The content material bloodletting at HBO has ended for now, as Warner Bros. Discovery focuses on rebuilding. Stephen Amell will return as Oliver Queen to the ultimate season of The Flash. Nicole Kidman has been forged in Taylor Sheridan’s Lioness sequence at Paramount+. James Gunn is writing an “unannounced” DC TV sequence. A primary take a look at Girl Danbury in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. Plus, trailers for Hunters season 2, Natasha Lyonne in Rian Johnson’s Poker Face, Cristoph Waltz in The Marketing consultant, and extra of the most important information in TV and streaming from the previous week.
TOP STORY
No Extra HBO Content material Getting the Restructuring Axe, Warner Bros. Discovery CFO Says
(Photograph by John Johnson/HBO)
The time for restructuring, layoffs, and content material write-offs is over at Warner Bros. Discovery, in response to CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels — and now it’s everybody else’s flip.
“The start of 2023 actually marks the start of a brand new chapter for us; we’re closing chapter 1, we’re opening chapter 2,” Wiedenfels mentioned throughout Citi’s 2023 Communications, Media & Leisure Convention on Thursday. “As you all noticed very publicly, we shaved off plenty of the surplus final yr, and I feel that’s one thing that everybody else within the trade goes to undergo. We’re coming from an irrational time of overspending with very restricted concentrate on return on funding, and I feel others are going to must make some changes that we, frankly, have behind us now, however I feel that’s going to be an element.”
The yr 2022 was the yr of “restructuring” and 2023 will probably be about “relaunching and constructing,” he mentioned, referencing HBO titles that had been cancelled and/or faraway from HBO Max and written off for tax causes, together with sci-fi sequence Westworld (pictured above).
“For a number of the titles, we discovered new houses elsewhere, et cetera, that’s why this took six, seven months. However I feel we’ve come to nice options and most significantly, we’re completed with that chapter,” he mentioned. “That was crucial to all of us to actually use 2022, you understand depart the acquisition accounting behind us, depart these preliminary technique modifications behind us, get all of it on the market by way of our restructuring estimates after which be capable to flip the web page and transfer ahead.”
(Photograph by Warner Bros. Footage)
Transferring ahead consists of some new faces like new DC Studios co-chairmen and CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran, who’ve already made waves with their plans to overtake DC’s path, which included dropping Henry Cavill as Superman.
“James Gunn and Peter Safran are engaged on a DC lineup and are getting near having the ability to talk with the plan,” Wiedenfels mentioned. “We obtained Channing [Dungey, Warner Bros. Television Group chairman]. We obtained [HBO Chairman and CEO] Casey Bloys together with his profitable crew in place, so we’ve obtained that. A few of these modifications would possibly take a while, clearly given the lead instances for content material, however we’ve obtained the crew in place, we’ve obtained essentially the most iconic IP and model portfolio that I might consider. We’ve obtained a worldwide footprint, we’ve obtained the info and we’re putting in the administration system to deliver this all collectively. So from the attitude of the elements being in place, I don’t suppose we might be in a greater place, and now we obtained to execute.”
One of many tasks the corporate is working towards this yr is the merger of HBO Max and Discovery+ into one mixed streaming service.
“The groups are actually working arduous at getting that mixed product launch within the spring, and they’re on monitor,” Wiedenfels mentioned. “That’s going to be very thrilling to lastly deliver collectively our Discovery+ and HBO Max … They’re shifting this undertaking alongside. We’re going to return out with an awesome product from a consumer-experience perspective, and that’s frankly the most important holdback for HBO Max proper now, that the expertise just isn’t the place it must be. ”
Associated: DC TV Standing: The place Peacemaker, the Penguin Collection, and The Sandman Now Stand
Stephen Amell To Return as Oliver Queen in The Flash’s Last Season
(Photograph by The CW)
Talking of DC information, Stephen Amell will play The Inexperienced Arrow yet another time, reprising the function of Oliver Queen in The Flash season 9, the present’s ultimate season.
The Arrowverse alum will seem in episode 909 of the season and can reunite with Arrow stars David Ramsey, Keiynan Lonsdale, and Sendhil Ramamurthy who can even seem within the episode, in response to Selection.
