Widescreen: 'Willow' and Jeff Goldblum disappear; Nolan's latest on 70 mm
David Zaslav's Warner Bros. Discovery started the alarming, money-saving trend of removing exclusive content from streaming platforms last year when shows including "Westworld" disappeared from HBO Max (now just Max, perhaps soon to be MaxHBO, or maybe just MaH). Now Bob Iger has gotten in on the "fun," clearing out some space on those Disney+ and Hulu cloud drives for the sake of his balance sheet.
Did you see the fun sequel series to Ron Howard's "Willow"? You won't now. Remember when "The World According to Jeff Goldblum" and Kristen Bell's "Encore!" were among the Day 1 offerings from Disney+? Now they're big zeros. Kenneth Branagh's $125 million film adaptation of "Artemis Fowl"? Flown away. Even some Marvel content - Hulu's "The Runaways" and Disney+'s "Project Hero" - has been snapped away.
You can find a full list of Disney's deleted content at gizmodo.com. There's no telling when or where these shows may resurface in the digital entertainment landscape; in the meantime, I certainly can't stop you from logging onto eBay and typing "willow series blu-ray" into the search bar. (Why, no, Disney did not officially release that on Blu-ray. Hmm!)
Optimal 'Oppenheimer'
The latest offering from Christopher Nolan, champion of the cinema experience, will screen on hyper-detailed 70 mm film this summer at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., Chicago.
Tickets are on sale now at musicboxtheatre.com for the celluloid presentations of "Oppenheimer," Nolan's epic about the father of the atomic bomb starring Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon and Florence Pugh.
"Oppenheimer" opens Thursday, July 20.
Free 'Trek'
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," the best Starfleet series since the days of "The Next Generation," returns to Paramount+ for another 10-episode season on Thursday with new cast member Carol Kane joining Capt. Christopher Pike (Mount Prospect native Anson Mount), Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck) and First Officer Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) aboard the USS Enterprise.
And now you can give the first season a try, free of charge: The first 10 episodes are available on the Paramount+ YouTube page until June 30. To see the show operating at full thrusters, dive in with Episode 4, "Memento Mori."
• Sean Stangland is an assistant news editor who should probably give "Dunkirk" another shot. (And maybe "Tenet.")