Forget HBO, Max is now going to be The One To Watch for… AMC?

Young people may not understand this, but there was once a time when the HBO brand was primarily associated with prestigious, quality programming that was ostensibly so special that it required a premium fee to access. Then, when the HBO Max streaming service launched, it elevated everything in its library to the level of HBO—Game Of Thrones was next to Bugs Bunny cartoons, which were next to The Sopranos, which was next to ancient footage from the Turner Classic Movies vault. But then David Zaslav, famous hater of movies, took over and promptly devalued the HBO brand by removing it from the streaming service’s name and by allowing once-valuable HBO originals to be licensed out to Netflix.

Now, Max is so disinterested in being associated with HBO that it’s going to start streaming shows from a totally different network: AMC. Dubbed a “programming pop-up,” from September 1 to October 31 there will be a new section on Max called “AMC+ Picks on Max” with selected shows from the AMC library available at no extra cost and with no advertising for Max subscribers. (By the way, the name is presumably meant to indicate that these are “picks” from AMC+ that are now “on Max,” and not that AMC+ is picking on Max, as in pulling its hair or repeating everything it says in a mocking tone, but it could also mean that.)

According to The Hollywood Reporter, there will be “more than 200 episodes from seven different” AMC shows available on “AMC+ Picks on Max,” including Interview With A Vampire, Dark Winds, Gangs Of London, Fear The Walking Dead, Killing Eve, A Discovery Of Witches, and Ride With Norman Reedus.

THR says that the “financial terms” of this deal “were not disclosed,” but clearly Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery are able to make some kinds of deals at the moment, just not deals with the writers and actors who actually make shows and movies. But things are probably going fine at WBD, and there’s no reason to think it’s buckling under the pressure of the righteousness of the dual-strike just because it’s selling HBO originals to Netflix and (probably) paying to put AMC originals on its streaming platform and delaying one of its biggest movies of the year into 2024.