Disney sunset Hulu app : what's next for streaming

Disney paid roughly $8 billion in 2024 to buy out Comcast's remaining stake in Hulu — a deal first agreed in principle back in 2019. That transaction unlocked something Disney had been quietly engineering for years : a clear path to fold Hulu entirely into Disney+. Now, according to a report by Business Insider, that path has a name.

Project Gemini : Disney's plan to retire the standalone Hulu app

The internal roadmap is called "Project Gemini," and its objective is straightforward — migrate Hulu's content and features into Disney+, then decommission the Hulu app altogether. Three Disney tech employees confirmed to Business Insider that the company is actively diverting engineering resources away from Hulu. No major new features are being added to the app. Bugs are piling up because fewer developers are assigned to it. One source put it bluntly : "Hulu is on life support at this point, with no active development."

The unified streaming experience this plan targets is reportedly expected to be completed by the end of 2026. Once every subscriber has migrated, the Hulu tech stack will simply be shut down. Another insider noted that "lots of moving pieces need to be migrated" before that happens, and that "trying to maintain two separate pipelines doesn't make sense." From where we track availability across major platforms daily, that kind of infrastructure duplication is a real cost sink — something Disney clearly wants off its books.

Publicly, Disney still denies having concrete plans to sunset Hulu. That's consistent with how the company operates : announcements come when the transition is already complete enough to absorb subscriber reaction. Telling millions of paying Hulu users that their app is being killed off before Disney+ can fully replace it would trigger a wave of cancellations. So the silence is strategic, not reassuring.

Years of groundwork : how Disney got here

This move didn't come out of nowhere. Disney has been laying the foundation for over five years. The clearest early signal came in 2021, when Disney+ launched the Star hub internationally — a content section pulling from 20th Century Studios, FX, Searchlight Pictures, and ABC, essentially replicating what Hulu does in the US. Late last year, Disney rebranded Star to Hulu globally, which removed any remaining ambiguity about the long-term direction. You can see how this pattern connects to the broader Disney theme park apps merging into Disney+ — consolidation is clearly the company's dominant strategic instinct right now.

The steps taken in the US followed a similar logic :

• Bundled Disney+ subscribers gained access to Hulu content directly within Disney+ — over two years ago now.
• Disney CEO Bob Iger publicly stated the goal of a unified app experience.
• A single MyDisney login system now connects both platforms.
• Ad infrastructure was standardized across both services.
• Executives now oversee both platforms jointly rather than separately.
• Hulu subscribers can link their profiles to Disney+, with Hulu + Live TV features set to follow.

Each of these steps reduced the functional distance between the two products. For subscribers, the merge has already been happening — most just haven't noticed.

What this actually means for Hulu subscribers

There's real friction inside Disney over this transition. Some executives reportedly resisted "kicking a bunch of people off a platform that was heavily used," while senior leadership pushed forward, prioritizing cost reduction and discoverability. That tension explains the cautious, phased approach — Disney doesn't want a PR crisis triggered by a single announcement.

For current Hulu subscribers, the practical implications are worth thinking through carefully. Not every Hulu feature exists on Disney+ yet. Hulu + Live TV is one example — and its future may look different anyway, given Disney's significant investment in FuboTV and the subsequent merger of Hulu's live TV arm into that brand. FuboTV's CEO has already discussed the potential benefits of deeper Disney+ integration and possible international expansion. A rebrand from Hulu + Live TV to simply Fubo feels likely.

Some Disney+ users have complained on social media that the platform no longer feels like a family-focused service since Hulu content appeared. That pushback exists. But internationally, the blended model has been running for over five years with measurable improvements in engagement and reduced churn. Disney already ran the experiment — and it worked.

A broader shift that goes beyond just two apps

Disney's consolidation playbook may not stop at Hulu. Paramount+ and Max face similar pressures — competing against Netflix and Amazon Prime Video individually is increasingly untenable. A combined Disney+/Hulu/ESPN offering creates a genuinely competitive content slate across kids, adults, sports, and prestige drama. That's a harder bundle for any rival to match.

For anyone who regularly checks what's available where across streaming platforms, the Hulu sunset will mean one fewer destination to track in the US — but potentially a richer Disney+ library than anything the platform has offered so far. The question isn't really whether the Hulu app disappears. Based on everything we're seeing, it's only a matter of when Disney decides the migration is complete enough to flip the switch.