Westworld could have had a final season with a reduced budget (HBO said no)

Earlier this year, Warner Bros. merged with Discovery to create the new company Warner Bros. Discovery, headed up by David Zaslav. The changes have come fast and furious. People have been flummoxed by Zaslav and company canceling the Batgirl movie even though it was mostly already filmed, doing something similar to the second season of The Minx, removing The Nevers and other shows from HBO Max, and more.

One of the biggest recent “whoa” moments came when HBO canceled Westworld ahead of a planned fifth and final season. While it’s true that Westworld fell more out of favor the longer it went on, the sci-fi drama was once considered a pillar of HBO’s lineup, so it was surprising that HBO pulled the plug before the end.

According to sources at The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. Discovery did suggest a way for the fifth season to happen: they wanted to produce season 5 for a drastically reduced budget (season 4 cost $160 million) and air it not on HBO but on the WBD FAST platform, where they could run adds with the new episodes. HBO opted to just cancel the show instead, although the stars are still getting paid.

Why HBO didn’t make Westworld season 5

At the moment, Zaslav and company are looking at ways to cut costs and pay debts, and canceling projects and writing off the money they’d spent on them to get tax breaks is one way to do that. Putting them on FAST (free ad-supported streaming television) is another way.

And even though HBO isn’t producing another season of Westworld, Warner Bros. Discovery is still taking the show off HBO Max and putting it onto a FAST platform, along with shows like The Nevers, FBoy Island, Legendary, The Time Traveler’s Wife and Raised by Wolves. Outside of buying these shows on home video, the FAST channels are now the only way to watch them.

Time will tell how this affects what kinds of shows HBO chooses to produce in the future, but I have to imagine they’ll be less willing to spend tons of money on ambitious fantasy and sci-fi shows if Warner Bros. Discovery can pull the plugs on them this easily.

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