Make HBO Max Great Again

HBO’s streaming service will feature HBO in its name once again, Warner Bros. Discovery announced May 14.

The streaming service Max will rebrand back to HBO Max — its previous name from 2020 to 2023 — this summer, after two years of mockery and criticism of the “Max” name. 

“Returning the HBO brand into HBO Max will further drive the service forward and amplify the uniqueness that subscribers can expect from the offering,” WBD said in a news release. “It is also a testament to WBD’s willingness to keep boldly iterating its strategy and approach — leaning heavily on consumer data and insights — to best position itself for success.”

Translation: We messed up, and we know it.

Long before some out-of-touch HBO suit bounded into a boardroom like Don Draper and pitched “Max,” the HBO brand was synonymous with prestige TV. Home Box Office, launched in 1972, is the oldest active subscription service in America. There are multiple memes about how its iconic intro static sound makes people think of the service’s many hits, like The Sopranos, The Wire, Sex and the City, or newer shows like Succession, The White Lotus, and The Last of Us. That’s the kind of hard-earned brand recognition you can’t just cook up in a conference room in a few minutes.

That didn’t stop WBD CEO David Zaslav, who rebranded HBO Max to Max in 2023 when Warner Bros. merged with Discovery and combined its Discovery Channel offerings with HBO’s streaming library. “Max is the one to watch,” Zaslav said as he announced the new name that year. The name was swiftly and routinely mocked, and WBD’s stock declined the day of the new name announcement. (My personal favorite joke is the hosts of the Filmcast podcast always hurriedly adding “theonetowatchforHBO” after mentioning a show they saw on Max.)

This is just another example of HBO changing its brand. What was first Home Box Office, then became HBO. In 2010, the company offered HBO Go, a video-on-demand service for broadband HBO subscribers. HBO Now, a streaming service for HBO’s original content, launched in 2015. 

To their credit, at least HBO’s social media team is in on the joke. Max’s new bio on social media site X (which everyone in the real world still calls Twitter) reads “These rebrands are trying to murder me.” Its pinned tweet is a supercut of characters from various HBO shows embracing each other, set to Pat Benatar’s “We Belong.” 

Another post features The Pitt star Noah Wyle holding up every iteration of HBO’s branding — from HBO to HBO Go, HBO Now, HBO Max and Max — and giving each a face of approval or disapproval. Other posts include the Spider-Man meme and the “girlfriend yelling at her boyfriend” meme.

So this summer, rest assured, HBO Max will go back to HBO Max. Now, if they could just stop deleting finished films from their streaming service.