HBO Max

HBO Max Price Will Head Due “North” When It Combines With Discovery+ Next Spring, Warner Discovery Streaming Czar JB Perrette Says, And Ad Load On Cheaper Tier Could Also Double – Deadline

 

Harry Potter: More Movies With J.K. Rowling a Possibility – The Hollywood Reporter

When the CEO claims the last Superman movie came out 13 years ago and the last Harry Potter was 15 years ago when each came out in 2013 and 2011 respectively….

 

That's a good way to kill a streamer.

 

Oh. Yay.

 

The price hike is really going to hurt them. I love the service but I don’t think I would pay $30 a month for it….unless the annual plan is heavily discounted which I doubt it will be. Earlier I dropped Netflix for the same reason but added it back for the very basic plan which is only $10/month.

 

When Max first came out, they offered a pretty good discount and then extended it for another year. I too can’t imagine paying over $20/month on this new service—especially if I don’t care about 95% of the content I’ve come across on Discovery+

 

Does he think we're in 2026?

 

This guy seriously thinks people are going to pay MORE to have to wade through 90-Day Fiance dreck just to track down LESS HBO content than they were already paying for?

Well, okay, this all starts to make sense when you realize he can't do basic math.

 

Especially since overseas they often gave lifetime discounts for HBO Max. They'd have to reintroduce it as a new service, with a new name, and most people just wouldn't bother.

 

HBO Cancels ‘Westworld’ in Shock Decision – The Hollywood Reporter

 

To be honest it is the right decision. This become more and more a mess with every season. Season 2 already was repetitive but had at least some stand out episodes. Season 3 and 4 were boring action stretches and everyone was alive again in the next episode..

 

Is it?

 

I only watched the first season

 

They let it continue for four seasons and decided to cancel it before its last one. Deadline reports that they heard it wasn't even a budget issue. I bet it's going to affect the other two shows Kilter Films was going to produce. It would also be much more appealing as a complete show in the HBO catalogue for the very possible scenario of selling their properties once again. Horrible decision all the way.

 

Wait, Westworld was planned for a fifth season? That fourth season ended pretty conclusively so, yeah, I'm surprise the show wasn't announced to be canned sooner. Didn't hear any excitement from anyone about season 4 while it was airing, regardless, so getting is ax isn't a "shocker".

At the very least, it frees Jonathan Nolan up to go work with his brother Chris again. It feels like ages since those two last did a script together.

 

It literally said within the show that it had one more story to tell and everything basically led to this. If anything I'd say that it was the first season that ended on a cliffhanger. All previous three I could see them serve as series finales as well. The "shock" is they decided to cancel a show that had a five-season plan from the beginning, at the last moment. They could have given it a shorter season or a movie, instead of leaving it hang in the air.

I don't see it happening any time soon. Nolan and Joy are making shows in Amazon. The Peripheral is already out and Fallout is currently shooting. They have a couple of more shows at HBO too, which I hope are not affected by the Westworld cancellation. Even if it wasn't for all that, I think Jonathan is enjoying doing his own thing, working with his wife to return collaborating with his brother for the foreseeable future. I really hope they reunite one day, though.

 

If they do that, then Fantastic Beasts would want its last two movies.

 

Very different cases. Two Fantastic Beasts films would cost around 200 million each, a full season of Westworld would cost around 100. Also they made the films feel like they ended, whereas Westworld was clear about leading to a point that was never shown. And although each season had a continuing decline the last one still made fine live numbers, similar to Euphoria's current season, despite the fact that they buried it in marketing. The last Beasts film made the studio lose money in one of their more prestigious franchises.

And again, it is reported that the show wasn't even canceled for cutting-cost reasons. It probably had something to do with how displeased they were with Abrams and Bad Robot Productions and with Nolan and Joy focusing on their Amazon shows.

 

Unlike Euphoria, which I’m sure is still made for a fraction of the the cost, Westworld was consistently seeing lower viewership which didn’t translate to its budget. Also, the former was seeing online discussions and memes almost every week. Besides some fan forums on Reddit and here, I didn’t see much discussion or excitement for season 4. I don’t think a production company should be obligated to fund something if the viewership is continuing to see a steep drop.

 

Every single HBO show has shown decline in the last few years, especially after HBO Max. It's because the majority of people watch them elsewhere. Now, I don't know their exact numbers outside HBO proper and maybe they were really low, but like I said their abysmal marketing didn't help either. And since it is being reported that the show wasn't canceled due to cost-cutting, it makes me think that viewership wasn't that bad to justify the axe.

They're not obligated, but focusing on a good relationship with creators, especially when they're having more shows in development is always better in the long term. Obviously Zazlav only cares about the short term, hence why he made far more head-scratching choices these last few months.

 

That doesn’t make sense; if the cost and viewership weren’t the problem, you think they just canceled the show for the hell of it? Everything would point to the contrary based off them renewing shows like Harley Quinn recently.

I agree that producers should talk to creators before making big decisions, which we have no idea what closed door discussions have happened before getting to this point, but that still doesn’t mean you should continue forward on something just to make a creator happy either. Trust me, I’ve been through something similar with NBC’s Hannibal show when it got canceled.

 

They renewed Harley Quinn because the episodes were most likely already ordered, just like with the first two seasons of the show. No company orders 10 episodes of an animated show. They order a "full season" of 20 or more, then chop it in half.

Fuller, as much as I adore him, isn't responsible for many "popular" things. He's more cult based with his success. Jonah is responsible for two very successful shows, and there is no indication Westworld was no longer "popular", Though a reduction in advertising is exactly how a certain other streamer tries to make a show irrelevant before citing a lack of interest in continuing it.

The thing about HBO Max, is just like Netflix, it's going through the early growing pains of being a streamer. Disney+ has done this as well. The big difference? Disney+ is trying to make completed libraries, as opposed to non-stop cost cutting smaller things, while blowing money on projects that have little to no chance of succeeding. Like say, bringing in a failed Superman on a big money deal to be Superman again, spending 150m on a turkey from the Rock, or handing over DC to a guy who's last movie bombed completely.

The idea with WB is IP, sports, and reality. That's what they will be doing at least until Universal or Amazon buys them. This isn't a guess, it isn't a drill, it's what they've setup to do, and have been moving forward with.

 

The last 15 mins of season 4 is a literal setup for the last season...

You think Jonah just wants to write for his brother? The guys been working on stuff other then Westworld for years.

 

I still liked Westworld, even if it never again reached the heights of Season 1. Dolores’ entire storyline in Season 4 was a setup for the final season.

 

Rereading the price hike article. The logic seems to be that people aren't moving in droves to the ad tier so that must mean they want to pay more for ads? What the **** do business minded people think?