It’s clobbering time for The Rock in The Smashing Machine, the new biopic about MMA fighter Mark Kerr, which opens in theaters this weekend. There’s no one better to play a former-amateur-wrestler-turned-MMA-fighter than Dwayne Johnson!
Written and directed by Benny Safdie of the Safdie brothers, The Smashing Machine is based on the 2002 documentary, 2002 documentary The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr. Johnson stars as Kerr, a two-time UFC Heavyweight Tournament Champion, while Emily Blunt stars as Kerr wife at the time, Dawn Staples. With Benny Safdie directing and A24 releasing, could this be The Rock’s chance at an Oscar statue?
Also starring h Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten and Oleksandr Usyk, The Smashing Machine has received mixed reviews from critics, but will surely appeal to fans of The Rock and martial arts. But if you’d rather wait to watch the movie at home, here’s what we know about when The Smashing Machine will be streaming on HBO Max.
The Smashing Machine will only available to watch in a movie theater, when it opens in the U.S. in theaters on Friday, October 3. You can find a showing near you via Fandango. The Smashing Machine movie is not yet available to watch online or on streaming.
The Smashing Machine is not streaming on Netflix and likely will not be on Netflix in the U.S. any time soon, due to the fact that the film is an A24 release, and the 2023 deal between A24 and Warner Bros. Discovery, brings all A24’s previous and upcoming theatrical releases to the Warner Bros. streaming service HBO Max. If you want to watch The Smashing Machine at home, you’ll have to wait for the film to be available to buy or rent on digital platforms, or wait for it to stream on HBO Max.
The Smashing Machine is not yet streaming on HBO Max. Right now, the movie is only in theaters. That said, we do expect to see The Smashing Machine streaming on HBO Max eventually—thanks to the A24 and Warner Bros. deal—but we’re not sure when.
The A24 deal is a “Pay-1 deal,” which means A24 movies will start streaming on Max in the “Pay 1 window,” meaning that Max will be the first “TV channel” to pay for the rights to The Smashing Machine, after the film has been released on digital and home media. One recent A24 title, Sorry Baby, will begin streaming on HBO Max on October 30, about four months after its release in theaters, and about three months after its release on digital.
If The Smashing Machine follows a similar release strategy, you might see The Smashing Machine on digital in about a month, around early November 2025, and streaming on HBO Max in about four months, around early February 2026.
This is all speculation. The A24 digital and streaming releases have varied by title. If you want to watch The Smashing Machine right away, you can catch the movie in U.S. theaters on Friday.