The Amazing World of Gumball Movie and Merry Little Batman have both been canceled at HBO Max, among other animated projects.
As reported by TVLine, six animated projects have been dropped by HBO Max, among them an animated movie based on the Cartoon Network series The Amazing World of Gumball from series creator Ben Bocquelet and Shane Mack and a holiday movie about a young Damian Wayne directed by Mike Roth and written by Morgan Evans. While the projects, most of them from Warner Bros. Animation, will no longer stream on HBO Max, all six of them are being shopped to other outlets.
Based on the original Cartoon Network series of the same name, The Amazing World of Gumball Movie was announced in February 2021. The film is intended to serve as a bridge between the original series, which ran for six seasons on Cartoon Network between 2011 and 2016, and a new series for HBO Max titled Amazing World of Gumball: The Series. At the time of writing, the new series is still intended to premiere on HBO Max.
The other projects dropped by HBO Max include The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, written by Kevin Costello; Bye Bye Bunny: A Looney Tunes Musical, with screenplay and lyrics from Ariel Dumas; Did I Do That to the Holidays: A Steve Urkel Story, an animated musical holiday special from Wyatt Cenec with Jaleel White reprising his Family Matters role; and Batman: Caped Crusader from Batman: The Animated Series co-creator Bruce Timm.
This is another development in a long line of cuts on HBO Max, which recently removed 36 titles from its streaming catalog. According to a spokesperson for Warner Bros. Discovery, this decision was a result of the plans to merge HBO Max and Discovery+. "As we work toward bringing our content catalogs together under one platform, we will be making changes to the content offering available on both HBO Max and discovery+... That will include the removal of some content from both platforms," HBO Max wrote in a statement.
The merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery in April has resulted in several changes to the company, including layoffs, the removal of Warner Bros. titles from the streaming service and the cancelation of upcoming HBO Max exclusives like Batgirl. However, Warner Bros. Discovery president and CEO David Zaslav has revealed plans to expand HBO Max's content library overall, with a focus on increased "content" and overall "quality."
"Quality is what [Chief Content Officer] Casey [Bloys] and that team is delivering," Zaslav said. "It’s the best team in the business. We’re doubling down on that HBO team. They’re all committed under contract and we’re going to spend dramatically more this year and next year than we spent last year in the year before."
Source: TVLine