Among the unkindest cuts made by Discovery as it totally gutted HBO Max this past year was the cancellation of Minx. The show may not have been your cup of tea, I get that. But, its portrayal of a fictional women’s porno mag in the 1970s was full of humor and hope, not to mention dead-on casting and costuming. It was incredibly well-received and reviewed. Yet, for some bizarre reason, Discovery canceled season 2 when it was almost done filming. Like many of the moves made by Discovery’s David Zaslav, it made no sense to us normal humans.
Enter STARZ
This blog doesn’t talk much about STARZ, a reliable premium channel and streaming service that’s never been thought of as flashy or buzzworthy by the traditional media. That’s a shame, because the app is full of great older movies as well as original series for lots of different tastes. They got some press this year as the home of Julia Roberts’ and Sean Penn’s Gaslit. That limited series examines Watergate through the lens of a woman near the center of it all. It was a fresh take on a time period that we should be talking about more. But, after Gaslit ended, few folks talked about STARZ.
Until today, that is. Just yesterday, Variety reported that STARZ has picked up Minx for season 2, giving the show a new lease on life. That’s welcome news for anyone who liked the show, as I did. It’s also a relief for Lionsgate Entertainment, who stood to lose a lot of money from the cancellation.
Not sure what it was doing on HBO Max anyway
Minx was rolled out by HBO Max, but it wasn’t produced by Warner. It was produced by Lionsgate, which may be why it was canceled. Discovery, HBO’s new owner, seems to really favor producing its own shows. They’ve created roughly 25 gazillion house hunting shows all under their own production house. Lionsgate, on the other hand, is an independent production house that creates movies and TV under several brands. Not surprisingly, based on the news of the day, they also own STARZ. They bought the streamer (then thought of as a premium TV channel) in 2015.
This raises the question of why they didn’t just put Minx on STARZ in the first place. I know that it’s fashionable to shop your content out to other places to make money, but this show really belonged on STARZ. The streamer’s other shows are typically more personal productions without the glitz that accompanies, say, Game of Thrones. Even their larger-budget shows like Outlander are modest compared to those attempted by HBO in the past.
Does this mean there’s hope for Batgirl?
It’s not that I’m a huge Barbara Gordon fan, but I stand with a lot of other folks who wish that the now-canceled Batgirl film had seen the light of day. It was reported to be within weeks of release, almost done, and it was put in the can, never to be seen. The reason? Because Warner Bros. Discovery wanted a tax cut more than they wanted to please fans. Pardon me for saying so, but that sucks.
Never say never, I guess, but STARZ is unlikely to take that film off Discovery’s hands. They have a pretty ironclad deal with Disney that gives them access to Marvel content, and I’m willing to bet their mouse-eared partners would frown pretty heavily on a DC film coming to STARZ. That doesn’t mean that another app like Showtime or MGM+ (the app formerly known as EPIX) couldn’t do it. In fact, when MGM+ was known as EPIX, they ran the prequel series Pennyworth, detailing the history of Alfred (Batman’s butler.) So they’re no stranger to DC fare. If we did see Batgirl, I’m guessing MGM+ would be the place we’d see it. Because MGM+ is owned by Amazon, that means we’d eventually see it on Prime Video too.
It’s not just you. It keeps getting weirder
Friends, we’ve definitely hit the “musical chairs” phase of streaming apps. I think we all know that one of the major ones won’t make it, and I’ve given you my predictions before. None of the people in charge of these apps want theirs to be the one standing alone when the music stops. That’s part of why they’re cutting budgets and staff. The funny thing, though, is that they’re also becoming less customer-friendly. Just yesterday, HBO Max announced a price increase — effective immediately. It’s a 7% increase, which lines up with inflation, but considering that HBO Max has deflated its selections so completely, it’s not likely to be popular. Add to that the possibility of HBO Max and Discovery+ merging into one service and it becomes harder to understand.
It’s hard to know where it will all shake out, but for now I’m just glad that a show like Minx which deserves love and attention is getting some. Maybe it’s just best to take the W today. We’ll worry about the potential L’s tomorrow.
