HBO’s Watchmen Briefly Disappeared From Max, But It Was Just A Bug
HBO Watchmen key art
Yesterday, half of Twitter started freaking out because HBO’s Watchmen series suddenly disappeared from Max and HBO. Given Warner Bros., HBO’s parent company, has a bit of recent history for mercilessly pulling and scrapping its content, it was understandable panic, but thankfully it seems like this isn’t one of those cases.
Watchmen is a 2019 series based on the DC Comics title of the same name, created by Damon Lindelof, a prolific screenwriter and producer who worked on films like Cowboys & Aliens, Prometheus, World War Z, and Tomorrowland. The series ran for nine episodes, and launched to critical acclaim from fans and press alike.
Warner Bros.
So when it disappeared, people were pretty upset. Searching for Watchmen returned no results on Max, and HBO viewers couldn’t find it anywhere. Some HBO subscribers could find it on DirecTV’s streaming app, but others said they couldn’t find it on HBO On Demand.
Thankfully, it was all just a glitch, and the content wasn’t intentionally removed by HBO. Vulture’s Joe Adalian confirmed on Twitter that he’d spoken to multiple HBO sources who’d confirmed that the series wasn’t gone for good.
“Two HBO sources tell me that Watchmen has not been purposely removed from the Max or HBO libraries,” Adalian tweeted, “[There] was some kind of tech glitch, per one source, and the hope is to have the show back by later this evening.”
Two HBO sources tell me that WATCHMEN has not been purposely removed from the Max or HBO libraries; it hasn't been Zas'ed. The was some sort of tech glitch, per one source, and the hope is to have the show back by later this evening.
File under: Stuff happens. https://t.co/JFNHZltDdh— TVMoJoe (@TVMoJoe) December 12, 2023
And that was pretty much the case. Despite all the panic, the series quickly returned to Max, and all was good in the world. Well, except the fact that Warner Bros. keeps killing off content for tax breaks, like it did with the already-filmed Batgirl film, which will likely never see the light of day.
At the very least, not all of the company’s films are gone forever when they’re scrapped. Warner Bros. was reportedly trying to find a buyer for the live-action Coyote vs ACME film, after it announced last month that it had halted plans to release the film, to much dismay from fans.
Related: Sony and Warner Bros Pull 100s Of Shows From PlayStation Store
