‘The Knick’ and ‘Banshee’ Finally Coming to HBO Max

HBO Max continues to expand its library, and it’s adding two Cinemax shows that fans have long been clamoring for. The Knick and Banshee will be added to HBO Max on Saturday, Feb. 20, and Tuesday, Feb. 23 respectively. This is a relatively unexpected move from HBO Max, as Michael Quigley, executive vice president of content acquisitions for HBO Max, had previously stated that there were no plans to stream any Cinemax content on the service.

“We’re not planning to bring the Cinemax content into the service overall,” Quigley told The Wrap. “I think it still serves an important value for its customers in terms of its movie offerings. With the news that The Knick will be hitting HBO Max sooner rather than later, director Steven Soderberg’s reveal that a spinoff series starring Andre Holland from filmmaker Barry Jenkins feels even more concrete. “[André and Barry] came up with a really great approach with [writers and creators Jack Amiel and Michael Begler],” Soderbergh told The Playlist in September. “And that seems to be advancing rapidly. I just read the pilot, which is terrific.”

The Knick, which focused on the staff at New York’s Knickerbocker Hospital at the turn of the 20th century, was initially cancelled after two seasons in 2015 when Cinemax shifted away from dramas and into more action-oriented content. Since then, Cinemax has given up on making original series altogether, so it would be likely that any new iteration of The Knick would come from HBO. When asked by The Playlist about his involvement in the potential spinoff, Soderberg denied having any fingers in that particular pie. “I told them, ‘Look, I had, I had my shot. Godspeed, take it in whatever direction you want.’”

This is a bit of a departure from Soderberg’s earlier sentiments. “If we can achieve what I’m hoping, story-wise, then I’d like to keep going,” he told Vox in 2016. “What I hope will happen is that we will figure something out that I feel like, ‘I have to do this.’”

“We always envisioned The Knick in two-year increments with the idea of annihilating what came before every two years,” Soderbergh continued. “What we’re trying to do now — I just met with [Amiel and Begler] yesterday — is build our idea of what three and four might look like to get ready to present to everybody. It’s pretty extreme, but I think it should be.”