With that monthly price of $ 15, you now get 18 movies on the big screen next year, including blockbusters like “Dune.”
HBO Max, the most expensive streaming service, has become perhaps the best value in entertainment thanks to Warner Bros. ‘Thursday, the revolutionary decision to release its entire selection of 2021 films simultaneously in theaters and on the streamer.
The movement, which includes big-budget tentpoles like “Godzilla v. Kong, ”“ Dune, ”“ Matrix 4, ”and the DC Comics film“ The Suicide Squad, ”sent shockwaves throughout the industry. Along with the upcoming release of “Wonder Woman 1984” on Christmas Day, it will give HBO Max subscribers access to 18 theatrical movies without paying more than the monthly price of $ 15.
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Depending on where you live, that $ 15 is the cost of a single movie ticket (that’s closer to $ 18 in cities like Los Angeles and New York). While the release dates for all of these movies may change from their slated 2021 theatrical debuts, it looks like at least one new major movie will be available to HBO Max subscribers each month. For a family movie like the sequel to LeBron James’ “Space Jam,” that would save parents anywhere from $ 30 to $ 40, and that doesn’t even factor in the cost of popcorn and candy.
Also read: Can ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ lift HBO Max into streaming contention?
Each movie will be available on HBO Max for a month, before reverting to the traditional 90-day window between theatrical release and video on demand. It also gives consumers a sense of urgency and creates an “eventful” feel for watching movies in their living room, since most of their friends will likely be watching around the same time.
“We see an opportunity to do something very fan-centric, which is to offer choice,” WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar wrote in a blog post Thursday.
The move also gives a big boost to the company’s brand new streaming service, which launched in late May and brought in a total of 38 million US subscribers between Max and regular HBO as of the end of September. That barely exceeded parent company Warner AT&T’s internal expectations of $ 37 million. But we bet if you tied up the executives at WarnerMedia with the Lasso of Truth, they’d probably admit to being disappointed with HBO Max’s first few months.
HBO Max technically has 28.7 million subscribers, although the vast majority of them, 25.1 million, are customers who already pay for HBO and get Max for free as part of their subscription. Of those, about 12.7 million actually signed up (in what AT&T calls “activations”) for Max specifically. An additional 3.6 million bought HBO Max alone through WarnerMedia.
To put that in context: Disney + surpassed 28 million subscribers in its first three months and now has over 70 million paying consumers worldwide. WarnerMedia has approximately 57 million subscribers between HBO and HBO Max worldwide.
