7 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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HBO

Originally a private cable network, then a premium cable channel, then a mini-network of specialized and dedicated channels, HBO has evolved into a powerhouse of original content production. Game of Thrones is its most obvious success story. But series like Deadwood, The Sopranos, Westworld, True Detective, The Wire, Sex and the City, Girls, and many more have made the network a strong contender in the crowded streaming landscape. With the launch of HBO Max, the network’s offerings have been paired with major titles from Warner Bros., DC, Studio Ghibli, and more. The Verge can help you sort through HBO’s new content and follow its evolving business model as it looks for its next Game of Thrones.

Barbara Krasnoff
Barbara Krasnoff
How many people are signed into your streaming service account?

It’s tempting to share your Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max (excuse me, Max) accounts with family, friends, and that nice neighbor across the street. But sometimes, things can get out of hand. If you want to check who you’ve shared your account with — and maybe drop a few no-longer-friends from it — here’s how.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Abbott Elementary’s Brittani Nichols thinks HBO Max’s South Side deserved better. She’s right.

Praise for and enthusiastic discussions about Abbott Elementary have never been hard to find online, but that wasn’t the case with HBO Max’s South Side before it was cancelled last month.

Shows come and shows go, but in a new interview with Vulture, Abbott Elementary writer Brittani Nichols breaks down perfectly what made the people’s decision to only make noise about the show after its cancellation so odd.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Rick and Morty’s getting the anime treatment later this year.

Adult Swim and Warner Bros. have yet to announce who will be taking over voicing duties for Rick and Morty’s eponymous duo following Justin Roiland’s ouster earlier this year. But tucked into today’s big Max presentation was the tiniest mention of Rick and Morty: The Anime, suggesting that we’ll be hearing some new voices by year’s end.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
It’s Kate Winslet against the free world in The Chancellor’s first teaser.

You’d be hard pressed the name the fictional country Kate Winslet will rule over with a dictatorial iron fist in HBO’s upcoming series The Regime from Will Tracy. But her willingness to do whatever it takes to maintain power is quite clear in the series’ teaser that dropped during today’s big Max reveal.

Ariel Shapiro
Ariel Shapiro
Max is giving us the ‘SmartLess’ docuseries we never asked for.

Max, the family-friendly rebrand of HBO Max, released a trailer for upcoming six-part series SmartLess: On the Road. The docuseries will go behind the scenes of the popular (if toothless) podcast hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes. And it’s shot in black and white, so you know they mean business.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The service formerly known as HBO Max has a Gremlins problem.

Just a few weeks ahead of its May 23rd debut on the newly-rebranded Max, there’s a new trailer for Tze Chun’s Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, a Gremlins prequel set to delve into Gizmo’s history and, you know, mogwai secrets.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Jodie Foster’s going to make you believe in True Detective again.

In its fourth season, True Detective’s heading to Alaska to tell the story of how six men vanish from a research lab in the Arctic. While that premise alone is compelling as hell, it still doesn’t quite capture raw energy Jodie Foster’s radiating in the season’s new teaser trailer.

Alex Cranz
Alex Cranz
I regret to inform you that The Big Bang Theory persists.

I know we all rejoiced when The Big Bang Theory went off the air in 2019 after 12 seasons. But it brings me no joy to inform you that more is coming. The details are scant, but a new show set in the universe was announced at Warner Bros. Discovery’s big HBO Max rebranding event today....bazinga.

Connor Roy is the real heart of SuccessionConnor Roy is the real heart of Succession
Elizabeth Lopatto
Succession’s last season is finally getting interesting by taking some risks

The third episode of the show’s final season feels like the true beginning of the end — and exactly the sort of jumpstart the series needed.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Succession’s final season doubles down on its core conceit — to a fault

While Succession’s fourth and final season makes good on the series’ name, it does so while feeling comfortably stuck in a familiar holding pattern of treachery and ‘gotcha’ backstabbing.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
In about a month, we might learn if HBO Max is going to become just ‘Max.’

Warner Bros. Discovery just sent press invites to an event on April 12th to discuss “our future in streaming.” At the event, the company is expected to bring a lot of content from Discovery Plus over to the maybe-soon-to-be-former HBO Max. It may also reveal a more expensive subscription tier that offers better video quality, according to Bloomberg.

I’m really interested to see what comes from the show, which we’ll be covering here at The Verge.

Everything to read after HBO’s The Last of Us season 1 finaleEverything to read after HBO’s The Last of Us season 1 finale
Andrew Webster and Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Last of Us future seasons might be swarming with even more infected monsters

The Last of Us showrunner Craig Mazin says that future seasons may feature way more of the games’ monstrous fungal mutants to bring an interesting kind of balance to the show.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Hard to believe The Last of Us is already over.

HBO’s The Last of Us was such a hot topic of conversation after it premiered that it somehow felt like the show had already been around for quite a while, and we were tucking in for an especially long season of TV.

But The Last of Us’ first season came to an end last night with a finale that — like we mentioned in our review — highlighted just how the series’ pacing made the whole thing feel like a speedrun of the game’s story.

The idea for The Last of Us’ big season 1 finale cameo almost led to another game

The Last of Us’ Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin say that the show’s most emotional cameo started as an idea for an animated short and an entirely new video game.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
More ‘Max’ news in April, apparently.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s revised version of HBO Max, which may just be called “Max,” will be revealed in April, according to Bloomberg. In addition to “thousands” of added titles, the publication reports the service will have an “about” $20 per month tier that offers “better video quality and possibly other features.” I just hope the service, whatever it’s called, doesn’t break while I’m watching new episodes of Succession.

Troy Baker doesn’t really think The Last of Us has villains

Even now, The Last of Us’ Troy Baker is still learning new things about the franchise’s characters, like cannibal cultist James from episode 8, When We Are in Need.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Weeknd isn’t exactly beating the allegations with this clip from his HBO Max show.

The Idol, The Weeknd and Sam Levinson’s upcoming HBO Max series, sounds like a train wreck in a damning report from Rolling Stone that attributes the show’s massive delays to Levinson “scrapping the nearly-finished $54-75 million project” to redo the whole thing his way.

It’s understandable that The Weeknd would want to respond claims that he was also a big part of the show’s production problems. But tweeting this clip from the show just doesn’t seem like the move.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
DC’s Dead Boy Detectives gets a second chance at life on Netflix.

The supernatural show, which is based on a DC comic by Neil Gaiman and Matt Wagner, was supposed to make its debut on HBO Max — but it apparently didn’t mesh with the company’s vision for the DC Universe, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

That’s how Netflix wound up with the rights to the Greg Berlanti-produced series, where it might fit better among other shows from the producer, like The Sandman and You.

Jon Porter
Jon Porter
Succession plans to end on a high.

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong has announced that the show’s fourth season, which is due to premiere on March 26th, will be its last.

“You know, there’s a promise in the title of ‘Succession,’” Armstrong says in a new interview with The New Yorker. “I’ve never thought this could go on forever. The end has always been kind of present in my mind.”

HBO’s The Last of Us is skipping to the cutscenes, and it’s for the best

Sometimes you don’t need violence and zombies. Sometimes you just need human beings hanging out at the end of the world.

Alex Cranz