While last year was a nightmare for most of us, WarnerMedia’s HBO Max reportedly had a great end to its 2020. Parent company AT&T released figures yesterday for the fledgeling streaming service and was very happy to announce that by the end of the year, HBO Now and HBO Max US subscribers combined had climbed to over 41 million. This target was apparently reached two years ahead of AT&T’s schedule. As far as global figures go, the combined total climbed to 61 million with that number looking to shoot up this year as HBO Max finally starts rolling out to countries outside of the US. In comparison, Disney+, the other streaming service new kid on the block, is currently sitting at 86 million subscribers globally since launching in November 2019.
Now I mentioned “combined figures” above as normal HBO subscribers get HBO Max bundled into their existing subscription for free, which may be crooking the system a bit. But if you look at pure HBO Max “activations” (as AT&T refers to them), it’s still looking pretty good as that figure doubled between Q3 2020 and Q4 to 17.2 million. This rise was almost certainly prompted by the Christmas Day launch of Wonder Woman 1984, the first Warner Bros. film to hit HBO Max on the same day as its theatrical launch.
The controversial release strategy response to the COVID-19 pandemic will see every single one of WB’s 2021 titles have the same dual-release. And to show that off, we got a brand HBO Max 2021 trailer highlighting all the major movies to come. We’ve had one of these before, but this new promo trailer actually comes with some of the first footage we’ve ever seen for a number of films. This includes the upcoming R-rated Mortal Kombat reboot, the Sopranos prequel movie titled The Many Saints of Newark, Clint Eastwood’s neo-western drama Cry Macho, the Will Smith-led tennis biopic King Richard, the Angelina Jolie-led thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead, and the Hugh Jackman-led sci-fi Reminiscence from Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy.
On top of that, we also have footage from some other big titles on WB’s slate with the likes of Dune (which is still pegged for an HBO Max release despite WB’s tussle with co-producer Legendary), Godzilla vs. Kong, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Judas and the Black Messiah, In the Heights, Suicide Squad, and more. One bummer is that there’s still no footage for The Matrix 4 though, which will be closing out 2021 for WB and HBO Max. But you can check out the rest below!
Last Updated: January 28, 2021
CrAiGiSh
January 28, 2021 at 03:32
Called it.