HBO Max cancels an animated Batman series from J.J. Abrams

HBO Max has swung the ax on another six animated projects, according to Variety. One of them is Batman: Caped Crusader, a series produced by J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves and Batman: The Animated Series co-creator Bruce Timm. The show, which was announced last year, is a spiritual successor to Timm's classic '90s series.

Unlike some of the other shows and movies HBO Max has canned in recent weeks, production is continuing on these projects. The production teams will seek another home for them. The other projects in this wave of cancellations are Merry Little Batman, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, Bye Bye Bunny: A Looney Tunes Musical, Did I Do That to The Holidays: A Steve Urkel Story and The Amazing World of Gumball: The Movie.

HBO Max is deprioritizing kids and family content. Last week, it yanked dozens of shows, including several animated series. It also removed hundreds of Sesame Street episodes in an apparent move to save on licensing fees.

On top of that, HBO Max canceled exclusive movies Batgirl and Scoob!: Holiday Haunt and took down other notable original shows and movies in recent weeks (one of Batgirl's directors seemingly tried to capture some footage from the movie on his smartphone to no avail). What's more, the streaming service and sibling HBO laid off several employees from the family programming division this month.

Parent Warner Bros. Discovery is removing certain shows and movies from HBO Max ahead of merging the service with Discovery+ next year. "As we work toward bringing our content catalogs together under one platform, we will be making changes to the content offering available on both HBO Max and Discovery+," it said.

The decisions to cancel and remove content come amid border cost-cutting efforts at Warner Bros. Discovery, which formed after the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery earlier this year. CEO David Zaslav and his team are trying to make $3 billion in cuts, but the moves have had an impact on the company's stock price, which has fallen by 25 percent since August 4th. The company's valuation has dropped by billions over the last month. That footage from The Last of Us sure looks good, though.