If you’ve been irritated by all the shows and films HBO Max has been dumping from its service, here’s some silver lining: at least one of them has been saved. Minx, which is produced by Lionsgate, has been picked up by Starz, which is owned by Lionsgate.
The show, starring Jake Johnson and Ophelia Lovibond, followed the creation and making of a feminist porn magazine in the 1970s. The first season aired on HBO Max, where the few people who saw it liked it (I was one of them). But unfortunately, not enough people watched it for HBO Max’s taste.
In December, HBO Max canceled the second season of the show — which had already been shot — and pulled the first season from its streaming service. While some shows have been canceled and are no longer available through legal means, Minx was at least noted to be one of a number of shows HBO Max was instead shopping around to other streamers.
Now, The Hollywood Reporter is reporting it’s been picked up by Starz, which is owned by Lionsgate — which also happened to produce Minx. There’s no word yet on the fate of some of the other shows recently canceled and being shopped around, including Westworld and The Nevers, but the pickup of Minx could be good news.
Early in the streaming wars, Netflix made a name for itself by picking up shows unceremoniously dumped by other networks — most notably Lucifer, Arrested Development, and Designated Survivor, but in the last few years, there have been fewer rescues from Netflix. Instead, it was Pop that saved the Netflix show One Day at a Time. Smaller streamers like Starz and FAST (free ad-supporting streaming television) networks like Roku are now the ones doing the saving. So you can expect Westworld and The Nevers to one day appear on a random streaming service you forgot you downloaded. Now if someone could pick up Warrior Nun for a third season, I’d really appreciate it.