It's not IP. It's HBO.

The prestige network will rebound from a muted start to 2024, thanks to ... IP expansion and nerd culture?

“House of the Dragon” season two, episode seven (HBO)

The Gist

• After a slow start to the year, HBO is poised to rebound in later 2024 and ‘25, thanks largely to programming rooted in IP like games and movies.

• Beyond this year and next, the DC show “Lanterns” and the expected Harry Potter series have been rebranded as HBO originals.

• One could argue whether this all taints the HBO brand, but the network has a tendency to prove naysayers wrong and beat the odds.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how the mantra throughout Hollywood this year is “survive til ‘25” as the movie and TV industries feel the effects of last year’s strikes. Even HBO — the premium cable network known for “The Sopranos,” “Game of Thrones,” “Succession,” and more of what are considered the best shows of the last few decades — hasn’t been immune.

That was probably most evident in this year’s Emmy nominations, announced last month, in which HBO and its streaming sister Max received 91 nominations — the third most behind Netflix and FX, and a big drop from the 127 they scored last year.

HBO typically dominates the Emmys, or at least comes close to Netflix in recent years. But “Succession” is over; “House of the Dragon” didn’t premiere in the eligibility window; and shows that did, like “The Regime” and “The Sympathizer,” didn’t land with voters (or audiences).

But on Sunday night, just before the season finale of the network’s “House of the Dragon” debuted, HBO dropped a look at its late 2024 and ‘25 slate, including glances at the next seasons of some of its biggest hits, like “The White Lotus” and “The Last of Us,” which were delayed by the strikes.

HBO has always been known for “prestige,” but that hasn’t always catapulted it into the “mainstream.” “Succession” was an awards (and Twitter) darling, but never a ratings bonanza, peaking with 3 million night-of viewers for its series finale. “Game of Thrones,” a monster hit, was more the exception than the rule.

What struck me the most about HBO’s upcoming slate though is how mainstream it feels, leaning heavily into titles rooted in IP and nerd culture. Later this year, “The Penguin” and “Dune: Prophecy” will premiere; the former is a spinoff of “The Batman,” with Colin Farrell reprising his role as the title character, and the latter a prequel to the “Dune” movies.

And next year will bring “It: Welcome to Derry,” a prequel to the recent “It” movies directed by Andy Muschietti; “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” another “Game of Thrones” spinoff; and season two of “The Last of Us,” based on the video game of the same name.

It’s not a complete shock. In June, some shows in development that were originally branded as “Max” originals were rebranded as HBO titles, including “Welcome to Derry”; “Lanterns,” a Green Lantern series under the new DC Studios banner; and a Harry Potter series. Later, “The Penguin” and “Dune: Prophecy” were also rebranded under HBO after what Variety described as “crafty dealmaking” to skirt international licensing deals.

Casey Bloys, the HBO and Max content chief, has said of the change: “The idea of the delineation kind of started to feel unnecessary. Like, why are we doing this? Let’s just call them what they are: HBO shows.”

It’s a big pivot from when Max first launched in 2020. When I reported for Business Insider, Kevin Reilly (then the head of content for what was HBO Max) told me that Max originals were meant to be more “broad” than HBO ones. Back then, DC shows were expected to be under the Max brand, including a Justice League Dark series from J.J. Abrams and what was at the time an entirely different Green Lantern series from what is now being developed.

But a lot has changed in four years. HBO Max is now just Max, Bloys oversees all content, and there’s new corporate ownership after the WarnerMedia and Discovery merger. The Max platform rebrand under Warner Bros. Discovery was meant to position the streamer as more broadly appealing, a shortsighted attempt to better compete in a streaming space where Netflix, and to a lesser extent Prime Video and Disney+, have already planted flags in the area of mass appeal.

Now, WBD seems to be accepting that Max is never going to be those services, and instead of fighting against its most well-respected brand in HBO, it’s finally embracing it. Does that hurt HBO’s image, though? You could make that argument, but HBO has a history of beating the odds and proving naysayers wrong. It’s certainly an acknowledgement that in a fragmented TV viewing environment, content with a pre-existing audience or fanbase is an advantage. It’s something Prime Video is capitalizing on with its own comic-book and video-game adaptations like “The Boys” and “Fallout.”

But HBO also isn’t Prime Video; it comes with a certain reputation. If anything, until proven otherwise, this pivot just means that there’s a better chance these franchise extensions like the Harry Potter and DC programs will be of a certain quality expected from an HBO original (Remember how good “Watchmen,” based on the DC graphic novel, was?).

In their book “It’s Not TV” about the history of HBO, authors Felix Gillette and John Koblin wrote of the success of “White Lotus": “Once again, HBO was notching a victory by listening not to the customer, not to the data, but to one of their trusted, in-house artists.”

Similar magic can happen even within the world of franchise TV. HBO’s “Watchmen” and “Leftovers” creator Damon Lindelof is working on DC’s “Lanterns.” Francesca Gardiner and Mark Mylod, both “Succession” alumni, will showrun and direct the Harry Potter series, respectively.

Besides, based on the reception to “The Last of Us” and “House of the Dragon,” you can’t really blame WBD for wanting to slap an HBO label on its content with the biggest potential for being mainstream hits. The “House of the Dragon” season two finale was watched by 9 million viewers on Sunday, up 14% from the premiere. Prestige is nice, and so is popularity. It’s better when you can get both at the same time.

So the funny thing in ditching the more “broadly appealing” Max label for these shows is that they might make HBO more broadly appealing. Will that translate into more subscribers for Max? Maybe, but it’s almost as if the platform name should have stayed HBO Max.

PLUS: Zack Snyder isn’t a hit maker for Netflix

Remember when WarnerMedia shelled out millions of dollars for Zack Snyder to make his “Justice League” director’s cut after it launched HBO Max? Netflix also somehow allowed Snyder to get away with making “director’s cuts” of his two “Rebel Moon” movies, which debuted Friday.

I have yet to see them show up on Netflix’s daily top 10 films list. Turns out people aren’t really interested in six and a half hours-worth of movies that weren’t very good, or popular, in the first place. We’ll have more numbers from Netflix when it updates its weekly global viewership rankings on Tuesday, so maybe I’ll write more about this next edition, but I’d bet they won’t be great.

I previously wrote about how Snyder was a bad bet for Netflix if it wanted him to deliver something that could turn into a reliable franchise, after the initial “Rebel Moon” numbers weren’t inspiring. At this point, the director has a rabid and loyal fanbase, but doesn’t appeal to the masses.

Beyond the Traverse

🐉 “House of the Dragon” will end with season four

• ICYMI, I wrote in May about the legacy of “Game of Thrones”

🗡️ Wesley Snipes broke the Guinness World Record for longest career as a live-action Marvel character after appearing in “Deadpool and Wolverine” (I feel like that’s cheating a tad)

🔫 Another John Wick show, this time a sequel series, is in the works