It’s common knowledge that HBO Max is going through a tough consolidation phase at present. Ever since Warner Bros., the owners of the beleaguered streaming platform, merged with Discovery, HBO Max is caught in one difficult quandary after another. David Zaslav, Chief Executive Officer and President of the combined entity called Warner Bros. Discovery, has been on a cost-cutting spree ever since he assumed his position as the head of the merged company.
And the churn at HBO Max just refuses to abate. Last evening, HBO Max removed several prestigious titles from the HBO Max library, all of them HBO Max Originals. The first is Westworld, which was canceled at HBO Max last month after 4 seasons. Next to face the axe are Love Life and The Nevers. Both have been canceled at HBO Max. And all three, including Westworld, have been unceremoniously removed from the HBO Max library, despite being HBO Max Originals.
Also, HBO Max has canceled the popular ‘Minx’, despite green-lighting its Season 2 earlier. MINX Season 2 is almost complete, only some post-production work is left. But HBO Max’s decision is final. Not just this, Minx has also been removed from the HBO Max library. Production company Lionsgate has said it will shop both seasons to another streamer.
It’s quite weird, whatever is happening at HBO Max. It all started with the stunning scrapping of the $90 million ‘Batgirl’ by Warner Bros. Discovery, despite the film already being completed. Then Warner Bros. Discovery made the shocking move of removing several HBO Max Original films from its library, films that were made exclusively for directly streaming on the platform. ‘The Witches’, ‘Locked Down’, ‘Superintelligence’, ‘An American Pickle’, were some of those. In all, HBO Max has removed 36 titles from its platform since August.
And now this – yet another round of yanking off of prestigious titles from the HBO Max library. The cost-cutting measures at HBO Max are certainly taking a heavy toll for digital viewers.
Hopefully, all the cancelled and removed shows will find a streaming home in other streaming platforms, if bought by them.
Meanwhile, the churn at HBO Max goes on and on and on.
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