Westworld , once an HBO flagship series, is getting pulled from HBO Max
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Of all the cuts that have come — and are still coming — to WarnerMedia under its new corporate overlords in the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, Westworld is one of the hardest hits.
The sci-fi drama, once a prominent tentpole for HBO, is getting pulled from the HBO Max streaming service amid a new wave of scale-backs, EW has learned.
The Nevers, the Joss Whedon-created Victorian sci-fi drama, is also now officially ending and getting pulled from HBO Max. The show will not return for a second season, but it also hasn't yet aired the second half of its debut season, which premiered back in April 2021. Those episodes will likely air on a different platform.
This all follows the recent cancelations of The Minx, Love Life, The Gordita Chronicles, FBoy Island, Legendary, and Los Espookys.
HBO Evan Rachel Wood in Westworld/HBO
David Zaslav, the new CEO of WBD, has been making sweeping cuts across the brands as cost-saving measures. Removing shows like Westworld saves money in residuals paid to cast and crew.
This doesn't mean Westworld will be gone gone. There's hope for that and The Nevers to appear on another platform, whenever the company makes that determination. Physical media, too, is always an option. These days, that friend of yours with a towering DVD wall isn't looking so vintage anymore.
Westworld became a hit when the drama from Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy premiered in October 2016 with a puzzle-box sci-fi story inspired by the Michael Crichton film of the same name. The concept centered on a high-tech amusement park for adults with a Wild West theme. Its one-percenter patrons could live out their darkest fantasies with "hosts," life-like robots all programmed to act like characters in the park. The real drama began when the hosts evolved past their programming and sought vengeance on the humans that had abused them for sport.
Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Ed Harris, Tessa Thompson, Aaron Paul, James Marsden, and Angela Sarafyan starred in Westworld.
HBO 'Westworld' star Tessa Thompson makes a human chair as "Chalores" in season 4.
The show's popularity had been rocky after that initial blockbuster season. Season 4 finished airing on Aug. 14 this year, and Joy had told EW the idea was for at least one more season to close out the story she and Nolan had planned.
"We always had this idea that, in the last season, we would let the person who was at the whim of other people's stories and predilections and desires be able to write a story of her own and really flip the test back," Joy said. "In terms of a launching pad for that [in season 5], the old regimes and the old world and a lot of the old players have been dismantled and destroyed [in season 4]. So, in this final test, what is Dolores [Wood's character] gonna do? How will the world look different? How will she, as the final tester, create a different universe in a different game and a different way?"
Unfortunately, WBD moved to cancel Westworld in November as another cost-cutter. And with the show now leaving HBO Max, it's likely that there are still some viewers who haven't caught up. At least the drama can go off and live peacefully in the Valley Beyond.
Nolan and Joy, meanwhile, aren't out for the count. They currently have The Peripheral and the upcoming series adaptation of the Fallout video games on Amazon's Prime Video.
EW reached out to reps for Nolan and Joy for comment.
Deadline was the first to report the news.
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