“As quickly as our ultimate season was introduced, we knew we wished Stephen to return again and reprise his iconic function as Oliver Queen,” govt producer Eric Wallace advised Selection. “In any case, it was Oliver who initially launched Barry Allen on his heroic path. That’s why everybody on Group Flash felt so strongly that it was necessary to create a full-circle second with Oliver’s return within the ultimate season of The Flash.”
Followers ought to anticipate an “epic-yet-emotional episode,” Wallace teased.
“It’s all to say ‘thanks’ to everybody for watching and supporting our present all through 9 fantastic years. We completely can’t wait for everybody to see Grant and Stephen saving the world collectively once more. And sure, there will probably be thrills, chills and tears,” he mentioned.
Since Arrow, Amell has been busy with Starz sequence Heels, which tells the story of two brothers in a wrestling dynasty and costars Alexander Ludwig (Vikings). Season 1 was Licensed Contemporary at 96%, and season 2 wrapped filming final July, Amell mentioned within the “Inside You with Michael Rosenbaum” podcast’s January 3 episode.
The Flash season 9 will premiere on Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.
New Trailers: Logan Lerman and the Hunters Reunite One Final Time To Take Down Adolf Hitler
After an almost three-year wait, Amazon Studios’ Nazi-themed revenge sequence Hunters has returned. Following the occasions that derailed the Hunters exploits in Europe, the group of heroes have splintered. However a brand new life-affirming mission will get the band again collectively yet another time – it seems Adolf Hitler is alive and properly in South America, they usually’re going to do no matter they’ll to take down historical past’s most notorious Nazi. If something, this may go down as one heck of an enormous payback.
Al Pacino returns as Meyer Offerman, alongside sequence newcomer Jennifer Jason Leigh and returning sequence regulars Logan Lerman, Jerrika Hinton, Lena Olin, Josh Radnor, Tiffany Boone, Carol Kane, Louis Ozawa, Kate Mulvany, and Greg Austin.
To rejoice the present’s return to and ship it off in fashion, a six-episode companion podcast sequence from Jordan Peele and sequence creator David Weil referred to as Chutzpah: Hunters Presents True Tales of Resistance has launched to spotlight extraordinary true tales of heroism, resistance, and sacrifice made throughout the Holocaust.
Hunters season 2 premieres on January 13 to Prime Video.
Extra trailers and teasers launched this week:
• Night time Courtroom stars Melissa Rauch as Abby Stone, Choose Harry Stone’s (Harry Anderson) daughter. She takes up the gavel and, collectively along with her courtroom workers, tackles the oddball instances that make their approach to the evening shift. Premieres January 17. (NBC)
• Pricey Mama is a deeply private five-part sequence from award-winning director Allen Hughes that defies the conventions of conventional documentary storytelling to share an illuminating saga of mom and son, Afeni and Tupac Shakur.Their story chronicles the chances and contradictions of the U.S. from a time of revolutionary fervor to Hip Hop tradition’s most ostentatious decade. Premieres Spring 2023. (FX)
• Koala Man follows middle-aged dad Kevin and his titular not-so-secret identification, whose solely superpower is a burning ardour for following guidelines and snuffing out petty crime within the city of Dapto. On a quest to wash up his hometown, and sometimes roping his annoyed household into his adventures, Koala Man will do no matter it takes to defeat villainous masterminds, supernatural horrors, or worse: jerks who don’t take their garbage bins down on the correct days. Premieres January 9. (Hulu)
• Basis, which relies on Isaac Asimov’s award-winning tales, continues the story of a band of exiles in season 2 as they journey to rebuild civilization amid the autumn of the Galactic Empire. Essential people transcending house and time are confronted with lethal crises, shifting loyalties and complex relationships that may finally decide the destiny of humanity. Premieres Summer time 2023. (Apple TV+)
• The Ark takes place 100 years sooner or later after a catastrophic occasion knocks re-colonization spacecraft Ark One astray. With greater than a yr left to go earlier than reaching their goal planet, a scarcity of life-sustaining provides and lack of management, the remaining crew should turn into the most effective variations of themselves to remain on track and survive. Premieres February 1. (SYFY)
• Poker Face is a 10-episode mystery-of-the-week sequence created by Rian Johnson and starring Natasha Lyonne as reluctant investigator Charlie, who has a unprecedented means to find out when somebody is mendacity. She hits the highway along with her Plymouth Barracuda and with each cease encounters a brand new forged of characters and unusual crimes she will be able to’t assist however remedy. Premieres January 26. (Peacock)
