Warner Bros. Movies No Longer Guaranteed to Stream on HBO Max 45 Days After Theatrical Release

If you want to stream Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, you’ll have to pay a premium.

Warner Bros. movies are no longer guaranteed to stream on HBO Max after 45 days, Vulture reports. Instead, Warner will evaluate its release strategy on a “case-by-case basis” — such is the case with Elvis, which has not yet been made available on HBO Max but was released for digital purchase (and premium rental) on Tuesday.

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As part of “Project Popcorn,” all of Warner’s 2021 theatrical releases — including In the Heights, The Suicide Squad and Dune — were made available day-and-date on HBO Max, affording audiences an opportunity to watch new releases from the comfort of their homes amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Day-and-date releases did not continue into 2022, but HBO Max continued to offer Warner Bros. films — such as The Batman and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore — on the platform a mere six weeks after they first appeared on the big screen. That will no longer necessarily be the case.

Warner Bros. Discovery announced earlier this month that it will combine HBO Max and Discovery+ into a single, unified streaming service, which will launch in Summer 2023. A name for the combined service, along with pricing, will be announced at a later date — though the service will offer both ad-lite and ad-free tiers.

All told, the combined streamer will be a one-stop destination for titles from Warner’s sizable portfolio — which includes, but is certainly not limited to: HBO, CNN, DC Comics, Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, Magnolia Network, OWN, TBS and TNT.

No announcement regarding the fate of Max Originals was made during WBD’s Aug. 4 investor call — though select library titles have already scrubbed from the service.

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