A handful of Peacock’s titles have or are shortly set to vanish from the brand new streaming service. Here’s why that’s happening so soon after its launch.
Titles that appeared on the service for its Wednesday launch date were not there as of Thursday, including the original Fast & Furious and the Steve Carell flick Evan Almighty, as the nice folks over at GameSpot discovered. A handy and prominent “Days Left to Watch” feature on a title’s landing page tips users off to movies that are soon departing from the service.
With some digging, GameSpot discovered that other major titles like The Matrix trilogy, The Blair Witch Project, three Jurassic Park films, Children of Men, and Shrek will all be disappearing at the end of the month. Those are some pretty big films to be getting yanked so soon.
The reason for this, a spokesperson told Gizmodo, is primarily due to licensing agreements that may have even predated the service. Licensing agreements are complex and often made years in advance. And for some films that are disappearing, their windows actually started back in April, when Peacock made its service available to Comcast’s Xfinity X1 and Xfinity Flex customers during its officially launched Wednesday for the rest of us losers, but some of those titles are already nearing the end of their licensing windows.
A spokesperson said that several of the films will be returning during their next windows, but also added that titles will be coming and leaving all the time as the service expands its library. And while keeping track of what lives on which service can be a huge pain in the arse, it’s pretty standard for other services as well. Hell, even Disney lost some of its own beloved titles on Disney+ shortly after its launch due to film windowing.
A perk of Peacock’s design, however, is that you’ll know if something you plan to watch soon is going to bounce from the service before you get the chance. By the grace of god, this does not appear to apply the original Unsolved Mysteries series. That, reader, would be an absolute crime.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.