If you love HBO Max like we do, we’ve got some bad news. There’s a new nightmare scenario when it comes to the HBO Max and Discovery Plus merger. Yes, in case you haven’t heard, the Discovery’s acquisition of WarnerMedia from AT&T, which has led to the mouthful of a new name Warner Bros. Discovery, meant we’re going to be getting one service that combines the two. Or so we thought.
Today’s news, though, is very ominous for anything with HBO Max (which we still believe is the best streaming service) branding on it. In the midst of plenty of chaos on Tuesday (August 2), with HBO Max’s Batgirl movie being canceled after Warner put $90 million into it and the news that six HBO Max original films have disappeared from the service.
Tony Maglio at IndieWire (opens in new tab) then reported there were more cuts to come, and it’s all because of the want to cut costs as they merge HBO Max and Discovery Plus. The question, of course is how are they going to merge these two services?
Then, on Wednesday afternoon, The Wrap (opens in new tab) broke the dam with a shocking new report stating “HBO Max development is expected to be especially hard hit with layoffs with two sources placing the amount of dev staff cuts at 70%.” An insider told The Wrap that HBO’s “employees are ‘all freaking out’ and that ‘all I know is they’re folding HBO Max into HBO, and there will be redundancies.'”
Prior to this, all we had heard was a rumor from Beyond The Trailer YouTuber Grace Randolph. Randolph is credited as insider by some (opens in new tab), while James Gunn (opens in new tab) doesn’t seem to trust her, to put it politely. And her rumor now seems more true than ever.
A nightmare scenario for HBO Max fans
Ahead of Warner Bros. Discovery’s Q2 earnings on Thursday (August 4), Randolph tweeted (opens in new tab) “here’s the RUMOR re the #WBD presentation,” with the following notes: HBO Max would become a part of Discovery Plus, “probably as #HBO tab” and that the new service would be “getting rid of #HBOMax scripted, overall streaming focusing on unscripted.”
There’s one big asterisk to that claim, which appears in Randolph’s subsequent threaded tweet: “#HBOMax originals, if they stick around, will I guess become #HBO shows?” Randolph ends the short thread saying “The business brilliance of this is that Discovery cares about Discovery, so it builds up their service even if at some later date they decide to sell WB.”
This would basically force loyal HBO Max subscribers to buy into a new (likely more expensive) streaming service to keep getting access to the shows and movies they like, while possibly getting less of that content they prefer.
This also doesn’t speak to where the licensed HBO Max content — seasons of Friends, the Studio Ghibli movies and much more — would wind up. Inside that new “HBO” tab?
HBO Max becomes the HBO section
So, what will happen now? The Wrap quotes a Hollywood agent with knowledge of the plans as saying “HBO is very safe. If this was ‘Game of Thrones,’ Casey Bloys won.”
Yes, HBO Max just re-invested in the man behind its content: Casey Bloys, HBO and HBO Max’s chief content officer. A Variety (opens in new tab) report from July 2022 states that Bloys signed a new five-year contract with Warner Bros. Discovery. But just think like a cost-cutting executive and look at his split titles. Why have him run both HBO and HBO Max’s content, when he could just run one?
So it seems like Bloys is coming back to run a single team with a likely smaller budget. WBD has been swinging the cancelation axe on a lot of scripted programming, including TNT’s Snowpiercer, TBS’ The Last O.G. and HBO Max’s Made For Love.
Some HBO Max shows could stick around under the HBO brand, as Bloys has publicly said The Flight Attendant season 3 is definitely possible. We’re hoping Peacemaker, Harley Quinn, Our Flag Means Death and Hacks are among the shows that survive.
Why we hope this rumor is wrong
The big question that Warner Bros. Discovery execs are likely toying with is “which streaming service is more important?” With the potential death of HBO Max, it seems like they made up their mind.
Comparing HBO Max and Discovery Plus is admittedly like comparing apples and pineapples. The former is predominantly made up of scripted programming, and the latter is mostly unscripted content. Since it was Discovery that acquired WarnerMedia, one could argue that some execs might play favorites, and put their effort into making Discovery Plus the bigger service (as Randolph suggests).
The reason why Randolph’s rumor makes sense is simple: this is Discovery’s company now. And it’s hard to envision them wanting to make their service a tab inside someone else’s app. That said, we’d much rather see a Discovery Plus hub in HBO Max than a HBO tab in the Discovery Plus app. HBO Max seems like a brand that could fit Discovery inside of it, right?
But this is all optics. What matters more is how much this new service costs (a price hike seems inevitable). If the price is marginally higher, and the reduced amount of HBO Max content is minimal, this could be possibly stomached. But if the price goes up while HBO Max content goes down, Warner Bros. Discovery could be creating a new problem.
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