‘The Leftovers’ Is Not Leaving Max, Despite the Rumors
Is Max removing The Leftovers from its library of HBO originals next?
After several reports emerged this week indicating that the beloved HBO original drama would be removed from the streaming library on June 3, a representative for Max has confirmed to TV Insider that those rumors are untrue and the show will not be removed from the library. In other words, it won’t be departing any time in the foreseeable future.
The Leftovers ran for three seasons on HBO from 2014 to 2017, with the first season adapting Tom Perrotta’s 2011 novel of the same name about the “Sudden Departure” in which 2% of all people have disappeared without a trace, and the rest of the world reels from those disappearances in different ways.
It was co-created by Damon Lindelof, and, despite average weekly viewership ratings, the show earned such a loyal following that fans dressed up in white, carried cigarettes, and silently protested at HBO’s Manhattan offices to channel the “Guilty Remnant” cult members from the show in hopes of inspiring its renewal (and it worked). The series is widely regarded as one of the most egregiously snubbed dramas in TV history after its star performers (Justin Theroux, Ann Dowd, Carrie Coon, Amy Brenneman, Christopher Eccleston, and Regina King among them) and writers were overlooked for Emmys.
The idea of the show not being available to stream had some fans expressing fury online. On the subreddits for The Leftovers and HBO Max, for example, some even threatened to cancel their subscriptions over a Leftovers disappearance.
“This show is the reason I get Max, so if it goes, I guess they’ll lose my business. It’s nice to have all the movies and sh**, but The Leftovers is why I signed up and if it’s not there for me to dip into when I’m feeling like sh** I guess I’ll take my business back to books,” one fan wrote. “If they nix The Leftovers stream — really wanted to do a fifth watching of it soon — I think that’ll be the straw,” another fan wrote of their patronage to the streamer. “The leftovers is one of the best shows of all time. Let alone on MAX. Why?” added a third fan.
One fan even compared a rumored removal of The Leftovers to scrubbing The Sopranos, suggesting that it’s a similarly important part of the HBO brand at this point: “It’s so stupid they’re removing The Leftovers. I don’t think they would ever remove The Sopranos.”
One Redditor claimed to report the issue to Max’s support team and also received an assurance that the news isn’t true.
If the story had been true, it wouldn’t be the first time a major HBO original was scrapped from the streamer. Previously, Max removed Westworld from its platform in 2022. Casey Bloys, CEO of HBO and Max, told Variety of Westworld‘s ouster, “Does every single library show that we have on HBO Max need to be exclusive to HBO Max? I would say no. People kind of forget the history of television was windows, DVDs. These are expensive shows to make. The idea that they’re going to sit in a library forever and ever for $15 a month, that’s never how TV has operated.”
The Leftovers, Max
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