The Return of the King vanishes then reappears on Max, ending season of panic

A few days ago, Redditor Jeriphro posted about a problem familiar to nerds of a certain age. "My family loves Lord of the Rings, and we try to watch the three films around the holiday season each year," they wrote. "We were blazing through the Extended Editions on HBO Max, as they advertised having them, and yesterday we began Return of the King (Extended Edition). We watched about two hours yesterday and decided to watch the rest on New Year's (Today). Sadly, however, the movie disappeared. Only this one. Every other LOTR and Hobbit film, normal and extended, are still available. Only Return of the King (Extended Edition)."

Yes, it's true: the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Kings, the third and final movie in Peter Jackson's beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy, vanished from Max, right when the Tolkien faithful, lethargic from weeks of holiday festivities, were getting ready to watch. Was this an innocent mistake or part of an evil plot?

Probably an innocent mistake. According to IGN, "sources familiar with the matter" chocked it up to a "technical issue" and promised that the film would "be back up soon," as indeed it now is. Problem solved.

It's not insane for a streaming service to have a technical issue that results in some film or movie going down for a day or two, but our antennas are extra sensitive when Max is involved, since they're operated by Warner Bros. Discovery. WBD has developed a reputation in recent years for unceremoniously pitching movies and TV shows for apparently no reason, like when it chose not to release a practically finished Batgirl movie, or to shelve the completely finished movie Coyote vs. Acme despite it getting great advance reviews. WBD eventually chose to shop that one around to other distributors, but only after a public backlash. If they're willing to toss a movie like that aside, might they get rid of Return of the King in exchange for a tax write-off or something?

These are the kinds of paranoid thoughts you have when a studio deploys tactics like this in the Streaming Wars. The immediate danger has passed, and now the Watchful Peace begins.

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