HBO Max’s Cut Content to Shift to Other Streaming Services as Warner Bros. Discovery Prepares Relaunch

Several shows, including Westworld and Raised by Wolves, are being pulled from HBO Max and moved to other streaming services. This shift comes in the wake of HBO Max owner Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision to relaunch the premium streaming service.

As reported by Entertainment Weekly, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it “has recently decided to license certain HBO and HBO Max original programming to third party FAST services to be part of a packaged offering which will drive new, expanded audiences for these series. As we prepare for this transition, these series will be coming off of the HBO Max service in the coming days.”

FAST is an acronym for Free, Ad-Supported Streaming TV; that’s services such as Freevee and the Roku Channel. No new platform has yet been announced, but you can expect the cut HBO Max shows to appear on one of those services sometime in the future.

The shows being moved to a FAST service are Westworld season 1-4, The Nevers season 1, Raised by Wolves season 1-2, FBoy Island season 1-2, Legendary season 1-3, Finding Magic Mike season 1, Head of the Class season 1, and The Time Traveler’s Wife season 1.

It’s currently unclear for how long these shows will stay on other FAST services, as Warner Bros. Discovery also said that it “will announce additional details about its own long-term WBD FAST offering in 2023.” So there’s a possibility that a Warner Bros. Discovery branded free streaming service will be launched later on, and the shows moved there.

Other shows about to be pulled from HBO Max but without a guaranteed new home are Gordita Chronicles, Love Life, Made for Love, The Garcias, and Minx. HBO Max is apparently exploring multiple options for where the shows could be moved to, “including but not limited to licensing the series to third party FAST platforms.”

Warner Bros. Discovery is apparently making these cuts to HBO Max partially in order to avoid paying residuals to cast and crew and thus save money.

All of this comes ahead of plans to merge HBO Max and Discovery+ into one unified streaming service in 2023. The service may be called just ‘Max’, and will feature programming from across both brands.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.