Warner Bros: Last News

Game of Thrones writer George R. R.

With Universal pushing R-rated comedy Please Don’t Destroy from Aug. 18 to Peacock, another R-rated movie, Strays, featuring the voices of Will Ferrell & Jamie Foxx is back-filling that date. Originally, Strays was to open on June 9, a month from now.

Selome Hailu SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers for “Tricky Legacies,” the fifth episode of “Barry” Season 4. At the end of last week’s “Barry,” we meet John (Zachary Golinger). He’s an innocent young boy, but his existence is completely terrifying: It means that Barry (Bill Hader) and Sally (Sarah Goldberg) have brought a child into their violent, conspiratorial world. But John is being raised against a rural Midwestern landscape that matches Barry’s hallucinations from prison at the beginning of Season 4 — as though there’s a chance he’s a figment of Barry’s imagination, too. In Episode 5, we re-meet Barry and Sally, who have aged considerably, and bear new accents and names (Clark and Emily, respectively). They’re raising John as a devout Christian, with Barry actually seeming to believe what he’s preaching. Sally, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same delusions. She puts on a messy brunette wig every day to work at a diner that clearly makes her miserable, passing the time by telling lies to her coworker Gina (Emily Spivey), who tells her that another coworker, Bevel (Spenser Granese), has been jerking off to Sally. Or rather, to Emily — who then gets her revenge.

The Wire creator David Simon has become one of the many writers/producers whose overall agreements have been suspended because of the strike.

Jordan Moreau Like many projects in early production during the writers strike, the upcoming “Game of Thrones” spinoff “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight” has paused its writers room, author George R.R. Martin revealed in a new blog post Monday. The prolific author, most known for his ongoing “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels that inspired HBO’s hit shows “Game of Thrones” and its spinoff “House of the Dragon,” also made announcements about his other TV shows, like AMC’s “Dark Winds” Season 2. “I am not in LA, so I cannot walk a picket line as I did in 1988, but I want to go on the record with my full and complete and unequivocal support of my Guild,” he wrote.

Jordan Moreau SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers for Season 4, Episode 5 of “Barry,” now streaming on HBO Max. Last week’s episode of “Barry” ended on one of the show’s most bizarre cliffhangers: Barry (Bill Hader) and Sally (Sarah Goldberg) appeared to be several years older and living in a house in the desert with a young son. The HBO show has toyed with flashbacks and dream-like sequences before, and Sunday’s newest episode didn’t reveal what was going on until the final minutes… …and it’s a time jump into the future! The end of last week’s episode actually moved ahead eight years, during which Barry and Sally have evaded public recognition after he escaped prison. They’re living under brand-new identities, Clark and Emily, and raising their son, John. Barry, newly religious and peaceful, homeschools John but is too afraid to teach him how to play baseball because of the sport’s violence. Sally wears a brunette wig, dons a Southern accent and works at a rinky-dink diner, where she gets sexually harassed by a biker.

The writers strike is now impacting overall deals. Just days into the work stoppage, major TV studios have started sending out letters to writer/producers under overall agreements, telling them that their deals are being suspended.

A group of top showrunners met today to discuss the WGA strike – a day after it emerged the studios told writer/producers were not excused from producing duties during the labor action.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter “Call Me Kat” has been canceled after three seasons at Fox, Variety has learned. “We are very proud of ‘Call Me Kat.’ But, unfortunately, the audience response to it was not as strong as we had hoped,” a Fox spokesperson said in a statement. “We are thankful for our partnership with Warner Bros. Television, That’s Wonderful Productions, Sad Clown Productions, BBC Studios, Mayim Bialik, Jim Parsons and the entire cast and crew for their work and dedication to ‘Call Me Kat.'” The multi-cam comedy was a high-profile get for Fox back in 2019, with the network giving the show a series commitment in a highly-competitive situation before formally ordering it to series in May 2020. Both series star Mayim Bialik and executive producer Jim Parsons were coming fresh off of the 12th and final season of the hit CBS multi-cam “The Big Bang Theory,” with “Call Me Kat” representing their first broadcast project after that show.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Eight CBS-owned TV stations will be dropping their affiliation with The CW and becoming independent stations as of September. The stations are: WPSG Philadelphia (DMA #4), WUPA Atlanta (DMA #6), KBCW San Francisco (DMA #10), KSTW Seattle (DMA #12), WTOG Tampa-St. Petersburg (DMA #13), WKBD Detroit (DMA #14), KMAX Sacramento (DMA #20), and WPCW Pittsburgh (DMA #26). This will give the CBS Stations group a total of 14 CBS Television Network stations and 13 independent stations. “We look forward to reimagining these stations as independents while leveraging the considerable value of their prime-time real estate in each of the markets,” said Wendy McMahon, president and co-head of CBS News and Stations. “It’s an exciting time to look at new opportunities to add local programming, including live sports, and shows from across the Paramount Global brands. We are also grateful to have been part of The CW for 17 memorable years and wish our partners at Nexstar continued success.”

