Max is set to lose dozens of movies and TV shows in December, according to a dispiriting new post. Although not the most popular streaming service, Max (formerly HBO Max) has remained a key competitor in the space for a number of years now, boasting a strong library of HBO shows and beloved Warner Bros. films, among many other titles.
Now, according to a new post from filmmaker Mark Hughes on X, formerly known as Twitter, Max will be losing a number of beloved movies and TV shows in December, including some Christmas favorites. Check out Hughes’ X thread below:
“It’s sad to see a studio [with] such history and streamer [with] such potential being shredded and reduced to this state,” Hughes includes at the end of his thread. The exhaustive list features dozens of titles, and includes projects from filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson, George Miller, Guy Ritchie, Jon Favreau, and Dan Gilroy, among others. Select titles being removed are listed below:
- A Very Harold and Kumar 3-D Christmas
- Warm Bodies
- The Whole Ten Yards
- You’re Next
- Steven King’s Graveyard Shift
- Take Shelter
- Tom & Jerry: The Movie
- Rock of Ages
- The Rover
- Scream
- Scream 2
- Scream 3
- Snitch
- So I Married An Axe Murderer
- Son of the Mask
- Marley and Me
- The Master
- Napoleon Dynamite
- Misery
- The Neverending Story
- The Phantom of the Opera
- The Polar Express
- Law Abiding Citizen
- The LEGO Movie
- The Lost Boys
- Happy Feet
- The Illusionist
- Insidious: Chapter 2
- Jack Frost
- Jumanji
- Final Destination
- Elf
- Four Christmases
- Fred Claus
- Child’s Play
- A Christmas Carol
- A Christmas Story
- The Conjuring 2
- Crocodile Dundee
- Annabelle
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
- Nightcrawler
- Entourage (2015)
- The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
- Spotlight
Why Max Is Losing So Many Movies & TV Shows
Why The Streaming Landscape Is Changing
Max has found itself at the center of a number of controversies in recent years. The first big one was the cancellation of the Batgirl movie in 2022 as a tax write-down. Essentially, the cancellation fell under the umbrella of grander post-merger restructuring efforts after the merging of WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. in spring 2022. The Batgirl cancellation would be followed by the removal of shows from the Max streaming service, some of which would eventually find new homes on FAST (free ad-supported television) channels.
What these moves essentially boil down to is a shift away from a scale-driven approach to the Max streaming service toward a model focused on profitability. Instead of attempting to attract subscribers no matter the cost, with hundreds of millions of dollars sunk into content that doesn’t really move the needle, Max – and the streaming landscape in general – is now more interested in profitability and reducing losses. Save for Netflix, which remains the most successful and popular streaming service, others streamers, like Disney Plus, are taking a similar approach.
Not all the titles leaving Max in December are Warner Bros. titles, but the ones that are will likely be licensed off to other streaming services or FAST channels. This, after all, is another way to squeeze profitability out of titles that perhaps aren’t proving to be big draws on Max. While shedding so many titles has evidently been deemed to make business sense at the moment, and content removals aren’t unusual in the streaming landscape, there’s no denying that Max‘s continued content shakeup is sure to prove frustrating to subscribers, especially when streaming costs are only going up.
