HBO Might Be Bringing Its Max Streaming Service to Australia by 2025
'The White Lotus', 'The Last of Us' and 'Euphoria' are all due to return next year — and Australian audiences might have a new streamer to watch them on.
The great streaming service rush, when new platforms seemed to appear every few weeks or so, is a few years in the past. Australia might still be scoring another spot to watch TV shows and movies, however — and it's a hefty one. It looks like Max, HBO's own dedicated streamer, is exploring launch Down Under, and soon. In fact, you might be watching The Last of Us, The White Lotus and Euphoria on it when they return for their next seasons.
All three HBO hits are due to make a comeback in 2025, which is also when it's suspected that Max will arrive in Australia. At present, the US network's shows largely screen and stream to Aussie viewers via Binge and Foxtel. When the former launched, boasting HBO's catalogue was one of its big selling points. The deal between Binge, Foxtel and Warner Bros Discovery — which owns HBO — was extended in 2023, but it was reported at the time that Max might debut in Australia from 2025.
That timing is now popping up again, with Bloomberg noting in early March that "Max will expand into new markets, including France, Latin America and Australia, in the next 18 months".
Speaking at the Morgan Stanley 2024 Technology, Media & Telecom Conference also in early March 2024, Warner Bros Discovery CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games JB Perrette mentioned Max expansion plans, naming Australia as a market.
"If you think about other markets, like two big Anglo markets — UK and Australia — our content travels extremely well," he said. "We know how well our content does on both existing legacy platforms, and it drives a significant amount of the viewership."
"So the demand is there, and there's unquestionably easy access, because ultimately we don't have a huge amount of local originals we have to invest in. There's not a lot of other costs. And so those are markets where we are very confident — we have high confidence we can actually meet the criteria of being successful in a relatively short period of time after we launch," Perrette continued, without referencing a timeframe.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that sources advise that Max could launch in Australia 2025's first three months.
Originally named HBO Max, Max debuted in America in 2020, and has been rolling out through Latin America, the Caribbean and parts of Europe since.
Moving HBO's catalogue away from Binge and Foxtel would impact a huge number of shows, with the network also behind House of the Dragon and any other Game of Thrones spinoffs that make it to fruition, True Detective, And Just Like That..., The Rehearsal, upcoming The Batman spinoff The Penguin and the also-on-the-way IT prequel series that's currently called Welcome to Derry — to name just a few series that are on their way either back or for the first time.
HBO's past original programming spans everything from The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Oz, Deadwood, Big Love, True Blood, Big Little Lies, Westworld and Succession to The Larry Sanders Show, Sex and the City, Flight of the Conchords, Bored to Death, Girls, Veep, Barry and Enlightened.
Check out HBO's 2024–25 roundup trailer below:
Max doesn't yet have a launch date in Australia — we'll update you when any details are announced.
Via Bloomberg / Sydney Morning Herald. Top image: Macall Polay/Max.
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