• The Marketing consultant stars Christoph Waltz as Compware’s new marketing consultant, Regus Patoff. After he’s employed to enhance the enterprise on the App-based gaming firm, staff expertise new calls for and challenges that put every little thing into query — together with their lives. Premieres February 24. (Prime Video)
• Fact Be Advised season 3 finds Poppy (Octavia Spencer) partnering with an unorthodox principal (Gabrielle Union) to maintain the names of younger lacking Black women within the public eye, whereas chasing down a suspected intercourse trafficking ring that will have ensnared them. Premieres January 20. (Apple TV+)
• Harlem season 2 follows Camille (Meagan Good) who, after blowing up her profession and disrupting her love life, has to determine put the items again collectively; Tye (Jerrie Johnson) considers her future; Quinn (Grace Byers) goes on a journey of self-discovery; and Angie’s (Shoniqua Shandai) profession takes a promising flip. Premieres February 3. (Prime Video)
• Break Level is a brand new docuseries that follows a various group of tennis gamers on and off the court docket as they compete in intense slams with hopes of profitable a ultimate and even larger goals of changing into world primary. Premieres January 23. (Netflix)
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Casting: Nicole Kidman To Star in and Govt Produce Espionage Thriller Lioness
(Photograph by Michael Tran/AFP/Getty Pictures)
Oscar and Emmy winner Nicole Kidman has been tapped to star in Paramount+’s upcoming authentic sequence Lioness, reverse beforehand introduced sequence leads Zoe Saldaña and Laysla De Oliveira. The sequence, which relies on a real-life CIA program, hails from Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan and follows a rough-and-tumble younger Marine named Cruz Manuelos (De Oliveira) who’s recruited to hitch the CIA’s Lioness Engagement Group to assist deliver down a terrorist group from inside. Saldaña is about to play Joe, the station chief of the Lioness program who’s tasked with coaching, managing and main her feminine undercover operatives.
The character Kidman will play is Kaitlyn Meade, a senior CIA supervisor who’s tenured in her profession, and conversant in the politics that should be performed in her line of labor. From dealing with the difficult gender bias that comes with being a girl within the high-ranking intelligence group to being spouse who longs for the eye she herself can’t even give, her expertise leads her to mentor somebody veering near her personal path.
Debra Jo Rupp, of That ’70s Present and That ’90s Present fame, has been added to the forged of WandaVision spinoff sequence Agatha: Coven of Chaos. The sequence will star Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness, alongside Joe Locke, Aubrey Plaza, Ali Ahn, Maria Dizzia, Sasheer Zamata, and Patti LuPone. (Deadline)
Benedict Cumberbatch is in talks to star in Netflix restricted sequence Eric. Set in Nineteen Eighties New York, he’ll play Vincent Sullivan, a puppeteer from America’s hottest youngsters’s present, whose life falls aside when his son Edgar goes lacking. Now, dwelling on the streets, Vincent’s solely companion is a 7-foot tall blue puppet named Eric, who guides him on a journey to seek out his son and a method house. (Selection)
Bryan Cranston will return as Breaking Unhealthy‘s Walter White in an unlikely place: a Tremendous Bowl industrial. The Emmy winner will deliver Heisenberg again to the small display in an add for PopCorners chips. (Selection)
Ruth Negga has been forged reverse Jake Gyllenhaal in Apple TV+’s new restricted sequence Presumed Harmless, from David E. Kelley and J.J. Abrams. Negga will play Barbara Sabich, the spouse to Gyllenhaal’s Prosecuting Legal professional Rusty Sabich, who’s an artist and mom whose life is flipped the wrong way up when her husband is accused of murdering his mistress. (Selection)
Fargo season 5 has forged Lukas Gage in a recurring function as Lars Olmstead. He’ll be part of beforehand introduced expertise Juno Temple, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Joe Keery, Lamorne Morris, Richa Moorjani, David Rysdahl, Sam Spruell, Jessica Pohly, and Nick Gomez. (Selection)
Yellowjackets season 2 has added Nicole Maines, François Arnaud, and Nia Sondaya to the forged in recurring roles. (Selection)
Open Ebook, the half-hour scripted pilot at Amazon Freevee which is impressed by Jessica Simpson’s bestselling memoir, has forged Gillian Vigman to star reverse Katelyn Tarver. (Deadline)
Former Miss Universe Olivia Culpo and Emmy Award winner Jeannie Mai Jenkins have been tapped by the Miss Universe Group to host the 71st Miss Universe competitors. The occasion will probably be held in New Orleans, Louisiana on Saturday, January 14 and will probably be obtainable to stream completely in English on The Roku Channel, and can simulcast in Spanish on Telemundo.
