WarnerMedia executives made their pitch to ATT investors on Tuesday afternoon for HBO Max, the company’s streaming service that is designed to compete with Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video, Disney Plus, Apple+ and Comcast’s upcoming Peacock. The first big piece of news was that HBO Max will launch in May 2020. The app will also launch 10,000 hours of content. That’s less than a number of their competitors but WarnerMedia thinks not having filler is better. Curation is king in their world.
READ MORE: ATT TV subscribers will get HBO Max for free
A subscription version of HBO will be available at launch with, the ad-supported version arriving 2021. Live offerings will also be available in 2021. HBO Max expects to have 60 to 90 million subscribers in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America by 2025. Comparatively, Netflix had 141 million subscribers in July, 2019.
If you have an HBO subscription or ATT TV, HBO Max will be free. If you do not, it’s $14.99 a month. Here are some creative highlights, many of which were announced previously.
“Sesame Street” will be a major part of HBOMAX with “Not Too Late Show with Elmo” spearheading the new efforts. It’s unclear if this show is for adults or kids as the preview shown to investors was not shown to press.
HBO Max will have 1800 movies available on launch including “The Hobbit,” “The Matrix” and “The Conjuring” trilogies. It will also have every “Superman” and “Batman” movie over the past 40 years including “Joker” at launch. Movie offerings will also include 100 years of Warner Bros. classics and 60 years of MGM films as well as titles from the Criterion Collection. Turner Classic Movies will curate a monthly selection of titles (all will not be available at launch).
“Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory” will exclusively headline the service’s classic comedy offerings. It will also be the exclusive home to “South Park” with 300 episodes and 23 seasons. Adult Swim and Crunchyroll will curate other animated offerings. As previosuly announced, Studio Ghibli’s classics will also live on HBO Max.
HBO Max will launch with 31 originals in 2020, not including HBO’s series. They expect to have 50 series in 2021. Most shows will launch weekly as opposed to Netflix and Amazon’s success with binging entire seasons at one time.
For kids, hundreds of classic Looney Tunes cartoons, along with new shorts, will be part of a mix that will also include new “Adventuretime” specials and Cartoon Network favorites.
More adult-skewing shows include the previously announced “Tokyo Vice,” “Love Life” with Anna Kendrick, a new “Gossip Girl,” “Doom Patrol,” Issa Rae’s “Rap Sh*t” and Mindy Kaling’s”College Girls.” Greg Berlanti will produce a new thriller series with Kaley Cuoco and two new DC property programs; “Green Lantern” and “Strange Adventures.” Adult Swim will provide new episodes of “The Boondocks” and all the episodes of “Rick and Morty.”
New reality programs will include “Generation Hustle,” voguing series “Legendary,” Ellen DeGeneres’ “First Dates Hotel” and new standup specials that will be produced by Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco.
More female skewed original series include “Station Eleven,” “Made for Love,” “Americanah” with Lupita N’yongo, the fantasy epic “Circe” and Ridley Scott’s “Raised by Wolves” (originally planned for TNT).
HBO Max will have five original features in its first year. 2020 will include Greg Berlanti produced “I’m Pregnant,” new features from Reese Witherspoon‘s production company, Steven Soderbergh’s “Let Them Talk” with Meryl Streep, Melissa McCarthy’s “Super Intelligence” (originally set for a Christmas theatrical release) and Gina Rodriguez in “Bobby Sue.”
https://twitter.com/hbomax/status/1189331017817055235
