HBO Max launched six months ago and has reportedly gained over 12 million subscribers already, which is a decent enough number for a fledgling streaming service, but hardly spectacular. Disney Plus rocketed past 83 million paying customers in the first year of operations, and repaid that faith in the audience by almost instantly announcing a price hike.
WarnerMedia’s nascent platform was already in the midst of positioning the DCEU at the forefront of their planned expansion long before Wonder Woman 1984 was announced to be heading to HBO Max on the same day it hits theaters, with Zack Snyder’s Justice League leading the charge of comic book content. However, sending every single one of their 2021 movies regardless of genre to the service has upset a lot of people, with Dune director Denis Villeneuve in particular launching a scathing criticism of the company.
There’s also a furor over bonuses after Gal Gadot pocketed more than $10 million for Wonder Woman 1984, while the likes of Will Smith and Keanu Reeves weren’t even told about the release plan. The latest twist in the tale is that WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey is reportedly pushing the idea of HBO Max using ads to drive up revenue, something that won’t go down well with the subscriber base, especially as it goes against the established HBO model.
Netflix have made it clear that they have no intentions of running ads and they’re doing just fine, but the report goes on to say that the executives at WarnerMedia are looking at four minutes of advertising per hour. Which means that technically, you could be watching Godzilla vs. Kong and have the action broken up by someone trying to sell you various products just as the two iconic kaiju are about to throw down.