Manufacturing & Growth: James Gunn Is Writing An ‘Unannounced’ DC TV Collection
(Photograph by Frazer Harrison/Getty Pictures)
DC Studios co-chief James Gunn revealed on Twitter on Thursday that he’s writing an “unannounced” DC TV sequence. The filmmaker, who already carved a fairly sizable area of interest within the comedian guide leisure world — the Guardians of the Galaxy films, 2021’s The Suicide Squad, and the HBO Max spinoff sequence Peacemaker — held again on revealing any additional particulars concerning the undertaking.
My day: wrote 1/3 of an unannounced DC TV present (😃); okay’d 100 VFX photographs, did reference performing for Rocket, & gave modifying notes for Vol 3; & had two huge DC Studios conferences. pic.twitter.com/tmtuTbz1uF
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) January 6, 2023
“My day: wrote 1/3 of an unannounced DC TV present (😃); okay’d 100 VFX photographs, did reference performing for Rocket, & gave modifying notes for Vol 3; & had two huge DC Studios conferences,” he tweeted.
This replace has led to a lot hypothesis concerning what this system truly is. Practically a yr in the past, Gunn revealed to Deadline’s Hero Nation podcast that one other sequence throughout the Suicide Squad universe is within the works, saying: “We’re engaged on one thing else now, one other TV present that’s related to that universe. I can’t fairly say.”
It’s attainable the script he wrote is related to this secretive program he referred to beforehand. Hypothesis apart, it goes with out saying that any information popping out of the DC camp is a magnet for scrutiny, since DC’s TV slate has gone via large modifications in a really quick time frame. Gunn and his companion Peter Safran have already said their plans to create a brand new DC universe, wiping the slate clear for a brand new programming and film slate.
Peacemaker drew in document viewership numbers for HBO Max when it premiered in 2021, so banking on the Suicide Squad IP and expansions on that universe is certain to make a splash.
Peacock is creating Freeman, a thriller drama sequence from Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries). The sequence follows a household that strikes to a picturesque small Georgia city to a mysterious home generally known as Freeman Manor, that holds darkness inside its partitions that goes again generations. (Deadline)
Disney+ is creating an adaptation of CJ Sansom’s bestselling Shardlake novel sequence, which facilities on Dr Matthew Shardlake, a hunchback lawyer-turned-detective in Tudor England, working beneath Henry VIII’s reign. (Deadline)
ABC is creating reuniting with How To Stay With Your Dad and mom (For the Remainder of Your Life) creator Claudia Lonow on Boss, a single-camera office comedy impressed by her life. The sequence follows two frenemies who rent one another’s equally reverse daughters as their assistants. (Deadline)
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson has three new BMF spinoff sequence in growth at Starz. (Deadline)
The Hollywood International Press Affiliation as presenters for the eightieth Golden Globes, together with Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Niecy Nash-Betts, Ana Gasteyer, Billy Porter, Colman Domingo, Natasha Lyonne, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Nicole Byer, Quentin Tarantino, and Tracy Morgan. The Globes will air stay on January 10 on NBC.
Netflix Reveals a First Have a look at Girl Danbury in Bridgerton Prequel Queen Charlotte
(Photograph by Netflix)
The thrill for Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is rising. Netflix launched a brand new first-look picture selling the upcoming prequel sequence, which can concentrate on Queen Charlotte’s rise to energy. Pictured above is Arsema Thomas, who steps into the function of younger Girl Agatha Danbury – a personality who will discover her method into society with the assistance of Charlotte’s affect.
“With eager information of the as soon as divided social scene and the intricacies of marriage,” Netflix’s official character description reads, “Agatha turns into a guiding mild for the brand new Queen, all whereas discovering her personal voice and energy.”
India Amarteifio performs the youthful model of Charlotte within the upcoming restricted sequence. The beforehand launched take a look at her character is under.
(Photograph by Netflix)
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