HBO Max Plotting Local International Originals Based On DC Comics IP

'Doom Patrol' Bob Mahoney / 2020 Warner Bros. Entertainment

HBO Max is looking to make original DC Comics-based content outside of the U.S. for the first time.

Casey Bloys, Chief Content Officer, HBO and HBO Max, revealed that it was exploring what DC-related content it could make outside of the U.S. based on its library of genre titles.

This would build on HBO Max’s upcoming DC series including Peacemaker, a spin-off of James Gunn’s upcoming Suicide Squad movie starring John Cena and spin-off of Matt Reeves’ upcoming Batman film as well as its DC Universe originals such as Doom Patrol, Harley Quinn, Titans and Swamp Thing, which air on the streaming service.

“We’re also going to work to see DC content in other countries outside of the U.S,” he said at the virtual Web Summit conference.

Bloys, who took oversight of programming for the streaming service in August, said, “One of the big themes of bringing HBO Max together was breaking down the silos between HBO, Warner Bros and TBS and TNT. I’d say one other silo was international.”

HBO has been producing original series in Europe, Latin America and Asia for a number of years with series including Czech crime drama Wasteland, Polish conspiracy drama The Pact. Taiwanese supernatural thriller The Teenage Psychic and raunchy Brazilian mystery La Vida Secreta de las Parejas.

“One of the things that we’re going to do with Max is that all of our international productions will eventually live on Max and we’re going to do a much better job of coordinating between all of the folks programming in Europe, Latin America and Asia so if there’s anything that we’re developing that has real cross-border appeal, we’ll be able to highlight that,” he said.

This comes as Head of HBO Max Global Andy Forssell revealed that it would start rolling out the HBO Max service in Europe next year, building on its plans to launch mid-year in Latin America.

“We will and need to be a global service. It’s an imperative to achieve scale,” Forssell said. “In the second half of 2021, you’ll see us start to upgrade some of the existing direct to consumer HBO services in Europe to HBO Max, double the content, a lot more capabilities, so by the end of the year both of those regions will be very active. The plan is to be in 190 countries, it’s just how fast can we do that roll-out.”