The business decisions of Warner Bros. Discovery continue to make headlines as CEO David Zaslav looks to wipe billions of dollars of debt from his portfolio. A unique part of that business strategy is the cancellation and frequent removal of shows and movies from the HBO Max streaming service – and it sounds like the returns are even higher than initially assumed. According to a new securities filing on Wednesday (through The Hollywood Reporter), Warner Bros. Discovery is expected to take $2.8 billion – $3.5 billion in amortization and impairment related to content and development costs. This is almost $800 million – $1 billion more than what the company originally expected in October of this year.

“Content restrictions and development write-offs resulted from a global strategic review of post-Merger content,” wrote Warner Bros. Discovery in an application dated August this year.

Why is HBO Max canceling so many shows?

This detail comes after weeks of Warner Bros. Discovery that canceled and suspended HBO or HBO Max shows, including The Gordita Chronicles, Love life, Minx, Legendary, FBoy Islandand Made for love. In addition, the streamer has decided to pull two popular HBO shows – West world and The Nevers – from the platform.

These patterns started with the cancellation of bat girl and Scoob!: Vacation Chase back in August. Both films, which were already completed and about to be released on HBO Max, were later reportedly canned for the sake of tax write-offs, apparently set to be shot in the third quarter of 2022. In the following days, Warner Bros. Discovery removed six exclusive HBO Max movies from their streaming platform, as well as a number of popular animated series. Anonymous sources claimed in August this year that no existing show is safe from possibly being canceled or written off, with Warner Bros. Discovery now makes case-by-case decisions.

Will HBO Max and Discovery+ Merge?

The company has already announced plans to merge HBO Max and Discovery+ into a single streaming service, which will hypothetically launch as early as summer 2023.

“Owning the content that really resonates with people is much more important than just having a lot of content,” Zaslav said on Warner Bros. earlier this week. Discovery’s quarterly results.

What do you think of the late Warner Bros. tax write-offs? Discovery? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!