Originally a private cable network, then a premium cable channel, then a mini-network of specialized and dedicated channels, HBO has evolved into a powerhouse of original content production. Game of Thrones is its most obvious success story. But series like Deadwood, The Sopranos, Westworld, True Detective, The Wire, Sex and the City, Girls, and many more have made the network a strong contender in the crowded streaming landscape. With the launch of HBO Max, the network’s offerings have been paired with major titles from Warner Bros., DC, Studio Ghibli, and more. The Verge can help you sort through HBO’s new content and follow its evolving business model as it looks for its next Game of Thrones.
The revamped streaming service will have more than 350 of them. That said, HBO Max apparently already has customizable avatars, but I can’t figure out how to actually set one. Hopefully Max makes that easier!
And Just Like That’s always been pretty lighthearted, but this “Last Supper”-esque ad for the show’s second season really makes it seem like it’s going to lean into the Che Diaz hate this summer.
What you’ll get is likely to be a blank screen. Streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, and HBO Max are understandably nervous about letting people make copies of their copyrighted stuff — but just as understandably, fans want photos and clips of their favorite scenes. Here’s how to get that screenshot you’re trying for.
Stewy, the devious private equity guy from Succession, took over Slate’s Dear Prudence advice column this morning with some, well, frank life tips. “Lawyer the f*** up and wait for the pusillanimous piece of fool’s gold to die,” Stewy advises a reader scared of being cut from their uncle’s will. “Who is this guy? He sucks ass,” he says to a woman complaining about her lazy husband. “Block this f***er,” he orders a reader conflicted about a needy friend.
(The column was actually written by Arian Moayed, the actor who plays Stewy.)
If Natasha Rothwell’s Belinda had somehow shown up in The White Lotus’ second season, things might have turned out very differently for Tanya McQuoid. But if Tanya hadn’t met her fate the way she did, there’s a chance that Belinda might not be coming back for The White Lotus’ third season on HBO.
It’s tempting to share your Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max (excuse me, Max) accounts with family, friends, and that nice neighbor across the street. But sometimes, things can get out of hand. If you want to check who you’ve shared your account with — and maybe drop a few no-longer-friends from it — here’s how.
Praise for and enthusiastic discussions about Abbott Elementary have never been hard to find online, but that wasn’t the case with HBO Max’s South Side before it was cancelled last month.
Shows come and shows go, but in a new interview with Vulture, Abbott Elementary writer Brittani Nichols breaks down perfectly what made the people’s decision to only make noise about the show after its cancellation so odd.
Adult Swim and Warner Bros. have yet to announce who will be taking over voicing duties for Rick and Morty’s eponymous duo following Justin Roiland’s ouster earlier this year. But tucked into today’s big Max presentation was the tiniest mention of Rick and Morty: The Anime, suggesting that we’ll be hearing some new voices by year’s end.
You’d be hard pressed the name the fictional country Kate Winslet will rule over with a dictatorial iron fist in HBO’s upcoming series The Regime from Will Tracy. But her willingness to do whatever it takes to maintain power is quite clear in the series’ teaser that dropped during today’s big Max reveal.
Max, the family-friendly rebrand of HBO Max, released a trailer for upcoming six-part series SmartLess: On the Road. The docuseries will go behind the scenes of the popular (if toothless) podcast hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes. And it’s shot in black and white, so you know they mean business.
Just a few weeks ahead of its May 23rd debut on the newly-rebranded Max, there’s a new trailer for Tze Chun’s Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, a Gremlins prequel set to delve into Gizmo’s history and, you know, mogwai secrets.
In its fourth season, True Detective’s heading to Alaska to tell the story of how six men vanish from a research lab in the Arctic. While that premise alone is compelling as hell, it still doesn’t quite capture raw energy Jodie Foster’s radiating in the season’s new teaser trailer.
I know we all rejoiced when The Big Bang Theory went off the air in 2019 after 12 seasons. But it brings me no joy to inform you that more is coming. The details are scant, but a new show set in the universe was announced at Warner Bros. Discovery’s big HBO Max rebranding event today....bazinga.
The third episode of the show’s final season feels like the true beginning of the end — and exactly the sort of jumpstart the series needed.
While Succession’s fourth and final season makes good on the series’ name, it does so while feeling comfortably stuck in a familiar holding pattern of treachery and ‘gotcha’ backstabbing.
Warner Bros. Discovery just sent press invites to an event on April 12th to discuss “our future in streaming.” At the event, the company is expected to bring a lot of content from Discovery Plus over to the maybe-soon-to-be-former HBO Max. It may also reveal a more expensive subscription tier that offers better video quality, according to Bloomberg.
I’m really interested to see what comes from the show, which we’ll be covering here at The Verge.
The Last of Us showrunner Craig Mazin says that future seasons may feature way more of the games’ monstrous fungal mutants to bring an interesting kind of balance to the show.
HBO’s The Last of Us was such a hot topic of conversation after it premiered that it somehow felt like the show had already been around for quite a while, and we were tucking in for an especially long season of TV.
But The Last of Us’ first season came to an end last night with a finale that — like we mentioned in our review — highlighted just how the series’ pacing made the whole thing feel like a speedrun of the game’s story.
The Last of Us’ Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin say that the show’s most emotional cameo started as an idea for an animated short and an entirely new video game.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s revised version of HBO Max, which may just be called “Max,” will be revealed in April, according to Bloomberg. In addition to “thousands” of added titles, the publication reports the service will have an “about” $20 per month tier that offers “better video quality and possibly other features.” I just hope the service, whatever it’s called, doesn’t break while I’m watching new episodes of Succession.
Even now, The Last of Us’ Troy Baker is still learning new things about the franchise’s characters, like cannibal cultist James from episode 8, When We Are in Need.
The Idol, The Weeknd and Sam Levinson’s upcoming HBO Max series, sounds like a train wreck in a damning report from Rolling Stone that attributes the show’s massive delays to Levinson “scrapping the nearly-finished $54-75 million project” to redo the whole thing his way.
It’s understandable that The Weeknd would want to respond claims that he was also a big part of the show’s production problems. But tweeting this clip from the show just doesn’t seem like the move.
