Today, in a move that definitely had nothing to do with any big marketing push for a competing streaming service, WarnerMedia held a big HBO Max announcement event full of corporate jargon about vertical integration and exciting video clips that you simply had to be there to see—like, literally, because Warner didn’t release them publicly. Still, even without videos, WarnerMedia announced a whole bunch of new stuff that we had either never heard about before or hadn’t received any official confirmations for, and we’ve rounded up all of it here. Before that, though, WarnerMedia also announced the price of the service: $14.99 per month. Now scroll on down and see if that money is worth it.
- We already heard that HBO Max would be the exclusive streaming home for Sesame Street, but it will also be getting three, Muppet-related specials called Esme & Roy, Sesame Street: Mecha Builders (complete with a robot Cookie Monster that looked cool as hell in a teaser image), and The Monster At The End Of This Story. Also, Elmo is getting a talk show.
- HBO Max is getting a library of classic Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera cartoons, as well as brand new Looney Tunes cartoons and a Hanna-Barbera mash-up show featuring characters like Jabberjaw, Yogi Bear, and Peter Potamus (speaking of, did you…get that thing I sent ya?)
- In less kid-friendly fare, Issa Rae is making a comedy series about a female rap group called Rap Shit (or Rap Sh*t, but c’mon), Mindy Kaling is making a comedy show about college girls tentatively called… College Girls, and Elizabeth Banks is producing a comedy series called DC Super Hero High about a group of super-powered high school students who have no idea that they will someday grow up to be various DC super heroes.
- Speaking of DC, Greg Berlanti (of The CW’s superhero shows, and also so many others) is making two more DC superhero shows: Green Lantern, which we know absolutely nothing about beyond its association with an organization of space-cops, and Strange Adventures, an anthology show about “the intersecting lives of mortals and superhumans” (in the words of a press release). We know that should be “meta-humans” if we’re talking the DC universe, but we’ll let it slide.
- Berlanti is also making The Flight Attendant, a dark comedy about a woman who wakes up in an unknown hotel room with a dead man she doesn’t recognize (starring Kaley Cuoco) and Unpregnant, a show about a “scholastic young woman” who… becomes pregnant.
- Conan O’Brien will be producing five stand-up specials for HBO Max, including two that he’s hosting with up-and-coming comics and three one-hour sets from (presumably) established comedians.
- Original movies! Steven Soderberg is directing Let Them All Talk with Meryl Streep (which we already knew about), Melissa McCarthy is starring in the “high-concept comedy” Superintelligence and Gina Rodriguez will star in Bobbie Sue, a feature-length film about a “scrappy, headstrong young lawyer” who grew up with four “rowdy brothers” and realizes that she’s been hired at a big law firm “for optics and not for her expertise.”
- Ridley Scott’s Raised By Wolves, about machines raising human children in a futuristic society where the adult humans are all being jerks, is moving from regular TV to HBO Max.
- Going back to superheroes, every DC movie from the last decade will be on HBO Max (including Joker) will be on HBO Max, as will every Batman and Superman movie of the past 40 years—which is a very specific set of time.
- A bunch of classic HBO shows will be available, plus new and upcoming shows like Succession, Westworld, Barry, Lovecraft Country, The Plot Against America, an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Outsider starring Jason Bateman, The Undoing, Run, Avenut 5, and I Know This Much Is True, plus things we know nothing about like The Nevers, Mare Of Easttown, and Gilded Age.
- Naturally, the service is getting a bunch of Warner Bros. movies, including Lord Of The Rings, The Matrix, The Conjuring, Gremlins, and The Lego Movie.
- There will be “new anime” curated by Crunchyroll and Rooster Teeth.
- Robert Zemeckis is doing something with Looney Tunes characters called Tooned Out that blends cartoons and live-action.
- Ansel Elgort will make his TV debut in the based-on-a-true-story series Tokyo Vice, Anna Kendrick will star in a rom-com anthology called Love Life (produced by Paul Feig)
- New CW shows will stream on HBO Max (sorry, Netflix).
- A lot of older Adult Swim shows are coming, including Space Ghost Coast To Coast (and hopefully Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law, so then you’ll get the Peter Potamus joke from up above).
- On the reality side: The Impractical Jokers archives are coming, as is a Bachelor spin-off, a voguing show from the Queer Eye producers called Legendary, and a florist competition series called Full Bloom.
- Adaptations! Hiro Murai is making an adaptation of the novel Station Eleven, there will be an adaptation of Alissa Nutting’s Made For Love, Danai Guiria is making an adaptation of Americanah starring Lupita Nyong’o, and there’s the Circe adaptation we already knew about.
- Every episode of The West Wing.
- A curated library of movie classics from TCM, including Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Shining, Singin In The Rain, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Star Is Born (one of the old ones, we assume)
- All of the stuff we already knew about.
- The exclusive streaming rights to South Park and Rick And Morty, which you can find more about here.
- Last but not least: House Of The Dragons, a Game Of Thrones prequel series about the Targaryens. This comes hours after HBO announced that it was canceling plans for a separate Game Of Thrones prequel, the pilot of which had already been filmed and was set to star Naomi Watts. The show will be based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire And Blood.
