Disney+ is straight up canceling everything right now and the latest victim is the Holes TV series. After ordering a pilot earlier this year, the streaming platform just decided not to move forward with the adaptation. RIP to a show nobody even got to see.
For context, Holes is based on Louis Sachar’s 1998 novel that won a National Book Award and a Newbery Medal. Disney made it into a hit 2003 movie starring Shia LaBeouf that basically launched his career. The film had Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Patricia Arquette, and Eartha Kitt. Both the book and movie were huge successes.
So naturally Disney thought it would make a great TV show. Spoiler alert: they changed their minds after seeing the pilot.
They Gender-Swapped the Whole Thing
The Disney+ version wasn’t just a straight adaptation. They flipped the main character from Stanley, a teenage boy, to Hayley, a teenage girl played by Shay Rudolph. Instead of Camp Green Lake, it was Camp Yucca. But the basic premise stayed the same: wrongfully convicted teen forced to dig holes in the desert, discovers family secrets.
Greg Kinnear was playing the warden and Aidy Bryant was cast as a camp counselor named Sissy. The creative team looked solid too. Jac Schaeffer directed the pilot, Liz Phang was showrunner, and Drew Goddard was executive producing. Walden Media, which made the original film, was producing.
Everything looked good on paper. Experienced talent, proven IP, Disney backing. But none of that mattered once Disney watched the pilot and decided it wasn’t worth pursuing.
Disney’s on a Cancellation Rampage
Holes is just the latest casualty in Disney’s current slash-and-burn approach to content. The company has been quietly killing projects left and right, even ones that seemed like sure things.
Rian Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy? Dead. Johnson confirmed recently that the project announced way back in 2017 is no longer in active development. He’s still saying he’d love to return to Star Wars someday but let’s be real, that trilogy is never happening.
The pattern is clear. Disney is way more willing to pull the plug on stuff now, even after they’ve invested in development and production. Having a famous source material or big names attached doesn’t guarantee anything anymore.
Why This Matters
The Holes cancellation is honestly pretty brutal when you think about it. They ordered a pilot, assembled a whole cast, brought in experienced showrunners and directors, produced the episode, and then just decided nope, not doing this.
That pilot cost real money to make. All those actors blocked out time in their schedules. The creative team invested months developing the show. And Disney just shelved the whole thing without giving it a chance to become a series.
The gender-swapped approach was probably an attempt to make it feel fresh and different from the 2003 movie. But apparently whatever they did in the pilot didn’t land with Disney executives. We’ll never know what they actually created because that pilot is getting buried and will probably never see the light of day.
For fans who were excited about a Holes TV series, this is disappointing news. The 2003 movie remains the only screen adaptation, and based on how streaming is going right now, it’s probably going to stay that way for a long time.
The Streaming Reality Check
Here’s the thing about streaming right now. Platforms are doing extremely harsh evaluations of pilots and being ruthless about what gets series orders. Even Disney, which literally owns the IP and made the original movie, isn’t giving its own properties a pass.
If Holes with all its advantages couldn’t make it past the pilot stage, what does that say about original projects with no brand recognition trying to break through? The bar is insanely high and getting higher.
Disney clearly has specific criteria for what makes it to series, and whatever those standards are, Holes didn’t meet them. Maybe the pilot wasn’t good enough. Maybe it didn’t fit their current strategy. Maybe they just decided they don’t need another YA adaptation right now.
Whatever the reason, the show is dead and that pilot will collect dust in Disney’s vault alongside all the other cancelled projects that nobody will ever see.
