The Warner Pass arrives at Amazon on March 16. Offered as an option with the Prime Video package, this new paid subscription service provides access to Warner channels and the HBO catalogue. Here’s everything you need to know about the offer.

The Warner Pass arrives at Amazon on March 16. Offered as an option with the Prime Video package, this new paid subscription service provides access to Warner channels and the HBO catalogue. Here’s everything you need to know about the offer.

The streaming market continues to expand with the arrival of new subscriptions and content. Indeed, Amazon is integrating a new – paid – option to Prime Video: the Warner Pass. From March 16, subscribers will be able to access, for a fee, the Warner pass – from Warner Bros, which owns the HB catalog, lost by OCS – thanks to a partnership between the two companies. All you have to do is add the option to your Prime Video subscription, a bit like the Ligue 1 Pass, to access the studio’s huge catalog of films and series. A strong argument for Amazon, but which will however only be short-lived.

Warner Pass: an optional subscription with Amazon Prime Video

The Warner Pass follows the failure of a partnership between Canal+ and Warner Bros. Discovery, which led to the withdrawal of the Channels Boomerang, Boing, Cartoon Network, [adult swim], Toonami, CNN and Warner TV – Eurosport is not concerned – Canal+ offers and the myCanal SVOD platform. Shortly after this failure, the 1^er January 2023 to be exact, 64 emblematic series of the American channel HBO disappeared from the OCS platform – which then lost its main interest -, leaving several questions unanswered: where was it now impossible to watch legally House of the Dragon and, above all, who was going to broadcast The Last of Us, the adaptation of the eponymous video game which was to be released on January 15 on HBO Max without any French broadcaster having yet been announced? The answer had finally arrived on Thursday, January 12: in a statementAmazon announced that it had entered into a partnership with Warner Bros to soon launch a Warner Pass which was added – for a fee therefore – to the Amazon Prime Video subscription.

Warner Pass: catalog content

Thus, from the month of March, the entire HBO catalog (Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, Sopranos, His Dark Materials, Succession, Winning Time, The Wire, Chernobyl, Handmaid’s Tale, Euphoria…) and the 12 Warner Bros. Discovery (including Warner TV, Eurosport, Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network and CNN) become available to Amazon Prime subscribers via a paid subscription on Prime Video Channels. You will therefore also find great classics such as Gravity, Interstellar, Superman, Mad Max 2or animated series harley quinn, Rick & Morty And Scooby Doo. To mark the occasion, Amazon Prime Video had also obtained the right to broadcast the cult series exclusively. The Last of Us, only in France and at no additional cost for subscribers to the classic Prime offer, with episodes available in VF and VOSTFR the day after the American broadcast – it is not known, however, whether the series, whose first season has just ended, will continue to be broadcast on Prime Video or will integrate the Warner Pass thereafter.

All channels will not be accessible from March 16. Only Adult Swim, Warner Bros. TV, Toonami and HBO will be present. The others (Eurosport, Discovery, CNN, Boomerang, TCM Cinema, Cartoon Network and Cartoonito) will be gradually added by April 3. Note that season 4 of Succession is scheduled for March 27, with one episode per week.

Warner Pass: price and video quality

The Warner Pass is marketed at a price of 9.99 euros per month, to be added to the Amazon Prime subscription, which is 5.99 euros per month or 69.90 euros per year. Until April 3, 2023, new subscribers get a 30-day free trial. The catalog will be offered in HD, with 4K for certain series such as The Last of Us Or Game Of Throneswhich is good news given that OCS was limited to Full HD (1080p), as well as The Last of Us on Prime Video – accessible without the Warner Pass therefore.

AT At first glance, this announcement looks like a big victory for Amazon over its other competitors Netflix and Disney+. However, remember that it is “only” the French market and, above all, that the acquisition is likely to be short-lived. Indeed, the HBO Max streaming platform, which belongs to Warner, is supposed to arrive in France in 2024, as reported Variety. Offered in the United States since 2020 and then in other countries – including Scandinavia, Spain and the Netherlands – it should change its name by then, if not in form. In effect, according to CNBC, Warner has announced the upcoming merger of its two streaming services, HBO Max and Discovery +, to form one, whose name could simply be Max. It’s that we would almost end up getting lost with all these video streaming platforms, which are multiplying like hotcakes!