Everything you need to know about HBO Max

HBO was determined to suck up all the news oxygen yesterday, wasn’t it? First, it decided not to go ahead with a hotly anticipated Game of Thrones prequel series set in the distant past of Westeros, and then, a couple hours later, announced that it was going ahead with an entirely different Game of Thrones prequel series set in the more recent past. Lost in the shuffle — at least for us Thrones nerds — was WarnerMedia’s announcement of HBO Max, a new streaming service that will feature lots of HBO content, plus a lot more.

I’m still not sold on the name HBO Max, but the service itself looks pretty interesting. Here’s what you need to know:

• It’s coming out in May 2020.
• It will cost $14.99 per month, which puts it at the higher end of the streaming wars. There will also be an ad-supported tier launched in 2021. AT&T customers who already subscribe to HBO will get it for free, while other AT&T customers will be offered bundles at launch.

Okay, let’s talk content. We don’t know everything coming to the service, but we know a lot.

Here’s all the licensed content coming to HBO Max at launch:

• Friends. All of it.
• The Big Bang Theory. All of it.
• The West Wing. Ditto.
• South Park, all 23 seasons of it
• Rick and Morty
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
• Impractical Jokers
• Pretty Little Liars
• HBO Max will be the exclusive streaming home of CW dramas like Riverdale and Batwoman
• Studio Ghibli’s entire library will be available to stream, including classics like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.
• Speaking of Japanese animation, HBO Max will have “a new anime every quarter,” curated by the experts at @Crunchyroll
• Classic Loony Tunes cartoons
• Lots of Adult Swim shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, and Samurai Jack
• The Matrix movies
• The LEGO Movie…movies
• The Conjuring movies
• Sesame Street, all 50-plus years of it
  Doctor Who; that’s another big one
• There will be a lot of BBC on HBO Max, including shows like Luther, Top Gear and the original version of The Office — NBC’s streaming service Peacock will have the American take
• HBO Max will have a ton of DC movies available at launch, including the new hit movie Joker with Joaquin Phoenix
• AT&T has worked with TCM to bring classic movies to the service, including Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Shining, A Star is Born, Singin’ in the Rain, 2001: A Space Odyssey, “and many more”
• Both The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies will available on HBO Max

Not a bad lineup; there’s some beloved stuff in there.

Here are the original series and movies:

• Dune: The Sisterhood, a sci-fi show about the Bene Gesserit order from Frank Miller’s Dune universe
• Tokyo Vice, about the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat starring Ansel Elgort.
• The Flight Attendant, a one-hour thriller series based on the novel by Chris Bohjalian, starring Kaley Cuoco
• Love Life, a 10-episode half-hour romantic comedy anthology starring Anna Kendrick
• Station Eleven, a post-apocalyptic limited series based on Emily St. John Mandel’s book
• Made for Love, a 10-episode half-hour series based on the novel by Alissa Nutting
• Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, an animated series from Warner Bros. Animation and Amblin Entertainment based on the 1984 movie
• Crime Farm, a drama a drama about married forensic homicide experts
• Circe, a modern take on Greek mythology based on Madeline Miller book’s novel
• Americanah, an adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel about Ifemelu (Lupita Nyong’o), a young woman raised in Nigeria who falls in love with her classmate
• Four new Adventure Time specials are coming
  Rydell High, a Grease spinoff series, which…okay
• Anna K, a modern-day, YA retelling of Anna Karenina
• A Gossip Girl sequel series
• Rules of Magic, a prequel to 1998’s Practical Magic
• Red Bird Lane, a YA horror series about eight strangers who arrive at an isolated house and quickly realize that something sinister and terrifying awaits them
• A revival of The Boondocks
• Gen:Lock, an animated giant robot show starring Maisie Williams
• Generation, Lena Dunham’s show about high school students in a conservative community.
• Rap Sh*t, a new show from Issa Rae (Insecure) about the music business in Miami
• Starstruck, a six-episode comedy series from comedian Rose Matafeo
• Search Party, a TBS comedy moving to HBO Max for its upcoming third season.
• Let Them All Talk, a new movie from Steven Soderbergh starring Meryl Streep as a celebrated author who takes a journey with old friends to have some fun and heal old wounds
• Ellen DeGeneres has a few projects coming to HBO Max: Ellen’s Home Design Challenge, First Dates Hotel, and a 2D animated children’s series Little Ellen
• Raised By Wolves, a sci-fi series from Ridley Scott
• Riverdale producer Greg Berlanti is making four YA movies for HBO Max
• He’s also making an original Green Lantern show
• Reese Witherspoon is producing at least two movies for the service
• College Girls, a new half-hour sitcom from Mindy Kaling
  Superintelligence, a comedy starring Melissa McCarthy as a woman who discovers that the world’s first superintelligence has chosen to observe her and her life as part of a plan to take over everything.
  UNpregnant, an adaptation of the YA novel by Jenni Hendriks and Ted Caplan
• Bobbie Sue, a movie starring Gina Rodriguez as a scrappy, headstrong lawyer

