Warrior will move from Cinemax to HBO Max for its third season, and the latter will be the ideal home for the show. Based on the long-unrealized concept for a martial arts Western series developed by Bruce Lee prior to his passing, Warrior kicked off on Cinemax in 2019, and it didn't take long for the show to be renewed for a second season. However, Cinemax ceasing production on original programming seemingly put an end to Warrior after the end of season 2. Recently, however, news broke that the series was renewed for a third season, and with the show moving to HBO Max, the streaming service could help it break out even more.
Warrior has already proven popular on HBO Max, with a recent Vanity Fair article covering the greenlighting of season 3 reporting that Warrior's first 2 seasons are among the top 15 series on the streamer. Though Warrior was very well-received from the beginning on Cinemax and was clearly doing well for season 2 to be greenlit as soon as it was, coverage of the series tended to take the tone of "Why is this show not more popular?" This suggests that Warrior, while well-liked by those who had seen it, hadn't quite blown up as much as it had the potential to.
At the same time, the performance of the first two seasons on HBO Max points to the show's audience growing from the streamer itself, and the aforementioned Vanity Fair article even mentions this as a major factor in season 3 being greenlit. This indicates that Warrior's audience has been growing beyond its initial Cinemax audience since the show was added to HBO Max, and this could position it to really break out with season 3. There's even a quite recent example of another martial arts show pulling off that exact trick.
That show is, of course, the episodic continuation of The Karate Kid franchise, Cobra Kai. Beginning on YouTube Red in 2018, Cobra Kai was popular among viewers and well-received across the board, but it was when the show moved over to Netflix that it became the genuine phenomenon that it is now. Netflix had the muscle as a streaming giant to market Cobra Kai in the way that's allowed it to build up its popularity as much as it has, with season 4 confirmed to hit Netflix in late 2021. Though HBO Max is newer to the streaming game, it could do the same for Warrior with its own marketing capabilities.
As a new streaming service that's been around for less than a year, HBO Max needs all the original programming it can get. Viewers can therefore expect the streamer to aggressively push the show ahead of season 3's arrival with great emphasis on its origins from the mind of Bruce Lee. With the growing popularity it's already built up, this can easily snowball with newcomers discovering the show for the first time and original fans excited to see the series continue. Warrior is already an acclaimed martial arts Western drama, but there's still plenty of room to build on the goodwill it has generated. With HBO Max as its new home and the new audience the show has developed there, Warrior has the potential to become bigger than ever on the streamer.