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The steaming service HBO Max and the cable channel HBO ended 2021 with a mixed 73.8 million world subscribers, beating year-end projections of 73 million, the platforms’ mum or dad firm, AT&T, mentioned on Wednesday.
The streaming service additionally expanded into 46 nations previously 12 months.
The announcement represents a vindication of the technique of Jason Kilar, the chief govt of WarnerMedia, the leisure conglomerate that oversees HBO Max and HBO. In December 2020, Mr. Kilar introduced that each one 17 movies on the Warner Bros. 2021 slate would debut concurrently in theaters and on the nascent streaming service.
“It labored, and it labored properly,” Mr. Kilar mentioned in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “We’d make the identical resolution once more, if we had an opportunity to return and do it once more.”
The expansion was additionally fueled by a number of standard exhibits, together with “The Intercourse Lives of Faculty Ladies” and “Succession.”
The streaming world is fiercely aggressive, and HBO Max nonetheless has considerably fewer subscribers than Disney+, which had 118.1 million in November, and Netflix, which has 222 million. (Disney+ premiered in November 2019; HBO Max didn’t make its debut till Could 2020.)
Mr. Kilar’s transfer angered Hollywood sufficient for high brokers and filmmakers to name out the studio for its seemingly rash resolution.
“A few of our trade’s largest filmmakers and most vital film stars went to mattress the night time earlier than pondering they have been working for the best film studio and woke as much as discover out they have been working for the worst streaming service,” Christopher Nolan, the director of the WarnerMedia movie “Tenet,” mentioned in a press release on the time.
But the uncertainty of field workplace returns within the pandemic, coupled with WarnerMedia’s must develop its new streaming service, seems to have affirmed Mr. Kilar’s resolution.
Not one of the studio’s 2021 movies landed within the high 10 of year-end field workplace receipts, however two — “Godzilla vs. Kong” with $99 million and “Dune” with $93 million — have been shut.
The ultimate Warner Bros. film with a simultaneous launch, “The Matrix Resurrections,” the fourth title within the profitable “Matrix” franchise, opened on Dec. 22 and has earned solely $31 million, a stark distinction to “Spider-Man: No Approach Residence,” which has grossed $621 million for Sony Footage since its debut on Dec. 17.
Nonetheless, Mr. Kilar, who is anticipated to go away the corporate as soon as it completes its merger with Discovery, doesn’t consider he left cash on the desk.
“On the finish of the day, from an financial perspective, the revenues which can be generated in response to that funding is in the end what issues, not the place these {dollars} come from,” he mentioned.
For 2022, Warner Bros. will return to the normal mannequin of theatrical releases, giving all of its movies a 45-day unique window in theaters earlier than they transfer to HBO Max.
“We predict the best factor to do is to separate our slate, the place we’ve a variety of films from Warner Bros. which can be going to go on to HBO Max on Day 1 after which we’ve a variety of titles which can be going to go to theaters, after which 45 days later they’re going to indicate up on HBO Max,” Mr. Kilar mentioned. “That’s by no means been executed earlier than. So we really feel actually good about our technique.”
AT&T will report its fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 26.
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Supply- nytimes