Filmmaker and YouTuber Dave Lee set off a 458,000-view pile-on on August 25 with two photos of his TV.
“Man, streaming f***ing SUCKS,” Lee posted, alongside screenshots of James Gunn’s Superman wearing a “Leaving September 18” banner on HBO Max.
“Imagine HBO Max already removing the one-year-old hit Superman movie that kicked off their new DC Universe. Good job Warner Bros.” he said.
The replies did what replies do when a studio’s streamer drops the studio’s own tentpole: half of them explained licensing windows, and the other half told him to buy the disc.
One thing worth noting is the movie isn’t going anywhere in the United States.
Superman Is Staying On HBO Max In The US
Lee is based in Melbourne, and the “Leaving Soon” badge in his screenshots is the Australian HBO Max.
Open the US app and Superman is still sitting there, included with the subscription, with no “Leaving Soon” tag anywhere near it.
This is an international windowing move.
In Spain, HBO Max has been warning subscribers the film leaves September 18, one day short of a full year after its September 19, 2025 streaming debut, and Netflix Spain already lists it for September 19.
Netflix’s output deal with Warner Bros. in that market hands it WB movies a year after they hit HBO Max, and the film is expected back on HBO Max once the window closes.
Australia is on the same clock. Superman landed on HBO Max there the same day it did everywhere else.
“Watch It Before It Leaves Instead Of Complaining”
The licensing explainers showed up within hours.
“It’s called windowing, it’s a life cycle for films to make cash after theatrical,” one reply began, before walking through the first-window, second-window, back-to-library cycle.
Another, from a poster Lee identified as a former HBO Max staffer, laid it out even more bluntly: “HBO Max doesn’t own the movie, DC Studios & WB do. Movies are licensed for specific windows. It will come back to the platform at some point soon. Watch it before it leaves instead of complaining.”
Lee’s answer: “How can you be a former HBO Max staff member and not realise you’re being paid by Warner Bros. Thanks for the condescending comment.”
And to the reply reminding him that movie rights have gone to the highest bidder since the beginning of television: “I am well aware. But this is a Warner Bros. movie leaving Warner Bros.’ own streaming platform. Stupid. And my point remains that streaming SUCKS for that reason.”
He’s right that the explanation doesn’t help. Nobody in that thread is confused about how windowing works. The complaint is that windowing applies at all, that a subscription to the studio’s own service buys access to the studio’s own biggest movie only until an output deal says otherwise.
Then there’s the timing.
Lanterns premiered August 16 and runs weekly through October 4, and the series is set roughly a year after the events of Superman. In Australia, Spain, and every other market on the same clock, the movie that sets up the show leaves the service between episodes five and six.
“And right as ‘Lanterns’ launches lol,” Lee added, in a reply that pulled 41,000 views on its own.
Spanish HBO Max subscribers made the same point and are already asking whether the film will be back before The People v. Gorilla Grodd arrives.
The Replies Turned Into A Commercial For The 4K Disc
Scroll past the lectures and the thread lands somewhere familiar.
“It’s almost like you should still buy physical media for things you like so you can watch and view at your own pleasure,” one reply said.
Another: “I mean if you want it on hand at all times, you could always just… you know… BUY THE BLU-RAY!” A third: “Bought on blue ray at Walmart for $10. Don’t have this issue.”
Lee, who produces with Australian distributors Madman Films and Umbrella Entertainment, didn’t need the sales pitch. “I have a physical collection of 13k,” he replied. “I’ll be content with my 4K copy of ‘Superman.'”
That’s the punchline of the whole thread.
A “Leaving September 18” badge is a problem for exactly one kind of viewer: the one renting access instead of owning the movie. The 4K has been on shelves since September 2025, and it doesn’t have a window.
This Is The Same Fight PlayStation Owners Are Having With Sony
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because the games side has spent the entire summer having the identical argument.
Sony is ending physical disc production for new PlayStation games in January 2028.
Take-Two’s Strauss Zelnick defended shipping GTA 6 as a download code in a box by asking, “who cares if you download digitally?”
The Marvel’s Wolverine story trailer got hijacked by fans promising to buy it “ON PHYSICAL DISC”.
Stop Killing Games is backing a €435 million lawsuit that argues killing the disc removes the last alternative to Sony’s store.
And when Rockstar finally broke its silence on the GTA 6 leaks, the disc question was the one thing it wouldn’t touch.
That fight was never about convenience. It’s about who controls the copy after you pay for it. A license can be delisted, windowed, or stranded the moment a deal changes. A disc can’t.
Superman is the movie version of that argument, playing out in real time.
Related: Sony ending PlayStation discs in 2028, Zelnick’s “who cares” defense, the Wolverine trailer disc backlash, Stop Killing Games backing the PlayStation lawsuit, and Rockstar’s GTA 6 leak statement.
