The Golden Year: How HBO Max Can Use 2021 to Acquire and Keep a Vast Number of New Subscribers

The Golden Year of HBO Max

During The Golden Year – HBO Max releasing 17 major motions pictures to its subscribers at no additional cost during 2021 – HBO Max has bought itself a year of escalating and extremely happy subscribers to its streaming platform. The questions are, what will HBO Max due with this year (2021) and more importantly, what will they do after this year has concluded.

The Best Course of Action

The best course of action for HBO Max during its Golden Year is to produce compelling and good original content alongside the major Warner Bros. movies it will be airing for one month each. Great original content, in this instance, includes original films, and most importantly, original TV series.

Movies

Viral films like Birdbox helped solidify Netflix in the pop culture minds of streamers, cord-cutters, and those looking for something new and entertaining to watch.

What niche original movies will HBO Max release in the next year that will capture the attention of the outer public and become an “it” film? I believe Dune may be that film for HBO Max, but its sequels will be released in-theater initially, not on the HBO Max, which poses a problem for HBO Max.

HBO Max needs good, potential “it” films that they can afford to produce (and franchise) on a regular basis that will air exclusively on their service, not $165 million films like Dune.

TV Series

TV series like: Daredevil, House of Cards, and Stranger Things helped to make Netflix.

The Boys and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel did the same for Amazon Prime Video as did The Mandalorian for Disney+.

What original TV series will air on HBO Max in the next year that will be the hit that HBO Max needs to lock in long-term subscribers? HBO Max should answer this question, produce, and air that TV series before The Golden Year is over.

Solving the Problem of the Best Course of Action

If I was sitting on the board of directors for AT&T’s division for HBO Max (I am available, mind you. Use the contact form on our site), I would spend the original content money we had almost exclusively on original TV series. TV series cost less than original films, can be created on enclosed sets (pandemic anyone?), and they will lock-in a viewers attention (and subscription) across multiple seasons, i.e. multiple years, if the TV series’ story-lines are engaging and well-written.

This is what happened with HBO and Game of Thrones.

This is what happened with AMC and The Walking Dead.

I am not breaking any new ground here with my idea. Disney+ is starting to adopt this strategy.

It is also the current Netflix model, in part – Netflix releases all of TV series episodes all at once. They can afford to. Netflix’s pump out so many original TV series, metering them out per week is not necessary. HBO Max should not follow suit. They can’t afford to.

Luckily HBO Max sees the sensibility of the one episode per week publication method and has already executed it with Raised by Wolves and its current slate of original TV series.

Possible TV Series

HBO Max already has a Dune TV series in the works. In anticipation of that film’s critical success, I would create additional Dune TV series. Make HBO Max the home of Dune, the way Netflix became the home of high-end Marvel Comics TV series (i.e. the aforementioned Daredevil as well as The Punisher, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and The Defenders). Dune has a rich history and I would consider mining that for potential TV series e.g. The Butlerian Jihad.

HBO Max should strive to get the new Battlestar Galactica TV series on air during The Golden Year. Fans of the original and the reboot are clamoring for more Battlestar Galactica or should I say, more gritty Battlestar Galactica à la Battlestar Galactica: Razor.

A low-cost Game of Thrones TV series exclusive to HBO Max would be a great move by HBO Max. I have already written about how I believe Robert’s Rebellion is a missed opportunity and I believe it would be a perfect fit for HBO Max during The Golden Year. It might not be ready by the end of The Golden Year but they could get enough of it filmed to release a trailer for it in the last months of The Golden Year, thus wetting the appetite of hungry Game of Thrones fans and people considering ending their subscription at the end of The Golden Year.

To this end, I am pleased that HBO may be moving forward with a Tales of Dunk and Egg TV series. Though not an exclusive to HBO Max, it’s a step in the right direction and will be streamed, at some point, on HBO Max (hopefully coterminous with its first HBO airings).

Looking back at HBO Max’s exclusive upcoming TV series content, I don’t know if Tokyo Vice and The Shelley Society will be successes but they have good concepts.

