It's shaping up to be a big summer for Max in France: Warner Bros. Discovery's independent streaming service finally launched in France and Belgium on Tuesday with a stellar lineup that includes Season 2 of “House of the Dragon” and Olympic coverage starting July 26.
JB Perrette, president and CEO of Global Streaming and Games at Warner Bros. Discovery, and Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, who were in Paris for the premiere of “House of the Dragon,” variety We are discussing setting up operations in France soon.
Max has been rolled out in more than 65 territories, including 20 in Europe, since its US launch in May 2023, when the streaming service rebranded following the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger in 2022. With the Olympics (Max will offer 3,800 hours of broadcast) and many exciting projects in the works, Perrette said: “We're excited to be part of the exciting expansion of our network.” variety He called the recent launch “the best one yet.”
“Max is the only place in France, across Europe and in any Max market where you can watch every minute of the Olympics,” he said. “That's a huge advantage for us.”
Meanwhile, Bloys shared a bit about the shows Max is developing, including the highly anticipated Dune: The Prophecy and the recently delayed third season of Euphoria, and clarified that they won't be set in high school. Read the full conversation between Perrette and Bloys below.
Max launched in 20 European markets last month and is now rolling out in France. What are your subscriber targets at launch?
JB Pellet: We haven't discussed any specific goals, but I think it's interesting that there are a lot of articles written about the streaming wars, not only in France but all over the world: “Max is trying to take the throne from Netflix”. To be honest, we don't talk about that because Netflix is great. Netflix is obviously a service that has a lot of users, has a very large scale and produces great content. We don't see it as one or the other. We see it as a complementary and differentiated service.
When we enter a new market, we aim to be a top three service in the next three to five years. The top three measures are size, subscribers, engagement – share of audience in streaming – and profitability. Those are our three targets.
Where do you currently stand on these three criteria?
JBP: Netflix is the only service that will be profitable in 2023, and we are one of them. Everyone else is in the red. The misconception about scale is that Netflix has 270 million subscribers. We have just under 100 million. Disney has about 170 million. But remember, we're not on the same page, because we have less than half of their addressable market. So I'm not going to project where we'll be.
But over the next two years we also plan to expand into the UK, Germany and Italy, and across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. [that] We're not there yet. I mean, there's over half the market that we're not there yet. And our plan over the next two years is to roll out Max to the rest of the world. So we think we have a good chance of getting there. [also because of] Great content that Casey and team are producing.
Speaking of content, what are HBO's plans for the next 18 months?
Casey Bloys: Putting HBO aside for a second, one of the advantages we have as a company is all of the Warner Bros. IP. So the next big hit series we have after “House of the Dragon” is “The Penguin” with Colin Farrell. It's a spinoff of Matt Reeves' “Batman,” and it's fantastic. It's a really good example of what can be done, as was “The Peacemaker,” which came out of James Gunn's “Suicide Squad.” It's coming out in September.
After that, we have a Dune prequel series coming up in the fall about the origins of the Bene Gesserit, which I don't know if we have a date set yet. Then we have Stephen King's It coming up in 2025. Warner Bros. is making two movies and is also planning prequel series for those. And then, of course, the Harry Potter series, which is further down the line. We're still talking to the writers about their perspective.
Is there anything else in development?
CB: Other big movie series we are developing into franchises include “The Conjuring” and “Crazy Rich Asians.” DC is also developing a series for “Green Lantern.”
What happened with the third season of “Euphoria”?
CB: [Creator and writer] Sam [Levinson] We're working on it. There's been a lot of back and forth… I think one of the issues Sam is thinking about is that he doesn't want to set it in high school. It was set in high school, and that made sense at the time. So, once you take that out, there's a lot of back and forth about where to set it, how far into the future to set it, etc. But I think he has an idea that he's excited about, and he's busy writing.
Will the core cast, including Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney and Hunter Schafer, return, and are you considering continuing the show with a different cast?
CB: The main cast is the same.
Will The White Lotus continue beyond season 3?
CB: I know Mike has a lot of ideas about how this show should unfold, and I'm lucky to be working with him. And we have actors who really want to be on this show because it's a great opportunity and the writing is great. So as long as he wants to do it, we're going to work with him. He's built a very interesting model of rotating the cast from different parts of the world.
Will “Succession” return in the form of a spinoff?
CB: As I told Mike White, if he wants to do it, I [creator] Jesse [Armstrong’s] I'll lead with that. If for some reason Jesse called me and said, “I've been thinking about this for a while, I'd love to do a spinoff,” I'd say, “Great.” But there are some shows that would be good for “Game of Thrones.” [trajectory]George's Universe [R.R. Martin] There are so many different eras and families in the work that he has created, and that lends itself to many different interpretations. I don't think “Succession” is usually like that. But first and foremost, it's up to Jesse and I follow his lead. I think he's taking some time now to think about what he wants to do, but we'll see what he wants to do next. He needs some time after the show to decompress and think about what he wants to do.
You're here for the launch of Max in France, but do you think we'll be able to bring such an iconic show abroad in the future?
CB: Absolutely. It's not exclusive to the U.S. One of the great things about the Max launch is that we have an original product launch there and it continues to be that way.
Do you think entering Europe with such a big lineup will give you a better landing spot than in the US last year, where it was harder to make an impact in such a competitive market?
JBP: This is our third launch. We launched in the US a year ago, then in Latin America in February, then we started in Europe in May, and then we launched in France. And inevitably, one of the things we've learned is that launching with the best content lineup is one of the best ways to get big, powerful publicity. These launches have been the best we've ever had, frankly, because we're coming to the Olympics on the heels of House of the Dragon Season 2. In the Max market in France and across Europe, Max is the only place you can watch every moment of the Olympics. That's a huge advantage for us. And the other thing with sports is that from a platform perspective, it's still very difficult to do high-volume, high-concurrency live events in streaming.
Why is it so hard to stream a live event?
JBP: Netflix has had its problems, and we have had problems in the past. So we have learned the hard way what to do and what not to do. We learn a lot from big sports moments like the Champions League finals in the UK and Latin America, the NBA playoffs or March Madness in the US. So in terms of quality, this is a very good way to test the strength of the platform. And, fortunately, it has worked very well. And we continue to innovate in terms of new features to make the sports viewing experience on our streaming service with more interactive features. You can feel free to join in. These are great features that make the experience different from what you get when you watch it on linear TV. So, one of the aims is also to differentiate our proposition with streaming and Max from what you still get with other live linear services, but you don't get as many features as with streaming.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity..
Ellise Shafer contributed to this report.