‘Home Alone’ and Other Movies Have Already Disappeared From Disney+

It’s only been two months since Disney+ launched, but movies are already starting to leave the service. According to Polygon, a variety of films quietly disappeared from Disney+ on January 1, including Home Alone, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and The Sandlot. The sudden departure is likely due to licensing deals with other platforms; when those deals expire, the movies will likely return to Disney+ for good.
Polygon reports that eagle-eyed fans began noticing the missing movies on Wednesday, January 1. In a Reddit post, a U.S.-based Disney+ user wrote that the following films had been removed at the start of the new year (Decider has confirmed that these movies are no longer available to stream on Disney+):

Home Alone
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
The Sandlot
Dr. Dolittle
Flicka
The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Strange Magic
The Wonderful World of Disney: Magical Holiday Celebration
On Thursday, sources told Polygon that “encumbrances with various legacy deals are likely the reason for the departures,” and a few hours later, The Verge’s Julia Alexander confirmed as much. “Can confirm that a small handful of Disney movies are running into issues with various legacy deals, and that’s why they’re being removed,” tweeted Alexander alongside Polygon’s article. “Those movies will rejoin Disney+ permanently once licenses expire with their respective parties.”

While streaming users are used to the ways of licensing — we’ve all seen the James Bond movies roll from service to service every month — few were expecting to see movies (and Disney-owned movies, at that) leave so soon after Disney+ launched. However, there’s still plenty of money to be made under these licensing agreements: Disney makes more money by selling Home Alone to another streaming service than it does by leaving it on its own platform. As long as Home Alone is back by the 2020 holiday season, we’ll be okay.

Where to stream Home Alone