By now you’ve likely heard the news that many of HBO Max’s original titles — including Westworld and The Nevers, as well as two more genre shows just added to that list, Raised by Wolves and The Time Traveller’s Wife — will soon be leaving the streamer and shifting elsewhere. Now we have a slightly better idea of where they’ll be ending up.
According to Variety, “Warner Bros. Discovery has announced a plan to licence some of its cancelled and pulled programming to third party free ad-supported television (FAST) channels. Additionally, the company says it will announce plans for its own proprietary FAST channel in 2023.”
In a statement to the trade, Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy kept things positive: “We are excited to have the opportunity to welcome a whole new audience to our show.” Where exactly that audience will be able to tune into Westworld — and how long it will be off streaming once it vacates HBO Max — remains to be seen.
Additionally, certain series that aired on HBO Max but weren’t entirely owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (like Westworld was) are also being removed from the platform very soon — including the criminally underseen (and unfortunately cancelled) Made for Love, which was produced by Lionsgate. “According to WBD, discussions are taking place with the studio partners behind each to set the projects at other platforms, including but not limited to third party FAST channels,” Variety writes.
The Hollywood Reporter had some big numbers to explain why: “In a securities filing Wednesday, WBD said that it now expects to take writeoffs and impairments related to content and development costs of $US2 ($3).8 ($4) billion-$US3.5 ($5) billion, up from $US2 ($3) billion-$US2 ($3).5 billion as initially projected in October. That reflects an additional charge of $US800 ($1,111) million to $US1 ($1) billion. WBD now says its total restructuring and impairment charges related to the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger will be between $US4.1 ($6) billion-$US5.3 ($7) billion, reflecting the higher content writeoffs.”
We’ll echo our earlier warning, then: still need to find out what happened at the end of Made for Love, Raised by Wolves, or even Westworld? Better act, uh, fast.
Want more Gizmodo news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.