Without a doubt, the worst and most brutal of streaming’s current trends is for a platform to remove its original content from the library and cast it out into the abyss, with Netflix remaining one of the last holdouts.
Disney Plus infamously cast Crater onto the discard pile a mere seven weeks after it debuted, while Star Trek: Prodigy was ditched by Paramount Plus with the entirety of a second season almost completed. What makes it all the more curious, though, is that the live-action Bleach movie is disappearing from Netflix right before fellow manga adaptation One Piece debuts on August 31.
According to What’s on Netflix, Bleach has been lined up for execution on August 19, which serves as its final day as part of the content library. Of course, there’s a chance the company will decide to extend its exclusive distribution deal for the film it premiered in every country other than Japan in the summer of 2018, but as of yet there hasn’t been any news on whether it even stands a chance of surviving beyond the next few weeks.
It’s not going to shake Netflix to its very core, but the fact the platform is nonetheless considering letting exclusives drift out into the ether of on-demand purgatory could set a dangerous precedent, especially when the higher-ups have so far resisted the urge to join Disney Plus, Max, Hulu, Paramount Plus, and the others in ruthlessly wiping film and television titles off the face of the planet.
It might be a storm in teacup, but it might be something else, so we’ll just have to wait and find out.