Not at all surprised. If a business is to survive, then thrive, the occasional house-cleaning is necessary. Some are taking it as some sort of abuse, when its anything other than that. Indeed. Why are you so hostile about this? This is not the first time in film business history where films have been shelved, cancelled mid-production, or held back from release until some date in the future. From a creative standpoint, some are acting as if the Batgirl film was going to be creative highpoint of the age. At present, WB/D can do whatever they want with the film, or take the elements comprising its intended effect and add it to another film, one which suits their big screen desires more than Batgirl.
Probably due to their perspective--they are considering $90 million in the way it would mean to Joe Average on the street, instead of the view of a global corporation dealing in billions from their large number of properties. Every media corporation does that--the standard practice for generations; they do not want to lose money once taking the full risk (e.g. marketing costs on top of production, and the film failing to earn that back), but at this stage, unfinished and/or unreleased films are a financial sacrifice they're willing to absorb for their bigger picture.
The Joker sequel has a release date of October 4th 2024 (well, subject to whatever WB decides to do before then) https://deadline.com/2022/08/joker-2-release-date-1235084541/
Well that obviously isn't a blatant attempt to switch the conversation away from 'Batgirl'. wink-wink
https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1554896680260083713 As usual the people blatantly denying the obvious were wrong. Hbo Max is in bigggggg trouble. EDIT: Holy shit. They aren't just canceling things. They are actually deleting existing things from their catalogue! This is not what the streaming era was supposed to be like... I wanted to watch American Pickle one day, thinking it will be on the service forever...
It pains me to say this, but Grace Randolph, despite being a human tabloid, might actually have been right about the future of HBO Max.
This is completely insane. They are letting the service with 24 million subscribers completely take over the one with 77 million... Please don't tell me this is normal. None of this is normal.
Why make high quality drama when you make "Dr. Pimple Popper" (which I did not make up, honestly) instead?
I know, people these days watch that kind of stuff. I thought watching HGTV was basically watching mundane shit, but I was wrong. People watch people eat, or shop in thrift stores, or do all kinds of normal things on YouTube, so of course mainstream TV is trying to capitalize. Its bizarre and disappointing, as a fact of quality scripted shows.
Yeah, I want the Warners equivalent of Disney+. If they produced it, it's on there. I understand due to existing contracts that takes time to build, but removing things is the OPPOSITE of that. I can't imagine The Apple Dumpling Gang gets a ton of play on Disney+, but it's there if I ever want to revisit it. Warner's is going the wrong direction.
I said that she might be right. There's also a good chance that she's full of sh*t (like usual), and HBO Max continues to exist, albeit as merely a repository for HBO content, Discovery content, and whatever else Casey Bloys and his team want to put on there.
^ Removing 6 HBO Max Originals movies and ceasing to produce platform-exclusive scripted content hardly constitutes 'gutting the service'.
Out of curiosity I went onto Crave, the streaming service owned by Bell which has the rights to WB & HBO content in Canada. American Pickle is still on it so they aren't forcing international partners to withdraw the content at this point. Although whether they let it be renewed....
All articles point to this being just the tip of the iceberg. We will find out more tomorrow in the earnings call.
Indie Wire indicates there is more to come: https://www.indiewire.com/2022/08/hbo-max-removed-6-streaming-movies-1234747761/