HBO Max removes dozens of titles, offers discounts, is definitely not on fire

It’s dark times over at HBO Max, my friends. The cloud descended earlier this month when Warner Bros. Discovery removed several HBO Max original movies off the service entirely, including the 2020 remake of The Witches and Seth Rogan’s An American Pickle. Then they shelved Batgirl despite the movie already having been shot to the tune of $90 million.

Now, Deadline reports that Warner Bros. Discovery has pulled dozens more TV shows and movies from HBO Max, some of which it was licensing and some of which were available exclusively on the streaming service. These include shows like Summer Camp Island — which had 20 new episodes ready to go that now seem in danger — and movies like My Dinner with Hervé, starring Game of Thrones veteran Peter Dinklage.

If we’re being honest, none of these projects are huge draws for HBO Max — a lot of them are animated and kids programming, which Warner Bros. Discovery seems to be phasing out — but it’s still baffling to see this much content just evaporate from the service. Here’s the full list:

• 12 Dates of Christmas
• About Last Night
• Aquaman: King of Atlantis
• Close Enough
• Detention Adventure
• Dodo
• Ellen’s Next Great Designer
• Elliott From Earth
• Esme & Roy
• The Fungies!
• Generation Hustle
• Genera+ion
• Infinity Train
• Little Ellen
• Mao Mao, Heroes of Pure Heart
• Messy Goes to Okido
• Mia’s Magic Playground
• Mighty Magiswords
• My Dinner with Herve
• My Mom, Your Dad
• Odo
• OK K.O.! – Let’s Be Heroes
• The Ollie & Moon Show
• Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
• Ravi Patel’s Pursuit of Happiness
• Select Sesame Street Specials
• Make It Big, Make It Small
• Share
• Squish
• Summer Camp Island
• The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo
• The Runaway Bunny – Special
• Theodosia
• Tig n’ Seek
• Uncle Grandpa
• Victor and Valentino
• Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs

HBO Max hit with layoffs, content purges, general suckiness

This culling is happening as Warner Bros. Discovery — a new company formed when Discovery bought WarnerMedia last year — is implementing some changes under the guidance of CEO David Zaslav. The longterm plan is to combine HBO Max and streaming service Discovery+ into one thing, but why that requires cutting content from either, I don’t know.

It does, though, or at least that’s what the company said in a statement: “As we work toward bringing our content catalogs together under one platform, we will be making changes to the content offering available on both HBO Max and discovery+. That will include the removal of some content from both platforms.” See?

I’m gonna guess it has something to do with…taxes? Apparently that’s why Batgirl was cancelled: that Zaslav thought he could make more by killing the project and using it as a tax write-down than he could releasing it. That might be true, but it’s coming at the cost of shedding content at a time when streaming is more popular and competitive than ever and alienating creators. Summer Camp Island creator Julia Pott was none too pleased, for instance:

As Warner Bros. Discovery carries out this content purge, they’re offering HBO Max at a discounted price, per Variety. Through October, people can subscribe to HBO Max at $105 for one year with no ads or $70 for one year without ads. That’s 30% off of the regular price and 42% off the monthly price. Considering how much less content there is on the service all of a sudden, it’s only fair.

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