HBO Max has been making headlines through 2022 not for what it is releasing (aside from House of Dragon) but for what it has been canceling. We won’t regale you with the litany of everything recently pulled from the service and the sorts of trumped-up controversies around the decisions. More explosive in the industry is that there are a number of shows and movies that are not only canceled but will no longer be available to stream on the Platform, which is a very different thing, because it affects the residual income from people viewing the projects later. Wednesday marked another day of announcements for the company including some shows that viewers already knew were on the chopping block and others. They include “The Nevers,” “Raised by Wolves,” “FBoy Island,” “Legendary,” “Finding Magic Mike,” “Head of the Class” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife”. According to Variety, The good news is that this is not an official end for these shows. HBO Max/WBD owns the shows and has announced that these shows will find a new home on 3rd party FAST services.
Where Will You Find Them?
There have been no specifics announced as to which ones but I think I have a guess. Look to FreeVee. Why? Because WBD has already put a deal in place with Amazon to stream yet unreleased animated content on Amazon Prime, while also putting HBO Max back into the Amazon Channels service. This guess could be wrong, but the Amazon deal appears multifaceted. Plus Amazon has the money to through into projects like these and the bandwidth to handle the viewership they might bring. Amazon also has a history with HBO Content being the former home to thousands of hours of HBO content before HBO Max became the primary home of the content after the merger between Warner Brothers and Discovery Networks.
Other shows, not owned by WBD that have been canceled and will have to find new homes on their own. But that will be up to the studios that own them. Projects such as “Gordita Chronicles” (Sony Pictures Television), “Love Life” (Lionsgate Television), “Made for Love” (Paramount Television Studios), “The Garcias” (ViacomCBS) and “Minx” (Lionsgate).
One could take educated guesses as to where those series could land based on current relationships. For instance, Netflix has a new deal with Sony that puts its content on the streamer meaning it would not be a stretch to see Gordita Chronicles show up there. Made For Love from Paramount and The Garcias have a soft landing place if the company wants it on Paramount+. Even Lions Gate has been busy with partnerships that could land Minx on a platform like The Roku Channel.
