5 of the biggest streaming announcements from Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront 2025, from HBO Max shows to the new Superman trailer
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Some of the best Max shows have been showcased at the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfronts 2025, alongside what's to come from across the media giant's studios and networks.
There's been plenty of new info across the board, with news on both shows and WBD streaming and broadcast platforms as the company bigwigs take to the stage.
With announcements coming thick and fast, the big news can be easy to miss, but here we break down the five most intriguing pieces of news from the day, featuring Westeros returns, baffling rebrands, new streaming services and more.
Top of the bill is the Man of Steel himself with a brand new trailer — which you can watch above — for James Gunn's upcoming Superman.
Starring David Corenswet as Supes, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, the new movie is an entirely new take on the Big Blue Boy Scout, although with all the multiverse shenanigans happening across superhero cinema lately, we wouldn't rule out some connection to the supposedly dead DCEU.
The latest trailer showcases much of what we've seen before, including the Fortress of Solitude and the big screen debut of super-cainine Krypto and further showcases the themes Gunn seems to be playing with around Kal-El's status as an immigrant and vigilante.
Gunn has absolutely nailed every superhero story he's turned his hand to thus far, and I'll be there as a new dawn breaks on DC's cinematic offerings on July 11.
It's bad news for fans of the Song of Ice and Fire saga as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has its release window moved to 2026.
Based on George R. R. Martin's The Hedge Knight novella, the new show follows the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and s squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) as they travel the fictional land in the time between Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon.
Widely expected to land this year, the third Westeros-set show will instead arrive in 'winter' 2026, leaving us sweet summer children hoping that winter is coming sooner rather than later.
WBD also announced a whole host of shows due to land across their networks in the coming year, among which is High Value Target, formerly known as Debriefing the President.
The series, based on John Nixon's book detailing the interrogation of Saddam Hussein, stars Joel Kinnaman as Nixon, a CIA analyst who became the first American to positively identify the dictator in the wake of his capture.
Other new shows teased during the Upfront included Guy's Flavortown Games hosted by Guy Fieri, HGTV's Renovating the Bachelor Mansion and Discovery's ludicrously titled Shark Week special Dancing With Sharks. Murder doc They Know What They Did winks to narrator Jennifer Love Hewitt's soon-to-be-returning slasher franchise, while TLC's 90 Day franchise continues to expand with 90 Day: Hunt for Love.
Returning shows include Rick and Morty, Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking and My Adventures with Superman, while Max hit The Pitt will receive a linear broadcast on TNT ahead of its second season.
Perhaps the most surprising piece of news coming out of the upfronts was the announcement that WBD's flagship streaming service would be adding the HBO moniker back into its name.
The streamer initially went by HBO Max when it was launched in 2020, trading on the reputation HBO had as the home of the best US TV had to offer. In 2023, WBD dropped the prefix, rebranding the streamer to simply, Max, moving away from the focus on prestige TV and introducing more varied programming, even going so far as to drop some of HBO's biggest hits, such as Westworld, from its library.
But now those three letters are due a comeback, with the service once again set to be known as HBO Max after a relaunch this summer. Seemingly realising that a quality over quantity approach might be the way forward, WBD said: 'No consumer today is saying they want more content, but most consumers are saying they want better content.' This seems to imply a shift for WBD, with the readdition of HBO to the name implying a refocus to the sort of prestige television that made the network be able to boldly state 'It's not TV. It's HBO' in the first place.
Following the ill fated CNN+, the news network are once again entering the streaming world with a brand new service set to arrive in the fall.
After an initial US launch, the platform will be available globally with CEO Mark Thompson call it 'the first true new streaming service.' The streamer will also bundle CNN.com, which recently went behind a paywall, and will include live channels, news feeds and exclusive programming.
Current cable and satellite subscribers will be able to access the service at no extra cost, and CNN will, for now at least, continue to have a presence on Max after its rebrand.
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