Some of HBO Max and Peacock’s best-known movie properties drop those streaming services just a couple of months after launch.
The eight installments of Harry Potter all series will come out of HBO Max in late August, just three months after they hit the WarnerMedia streaming service, which premiered on May 27. The broadcasting rights had been settled in a long-term agreement with NBCUniversal for the films, which have been in regular rotation on the company’s cable networks. HBO had also previously obtained a share of the rights.
The first three outings in Universal’s billions of dollars Jurassic Park The franchise will head to Netflix on August 1, the streaming giant revealed in a tweet on Monday. The initial trilogy was available on Peacock following its release on Comcast systems in April and on its national expansion last week, though media reports of its departure from Peacock began circulating days ago.
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The demise of big-name movies is not a rare development in the streaming era. Disney + split from movies like Home alone and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Mysterious Tides shortly after its launch last November. Many moviegoers, after witnessing the fate of FilmStruck, which WarnerMedia closed in 2018, have become more vocal in recommending that viewers obtain physical copies of prized titles, lest they be seen leaving the digital realm.
Licensing and distribution have become a thick thicket for business affairs and legal teams to break through, with properties that are supposed to be internal and often end up elsewhere due to legacy business deals. Until very recently, and even in many cases, licensing titles to third parties was the way of the world. Now, traditional companies are trying to enclose more of their own properties, although that can be expensive. Disney, for example, had licensed several of the originals Star Wars titles for Turner (now WarnerMedia) and he had to undo those deals right before Disney +’s reverence, allowing him to proclaim all broadcast rights.
The disappearance of Harry Potter Nor is it an isolated case on HBO Max. Various DC titles including Wonder Woman, have already rotated off the platform, although newer ones such as the 1989 Tim Burton bat Man they must be replaced. Everything is consistent with the broadcast strategy of keeping the programming mix fresh in an effort to minimize turnover and attract new subscribers.
HBO Max, however, had touted the consolidation of the Potter Films at launch, at least to some extent, after their absence from pre-launch promotion had caused some surprise among fans and the press. A press release sent to Deadline in May just two hours before the launch of HBO Max mentioned the Harry Potter movies on their third page, in a section titled “Feature Films Available at Launch and Beyond”. When asked for clarification by Deadline, a publicist for an outside company working for the company replied, “The biggest new piece in the press release is Harry Potter.”
A representative for HBO Max declined to comment.
