Batgirl and the Scary Reality of HBO Max's Future

This week has been something of a whirlwind in the entertainment industry, and I feel like we'd be remiss on the blog if we didn't acknowledge what happened, even if it's not entirely certain where the chips will end up falling when it comes to the decisions by Warner Brothers to upend their popular streaming platform HBO Max.

This past week, an enormous amount of information & gossip began to spill out about how the HBO Max service, which is owned by WarnerMedia, will merge with Discovery+, which is owned by Discovery.  On the surface, this doesn't seem like a bad option.  HBO Max has a wide film library thanks to being owned by Warner Brothers (which has been a powerhouse for Hollywood for nearly a century), and has had a quick success in streaming, getting zeitgeist hits like Hacks, And Just Like That, & The Flight Attendant into Emmy consideration and the pop culture conversation.  Discovery+, meanwhile, has original and reruns from Food Network, HGTV, Discovery, TLC, & Lifetime, a huge array of major names in reality television.  In a lot of ways, it'd be what we kind of hoped streaming would be-a way to genuinely replace cable television with options for all occasions.

But that is not what it ended up being, or at least if it is what Warner is trying to do, it's not what they are signalling  For starters, in preparation for Thursday's announcement, Warner did something basically unprecedented, shelving Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt.  While shelving movies isn't new for a studio, these films were, from most reports, basically done, and there was no hint that they were pulled because of quality concerns (in a world of Morbius, it's doubtful that would even fly as a valid excuse for established IP like these pictures).  Batgirl reportedly cost $90 million while Scoob 2 was in the ballpark of $40 million, so these were films with a lot of backing.

Yet from what we can glean, they were not released because of a couple of factors, principally the tax write-off that could be achieved through not putting the films on either HBO Max or in theaters.  This feels wrong to me for a variety of factors.  For starters, on a moral ground, that we can have a tax write-off for a movie that they don't want to release due to a corporate strategy feels wrong when I can't even write-off my internet while I work from home, but I digress.  Secondly, though, it means that these movies that were basically completed, and which artists, including Batgirl star Leslie Grace, put countless hours and risks on, will vanish.  We will never get to see these movies, despite there being nothing wrong with them.

As someone who values the cinematic experience and genuinely loves movies, this is deeply disturbing to me.  We are already in a culture that increasingly values intellectual property more than story or genuinely good movies & television, but now we have a situation where, if you want to make sure that your movie is actually released to the public, you better pray that your CEO doesn't change seats.  Batgirl admittedly would've needed something between $30-50 million more to domestically market the film & release it in theaters if that was the case, and indeed it does appear the days of HBO Max releasing its movies at home in addition to in theaters (like it did with Wonder Woman 1984, Godzilla vs. Kong, Dune, and The Matrix Resurrections) is over, and maybe it was a case where they didn't think the film could gross $140 million domestically.  But it feels more like they didn't release it because they wanted to do world-building within DCEU, and this movie no longer fit the story, and instead of releasing it as a one-off adventure (heaven forbid!), they simply decided to scrap it entirely.

So Batgirl will now go down in history as the most expensive film never seen by the public, a truly horrifying decision, but it's also the tip of the iceberg.  It is likely that with HBO Max merging with Discovery that in the process most of the HBO Max original shows will get lost in the shuffle.  Some might find a home on HBO's cable channel (I'd assume that And Just Like That & Gossip Girl would continue given the franchise potential with those shows, as would Hacks given the show's critical acclaim), but most will end up on the cutting room floor.  In a world where Warner Brothers has already cut any scripted series on cable networks TBS & TNT, it is making it harder & harder for people who love scripted television to find new programs to watch.

Perhaps most terrifying in all of this is what has quietly happened at HBO Max in recent months.  Obviously shows are cancelled all the time (though the lack of options for scripted television as not just Warner but also Netflix seems to be tightening its belt in what was once a golden opportunity for TV writers & new voices to be heard should raise alarms) and movies are shelved with some frequency, but HBO Max has also taken to removing some of its original movies from the platform, including Moonshot starring Cole Sprouse and The Witches starring Anne Hathaway & Octavia Spencer.  The long assumption has been that original programming on these streaming platforms would be there forever-they could trade The Office and Friends for the rest of time between platforms, but the Kimmy Schmidt's and Handmaid's Tale's would stay there forever.  This proves that's not the case, and it shows the clear path of how streaming could bring about a corporate iconoclasm.

While both of these movies have received DVD releases, and if you're willing to shell out a few bucks, they're both available to rent on platforms like Amazon Prime and iTunes, many streaming movies are not.  Currently four Best Picture nominees from the past two years (The Trial of the Chicago 7, Mank, CODA, and The Power of the Dog) have not been released on home video, and are only available to watch on their respective streaming platforms.  Were Netflix or AppleTV to go away or stop the streaming service, they would double the list of Best Picture nominees that the general public doesn't have access to (as far as I can tell, the only two titles you can't relatively easily access are The White Parade or The Patriot, though I'll admit that you probably have to go through a piracy website or YouTube to find a couple of others).  As someone who has devoted their life to movie history and film preservation (this blog is a labor-of-love, emphasis here on the love part), I find this terrifying.  I have talked for years about the importance of physical media, and I do make a point of supporting physical media as much as I can, but there's only so much we can do.  We can't buy every DVD, which was the whole point of video rental places, and when those were replaced by streamers, it's now clear the public made something of a Faustian bargain for convenience.  And like I said, films like Mank or CODA simply don't have physical copies-even if you wanted to support it via physical media, that's not an option.

Like many issues these days, there isn't a great solution here for the average consumer.  Obviously watch what you want to support in the world.  I've made a point of seeking out new scripted shows of interest to me sooner rather than later to ensure they get additional seasons (or more shows I like are made) and for the love of god make a point of seeing movies in theaters when you can (particularly if they are movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once or Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris where there isn't a baked-in audience to begin with so you're sending a message to the studio to support more art like this).  But really, this is more about hoping that the CEO's of movie production companies actually like movies, and don't just continue to squeeze beloved IP until there's nothing of value left...and then they realize they never made anything new to replace it.