Regardless of the TV series or what it is about, HBO Max’s goal should be to get the first episode, if not the first season of it, on-the-air during The Golden Year. Show the subscribers what they are going to get for years to come.

The Spacing-out of Original TV Series

I would space-out the original TV series on HBO Max like this – when one TV series concludes, the next week, a new TV series begins. Though ambitious, that would keep the original content machine churning for subscribers and it would keep eyes balls engaged.

The worst strategy HBO Max could emulate is Disney+’s original content strategy from its first year of operation e.g. The Mandalorian: Season One concluded and then it was almost a year until a new great original TV series aired, Season Two of The Mandalorian. There was no sensational and note-worthy original TV show or shows in the interim between seasons of The Mandalorian on Disney+. There was just static and a collection of films and TV series that the viewer had already seen before, most-likely years before.

Netflix, on the other hand, batters its customers with new TV series and HBO Max should do the same in a planned and systemic way. The goal should be to create value, to show the subscriber what their HBO Max subscription is worth and way they should keep it. Netflix does this magnificently every month. HBO Max should strive to do the same.

Original Movies

Birdbox wasn’t an excellent film. It was an interesting film with a singular plot-point that reached outside the film i.e. The Birdbox Challenge.

Original films with a recognizable star and a interesting plot are what HBO Max should focus on during their Golden Year. Blumhouse Productions is excellent at doing this on micro-budgets but alas, Amazon Prime Video has already partnered with Blumhouse to produce original and exclusive films.

HBO Max should look at franchise book series and consider making them into franchise films on their platform during The Golden Year.

A good R-rated adaptation of Mortal Engines would be one of my first suggestions. Another would be an R-rated adaptation of Twilight (yes, that Twilight). Cloud Atlas is such a large book with such a elongated story-line that it could be split into four or five films.

3-5-10-Year Subscription Options

During The Golden Year, in the middle of it, during its height, I would offer current and perspective subscribers the chance to subscribe (or upgrade) to HBO Max for three years, or five years, or ten years. These types of subscriptions would come with discounts for the subscribers, the biggest being for ten years.

Coterminous with this offer, I would reveal for the next ten years the original films and TV series that HBO Max plans to release. I would show the potential subscriber what their subscription is worth and what it will get them. I would show them that there is a detailed release plan, like Marvel expertly does for each phase of its Cinematic Universe. I would use this clear-cut battle-plan to close new subscribers. As Alec Baldwin famously said in Glengarry Glen Ross, “always be closing.”

I would also offer subscribers and potential customers the ability to give HBO Max subscriptions as a birthday gift or as a Christmas gift. There would be a “Subscription as gift” option located on the HBO Max subscription page.

Disney+ did something similar when it premiered (e.g. a multi-year subscription option) but they didn’t take it far enough. They offered at the top a 3-year subscription.

With new Game of Thrones TV series on the horizon, HBO Max could offer a ten-year subscription option and get sign-ups though it (remember, the original Game of Thrones TV series ran for eight years).

It would all come down to the value HBO Max is offering, when HBO Max makes the offer, and how HBO Max markets the offer.

HBO Max will doubtlessly raise its prices down the road to pay for more and more programming à la Netflix, but to the business world, its the growth of a streaming service’s subscriber count (and its profits, of course) that matter the most. Locking in customers, for the long-term, during the streaming service’s nascent stage, would be a smart business move on HBO Max’s part, regardless of the potential profits that they may loss through increased subscription costs down the road.

Not Wasting The Golden Year

The Golden Year is a golden opportunity for HBO Max, one that they have paid for with lost theatrical release profits. To make it a fruitful endeavor, HBO Max will have to spend a lot more money. That money is best spent on long-term investments i.e. TV series, not short term investments i.e. original films.

HBO Max already made one clever and gutsy move. Now comes the move of precision, planning, and execution.

Leave your thoughts on The Golden Year of HBO Max below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons. Readers seeking more HBO Max can visit our HBO Max Page, our HBO Max Twitter Page, and our HBO Max Facebook Page. Want up-to-the-minute notification? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Flipboard.