about the preservation of media in an era where everything was digital and marked the beginning of the end for future pop culture, including the erasure of possible future cult classics.
It also started to call into question the ethics of companies choosing to cancel and remove shows, with the revelation that they could be used as tax write-offs. Warner Bros. Discovery faced major criticism towards the end of 2023 after revealing that they had canceled the Looney Tunes movie, Coyote Vs. Acme. The film starred John Cena and Lana Condor and was written by James Gunn. Filming had been fully completed for the film, making the decision to cancel even more confusing, which led to the company being the subject of a potential federal investigation.
Now, Disney+ has announced yet another series has been canceled after just one season on the platform. American Born Chinese is based on the graphic novel of the same name and “chronicles the trials and tribulations of a regular American teenager whose life is forever changed when he befriends the son of a mythological god. This is the story of a young man’s battle for his own identity, told through family, comedy, and action-packed Kung-Fu.”
It’s unclear if Disney will decide to remove the show completely, but it is possible that the show could be shopped around and offered to other networks to be picked up for further seasons. According to a source from Variety, the show just didn’t have enough viewership to greenlight a second season. However, some of the discourse online puts the blame on Disney for failing to market its original content in any sort of significant way, thereby causing their own failure with their releases.
“Marketing was nonexistant,” said one fan, while another called the marketing “an absolute failure.” “PR-wise,this should’ve been the easiest show ever to promote-from what I recall,it was the next project after the Oscars from two of the acting winners and a 3rd who (I think) also should’ve won,” another one claimed. Another likened it to what Warner Bros. has done, stating “disney produce shows just to release them in near anonymity and cancel them.”
It was also confirmed last year that the Walt Disney Company has been struggling to make Disney+ profitable in the wake of losing over 4 million subscribers and eventually introducing an ad-based tier model while raising prices of its subscriptions across the board. Now, Disney+ in reportedly in talks to merge its services with Reliance Industries, a move that would allow the two to merge their India operations after Disney purchased the India Hotstar platform a few years ago. It seems as though Disney is making some big moves behind the scenes in order to cut costs and attempt to make their streaming service more profitable, and this could be the first of many shows to come to an end in 2024.
What do you think about Disney+ announcing more cancellations this early into the new year? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.