Deadline revealed Monday that cuts would likely come today and we revealed earlier that Warner Bros. TV was shutting down digital production arm Stage 13 and its Warner Bros Television Workshop – a key plank in finding and mentoring new and diverse talent.
UNSCRIPTED
On the unscripted side, which continues to be run by Mike Darnell, President of Warner Bros. Unscripted and Alternative Television, there are some strategic changes across its three divisions: Warner Horizon Unscripted Television, Telepictures and Shed Media.
The company is combining the creative development and programming roles across Warner Horizon Unscripted Television, which is behind series such as The Voice and The Bachelor, and Telepictures, which produces The Jennifer Hudson Show and previously made The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Bridgette Theriault and Dan Sacks will run Warner Horizon, following the departure of Warner Horizon’s Brooke Karzen after 20 years. David McGuire will run Telepictures.
The move comes after the bringing together of many of the divisions’ back-end functions as part of a restructure in 2020 that saw Kevin Fortson, in physical production, and Matt Matzkin, in business affairs, legal and finance, work across all three divisions. Both Fortson and Matzkin remain.
Shed Media, which is behind series such as Bravo’s Below Deck Adventure and a number of The Real Housewives shows, will remain a stand-alone unit led by Lisa Shannon and Dan Peirson.
The studio is not merging Warner Horizon Unscripted Television and Telepictures fully, ostensibly because of the differences in the ways that the shows are produced. Warner Horizon makes union shows and Telepictures is non-union.
There will be no changes on the international side, where Warner Bros operates more than 20 production companies across the world, or at All3Media, which comes to the company via the Discovery ownership stake.
SCRIPTED
On the scripted side of the business, Brett Paul will remain as President of Warner Bros Television, which is not making any structural changes to the way that business is run, having previously brought together Warner Bros Television and cable/streaming unit Warner Horizon Scripted Television in 2020.
Clancy Collins White will continue to run development and Vicki Dummer will oversee current programming, both continuing to report to Dungey. Adrienne Turner will continue to run comedy development and oversee the comedy team. Adam Glick continues to serve as head of business affairs, Sue Palladino as head of production, and Mele Nagler as head of casting.
Cuts will be made at lower levels of this division.
However, the bigger moves in scripted was the closure of digital studio Stage 13 and the end of its workshops, which we revealed earlier Tuesday.
The scripted moves are a continuation of the TV group’s changing business, particularly an increasing focus on streaming and cable programming, which is thought to include around 65% of its current programming, amid the decline of broadcast TV.
This has been further extenuated by the ownership change at the CW, where Warner Bros TV and CBS Studios were the sole feeders of its scripted originals pipeline.
ANIMATION
In animation, Warner Bros Television is bringing together some of the creative and programming teams within two of its three animation studios: Warner Bros Animation and Cartoon Network Studios.
While current programming, casting, legal and business affairs had worked across all three (the group includes Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe), it will now bring together development and production teams at Warner Animation and Cartoon Network Studios.
The three labels will continue and will continue to be run by Sam Register.
The kids and family series development team will be led by Audrey Diehl, adult animation development will be led by Peter Girardi, and animated longform series development will be led by Sammy Perlmutter, with Bobbie Page leading main production. Ed Adams will continue as EVP and GM.
Shows that come out of these divisions include Invincible Fight Girl, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal and Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake.
The company said that multiple projects remain in active production and development and despite the restructuring, production output is “relatively unchanged.”
Warner Bros. Discovery to Take $2B-Plus Writedown on Content and Development Amid Restructuring
Layoffs could cost the company more than $1 billion and total costs could top $4 billion, per an SEC filing. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bu...0f0740c6f56c40
Ice Cube wants full control of the “Friday” film franchise, but he says Warner Bros. is standing in his way. Appearing on the most recent episode of Mike Tyson’s “Hotboxin'” podcast, Cube urged the studio to give him the rights to the franchise and rejected the possibility of him buying the rights from the studio himself. Cube starred in and wrote three “Friday” movies, all of which were produced and distributed by New Line Cinema. Warner Bros. now owns New Line, so Cube can’t move forward on a fourth “Friday” movie without the studios’ blessing.
“I don’t know. Warner Brothers is weird right now,” Cube said when asked about the fourth “Friday” movie, which is to be titled “Last Friday.” “I don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know what they’re doing. We’d love to have it back. I think it’s going be close to a time when we get it back. So, we’ll either wait for that time, or we’ll keep trying to convince them that they need to let us control the movie. It’s my movie, but they have distribution control.”
Yeah it sounds similar to Stallone griping to MGM of having the rights to Rocky. He sold the script to them, so they own it. I mean what’s so difficult to understand lol
Yeah it sounds similar to Stallone griping to MGM of having the rights to Rocky. He sold the script to them, so they own it. I mean what’s so difficult to understand lol
Quote:
Originally Posted by -JKR-
For someone who's been in the biz for decades, he seems weirdly surprised by the concept of the studio having to greenlight a movie (they own).
If the rights are set to expire then it was a license deal.
Warner Bros. Discovery to Take Additional $800M-$1B in Writeoffs, Says ‘Westworld,’ ‘The Nevers’ Being Licensed to Third-Party Streamers
Quote:
Warner Bros. Discovery is taking a bigger writeoff on content and development than it initially anticipated.
In a securities filing Wednesday, WBD said that it now expects to take writeoffs and impairments related to content and development costs of $2.8 billion to $3.5 billion, up from $2 billion to $2.5 billion as initially projected in October. That reflects an additional charge of $800 million to $1 billion.
WBD now says its total restructuring and impairment charges related to the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger will be between $4.1 billion and $5.3 billion, reflecting the higher content writeoffs.
And to think… the majority here thought and still think Disney’s purchase of 20th Century was a bad idea.
And yet, Disney has only added more to Hulu and Disney+. The number of 20th and Searchlight films have dropped but at least the ones Disney believes in are getting promoted more so than Warner/Discovery.
Anyway, the previous leaderships made decisions that cost a lot of money and continue to do so. Breaking something to fix it may be the necessary method.
And to think… the majority here thought and still think Disney’s purchase of 20th Century was a bad idea.
And yet, Disney has only added more to Hulu and Disney+. The number of 20th and Searchlight films have dropped but at least the ones Disney believes in are getting promoted more so than Warner/Discovery.
Anyway, the previous leaderships made decisions that cost a lot of money and continue to do so. Breaking something to fix it may be the necessary method.
Warner has been bleeding for sometime, which is why sales keep happening. Eventually someone has to close that wound.
HBO Max has announced its first ever price hike as the streaming service and home of Game of Thrones' House of the Dragon and the upcoming Last of Us series will increase to $15.99 a month.
Currently priced at $14.99, the one dollar price increase is the first bump in cost for the service since it launched in May 2020.
The changes are effective immediately, as of January 12, for new customers, while existing customers will see the increase when their next bill is charged on or after February 11. Customers therefore have just under a month to cancel their subscription if they are unhappy with the new price.
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