Angelique Jackson The American Black Film Festival (ABFF) has announced the lineup for this year’s Talks Series, headlined by 2023 festival ambassador Lena Waithe. The 27th edition of the festival will be held June 14-18 in Miami Beach, followed by a virtual program June 19-25 on ABFF Play. On Thursday, June 15, the Emmy-winning writer, producer and actor will sit for an intimate one-on-one conversation, billed as “The Lena Waithe Effect,” where she’ll recount her journey in the entertainment industry. In addition to Waithe, the series of conversations and panels also features: “That’s Our Business,” a candid conversation with Tabitha Brown and her husband Chance Brown; a panel discussion with TV One Networks’ Kirk and Tammy Franklin (“The One”) and LisaRaye McCoy (“Asking for a Friend”); a look behind-the-scenes of Bounce TV’s “Act Your Age” starring Kym Whitley and Yvette Nicole Brown; a celebration of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary with the Xfinity Original Series “Hip House”; and the WBD Access Music Supervisor Panel featuring Morgan Rhodes (“The Color Purple”) and Carolyn Owens (“Cherish the Day”).

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor David Zaslav and his team could be forgiven for sounding a little stressed on Warner Bros. Discovery’s Q1 earnings call. The company’s numbers were pretty grim for a CEO who prizes his free cash flow. The Warner Bros. Discovery chief was fired up about a number of issues affecting the studio behind the shield, and he fired off verbal volleys, pop culture quotes and metaphors, invoking everything from military terminology to Formula 1 racing to “The Blues Brothers.” But the liveliest moment of the hourlong conference call with Wall Street analysts was Zaslav’s discussion of subscriber churn rates and how they differ between HBO Max and Discovery+, the two streamers that are set to be married and relaunch as a joint product dubbed Max on May 23.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav responded to the writers strike following the release of the company’s Q1 earnings report Friday, shooting down claims that some companies are “glad” that the the Writers Guild of America (WGA) is picketing instead of writing. “We’re not glad,” Zaslav said during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Day 4 of the writers strike. “In order to create great storytelling, we need great writers, and we need the whole industry to work together,” the WBD chief said. “And everybody deserves to be paid fairly. So our number one focus is, let’s try and get this resolved. Let’s do it in a way that that the writers feel that they’re valued, which they are, and they’re compensated fairly. And then off we go. Let’s tell great stories together.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav weighed in on CNN’s controversial decision to host a live town-hall format Q&A with former President Donald Trump — defending the decision as needing to represent “both sides.” “The U.S. has a divided government. We need to hear both voices,” Zaslav said, speaking Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” when asked about Trump’s scheduled May 10 appearance on CNN. “Republicans are on the air on CNN, Democrats are on the air… When we do politics, we need to represent both sides. I think it’s important for America.” Zaslav continued about Trump, “He’s the front-runner — he has to be on our network. We’re happy he’s coming on there.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery posted a first-quarter loss, buffeted not only by the dynamics of streaming video that are eroding traditional media-industry economics, but also by charges related to the 2022 merger that created the company out of the former WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. The owner of HBO, TNT and the Discovery Channel said its loss of $1.069 billion included $1.81 billion of “acquisition-related intangible assets and $95 million of pre-tax restructuring expenses.” The company also indicated that the debt it took on to finance the merger was affecting its financials. Warner Bros. Discovery had $836 million of “semi-annual interest payments largely attributable to merger-related debt that overwhelmed its cash flow.

EXCLUSIVE: CBS is trying its hand at a game of Mexican bingo in its latest unscripted order.

Charna Flam Max has shared the trailer for its upcoming documentary “Bama Rush,” which follows the social media phenomenon that grew out of University of Alabama students documenting their sorority recruitment experience. The feature length documentary will premiere on Warner Bros. Discovery’s merged HBO Max-Discovery+ streaming platform Max on May 23.

Peter Caranicas Deputy Editor Atlanta continues its steady expansion in content production with the launch of a new production hub, Electric Owl Studios, set to open on June 8. The new complex, described as “the greenest studio on earth,” Electric Owl Studios is a purpose-built film and television studio located in DeKalb County, just south of Decatur, Ga., co-founded by former Third Rail Studios executives Dan Rosenfelt and Michael Hahn. The 312,000-square-foot production campus says it’s the world’s first ground-up LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold-certified facility, making it “the greenest studio on earth.” It aims to minimize its environmental impact by taking measures to reduce its carbon footprint and generate clean energy by including LED lighting, 48 EV charging stations, solar panels, living walls, high-efficiency HVAC, carbon-negative concrete, food dehydrators for landscaping reuse, solar golf carts, water refill stations and more.

Sony is determined to bring moviegoers back to comedies in theaters and they just dated their Will Gluck directed Anyone But You for Dec. 15.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Shares of media companies stayed relatively tranquil Wednesday amid the work stoppage imposed by the WGA’s writers strike and another interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve. WGA union members took the picket lines in L.A. and New York for a second day, as they called on studios and streaming companies to agree to new contract terms for Hollywood writers. Meanwhile, the Fed on Wednesday raised its benchmark policy rate by 0.25%, to a new range of 5% to 5.25%, which is the highest it’s been since September 2007. On the interest-rate hike, the Dow Jones Industrial Average turned negative and closed down 0.8% Wednesday, down 270.29 points to 33,414.24, while the Nasdaq ended the day down 0.46%.

DC’s Publisher and Chief Creative Officer, Jim Lee, has been promoted to President of the comic book brand.