Moving along, here are the service’s unscripted series:

• 15 Minutes of Shame, a documentary from Monica Lewinsky about people from around the world who have been caught up in a situation that involved public criticism and humiliation
• Birth, Wedding, Funeral, a docuseries from CNN host Lisa Ling that will explore different countries and cultures
• Some kind of Bachelor spinoff show “with new additional footage from recent seasons”
• Expecting Amy, a documentary about Amy Schumer
• Karma, a competition series hosted by YouTube star Michelle Khare
  Craftopia, a kids crafting competition hosted by Lauren Riihimaki, another YouTube star
• Equal, a four-part docuseries on the history of the LGBTQ+ movement
• The Ho’s, an eight-episode half-hour docuseries about a wealthy Vietnamese immigrant family
• Legendary, a competition series featuring contestants on voguing teams
• The Greatest Space, a competition show featuring interior designers
• A documentary about the life of Anthony Bourdain
• Conan O’Brien will have five stand-up specials available on HBO Max at launch
• Heaven’s Gate, a four-part original docuseries series about the infamous Heaven’s Gate cult
• Generation Hustle (working title), a 10-part docuseries about the lengths young people will go for fame, fortune and power.
• Full Bloom, a competition series, this time with florists
  The Scoop (working title), a documentary about the lives of CNN’s female political reporters covering the presidential campaign
  Persona (working title), a documentary about America’s obsession with personality testing
• Tooned Out, a live-action-animation hybrid featuring Looney Tunes characters, all spearheaded by Robert Zemeckis — also look out for original Looney Tunes shorts

Finally, HBO Max will have — surprise, surprise — lots of HBO content; we’re talking Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Westworld, Watchmen, The Wire, and the rest of the network’s lineup, including the upcoming Game of Thrones prequel show.

Other upcoming HBO content includes:

• Stephen King’s The Outsider
• Lovecraft Country, a horror series based on a novel by Matt Ruff and executive produced by Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams.
• The Nevers: Joss Whedon’s new sci-fi period drama
• The Gilded Age, a non-sci-fi period drama by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes
• Avenue 5, a satire set aboard a space-bound cruise ship from Veep creator Armando Iannucci
• The Undoing, a psychological thriller from David E. Kelley starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant
• The Plot Against America, an alternate history drama based on Phillip Roth’s novel, written and executive produced by David Simon and Ed Burns, starring Winona Ryder and John Turturro
  A reimagining of the classic legal drama Perry Mason, with Matthew Rhys in the lead role
• I Know This Much Is True, a family drama starring Mark Ruffalo as twin brothers
• Run, a new series from Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller Bridge
• Mare of Easttown, a limited series starring Kate Winslet as a small-town Pennsylvania detective investigating a local murder.

If HBO Max has all of HBO’s content, I don’t quite know where that leaves HBO Now, the network’s current over-the-top streaming service, to say nothing of the traditional cable channel. I guess we’ll see how things shake out.

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All in all, HBO Max will launch with more than 10,000 hours of content. Is it strong enough to help WarnerMedia to compete in a crowded field that also includes streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Video, CBS All Access, Peacock and Apple TV+? That will be entirely up to you.

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h/t The Verge, Variety