HBO Max has been getting new subscribers over the past year and the streaming service is hopeful of adding more in the coming days with the help of exclusive content provided by Warner Bros. The American entertainment company has said that it would produce over 10 movies exclusively for HBO Max next year. Speaking during the second-quarter earnings call of AT&T, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar said HBO Max cannot ignore the success of at-home viewing. Kilar also said that theatrical releases are significant for the company. WarnerMedia caught everyone by surprise with a day-and-date release model for HBO Max and big screens. The feature allowed the release of the feature films on both big screens as well as on the streaming platform on the same day.
However, this strategy will not be seen in 2022. Next year, films that will be released in theatres will run exclusively on big screens for at least 45 days. Similarly, films that are made for HBO Max will be released on big screens only at select locations, and that too when those movies have the potential to be Oscar contenders. Commenting on the distribution strategy of the company, Kilar said that there is no way the world is going back to the period of 2015 or 2016. “I want to say this, and I have said this before publicly, that we are going back to the period of 2015 or 2016. This is the period when the window between theatrical release and home exhibition was quite lengthy.”
Meanwhile, HBO and HBO Max have added over 10 million new subscribers in the past year. With this, the combined subscribers of the services are 67.5 million. Out of this, 47 million subscribers of the services are only in the United States. Warner media, which is owned by AT&T, expects this number to grow to above 70 million by the end of this year. On the other hand, Netflix, which is the market leader, has a total of 209 million subscribers. Out of this, around 66 million are in America. However, Netflix is facing tough competition from rivals including Disney Hotstar and the growth in terms of subscribers seems to have reached a saturation point.
