In the wake of Kevin Tsujihara’s departure, WarnerMedia’s John Stankey promises to appoint interim leaders while he searches for a permanent replacement.
THE PRICE POINT
The Price Point | Will Ellen Survive? Bet On It
There’s little chance that either Ellen DeGeneres or Warner Bros. will walk away from a staple of daytime TV that has flourished for almost two decades. Look for a carefully-orchestrated mea culpa and a triumphant return — she’s too good an actress for any other outcome.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show‘s host, Ellen DeGeneres, and studio, Warner Bros., have spoken out about the recent complaints against the workplace environment on the popular daytime syndicated talk show. In a statement on behalf of WB and DeGeneres, the studio confirmed that it has conducted an internal inquiry, interviewing current and former Ellen employees about their experience following a recent BuzzFeed report alleging a toxic work culture on the show.
NEW YORK (AP) — The animated Scooby-Doo film “Scoob!” will bypass theaters and premiere directly on digital platforms, Warner Bros. said Tuesday, making it the latest studio to experiment with an on-demand release during the pandemic shutdown. “Scoob!” had originally been set to open in theaters on May 15. But instead, on the same date, […]
AT&T’s Warner Bros. unit has hired Disney exec Tom Ascheim as president of global kids, young adults and classics at Warner Bros. Ascheim, who had headed Freeform at Disney, will be responsible for global strategy for Cartoon Network, Adult Swim and Boomerang, managing the Cartoon Network and Warner Bros. animation studios and overseeing Turner Classic Movies.
Dee Dee Myers will exit her post at Warner Bros as executive vp of worldwide corporate communications and public affairs. Myers joined Hollywood from the world of politics, previously serving as the White House press secretary to Bill Clinton. She has been with the studio for five years.
Exclusives
As WarnerMedia’s streamer HBO Max preps for a May launch, a new film division will become a direct pipeline — and could spark awkward internal politics.
Movie studio Warner Bros. and HBO Max are launching a new division that will specialize in making movies specifically for streaming, the companies said Wednesday. The unit is designed to produce films for HBO Max, the upcoming streaming service owned by the Burbank-based studio’s parent company, AT&T Inc. The new division is expected to make eight to 10 films a year for the direct-to-consumer platform, which launches in May.
The market for physical discs has evaporated. So Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. are looking for a way to save the format.
Warner Bros. chair and CEO Ann Sarnoff on Wednesday unvieled the studio’s refreshed brand with a new logo that is now on the Burbank, Calif., lot’s storied water tower. The new logo is a refinement and modernization of the Warner Bros shield that has been part of the studio’s identity since its founding in 1923.
The Ann Sarnoff era at Warner Bros. has begun. Sarnoff formally took the reins as Warner Bros. chair-CEO on Thursday, two months after she was appointed to the post. Sarnoff told employees in a memo that she has been impressed by the company’s track record during the past year amid a period of upheaval for the industry in general and Warner Bros. in particular.
NEW YORK (AP) — See your “Friends” on the big screen. Deck out your place with “Friends” decor. Wear your “Friends” as jewelry. Heck, buy the “Friends” Lego set and pretend it’s for your kid. If you’re a “Friends” superfan, there are lots of ways to celebrate the show’s 25th anniversary in September. “It transcends […]
BBC executive Ann Sarnoff is the first woman to lead the 96-year-old Warner Bros. She succeeds Kevin Tsujihara, who left in March following misconduct allegations.
The Wall Street Journal reports that AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia is discussing plans to package HBO, sister channel Cinemax and its vast Warner Bros. TV and movie library into a streaming service costing between $16 and $17 a month, according to people familiar with the matter, a strategy aimed at keeping the media giant competitive against lower-priced offerings in a crowded field. Journal subscribers can read the full story here.
As WarnerMedia’s John Stankey searches for a new studio chief following Kevin Tsujihara’s Monday exit as Warner Bros. chairman-CEO, he has put studio execs Toby Emmerich, Peter Roth and Kim Williams in charge.
As Warner Bros. chairman and chief executive officer at one of Hollywood’s most powerful and prestigious studios, Kevin Tsujihara is one of the highest ranking executives to be felled by sexual misconduct allegations.
The streaming service landscape is growing. The industry, once dominated by a few companies, is now more than a dozen strong, and more players keep entering the game. Comcast, Warner Bros. and Disney are the latest entries, signifying a major shift in strategy for traditional cable television companies. And that could be bad news for Netflix, in particular.
Warner Bros. said it had investigated prior accusations against Extra host A.J. Calloway and found no suggestion of workplace misconduct. But he was suspended after the syndicator became aware of additional allegations that will be published in an upcoming article in The Hollywood Reporter.
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — Champagne briefly replaced scripts Thursday for a ceremony renaming the nondescript Stage 25 on the sprawling Warner Bros. production lot after the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.” Still television’s most popular comedy, the show will exit the airwaves and the studio it has called home for 12 years this spring. Actors […]
Warner Bros. has promoted Jay Levine to a newly created corporate post as EVP television business strategy and digital services. Levine will report directly to Warner Bros. Chairman-CEO Kevin Tsujihara on all matters related to television, and to the studio’s chief digital officer and executive vp strategy and business development, Thomas Gewecke, for the digital side of things.
Wendy Aylsworth — who spend more than two decades in tech roles as Warner Bros., most recently as SVP technology, and was the first woman president of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers — will receive the Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award at the Television Academy’s Engineering Emmy Awards on Oct. 24.
AT&T is developing a new streaming video service that will use the Warner Bros. catalog of TV shows and movies. “There is an amazing library of media and entertainment content that is really not being put to work, that’s available for direct-to-consumer distribution,” AT&T Chairman Randall Stephenson said Wednesday.
AT&T owns a significant SVOD product in HBO Now, with its $15-per-month price point and more than 5 million subscribers. But the company may be looking at bundling it with other direct-to-consumer products.
Producer Gavin Polone sued Warner Bros. on Thursday, accusing the network of using creative accounting practices to deprive him of residuals for the Netflix revival of Gilmore Girls. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, represents the fourth dispute between Polone and the studio over Gilmore Girls residuals in the last 16 years.
Time Warner’s Turner and Warner Bros. are focusing their movie-streaming firepower on one service for film buffs: FilmStruck. The corporate cousins reached a deal to stock Turner’s FilmStruck with more than 600 classic Hollywood films each month from the Warner Bros. library.
VidAngel, the self-touted family-friendly technology service that burst onto the Hollywood scene with a plan to clean up filthy language, nudity and violence from films and television shows, has suffered yet another blow. On Thursday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an injunction in a copyright lawsuit brought by Disney, Fox and Warner Bros.
Movie studios are considering whether to ignore the objections of cinema chains and forge ahead with a plan to offer digital rentals of films mere weeks after they appear in theaters, according to people familiar with the matter. Some of the biggest proponents, including Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures, are pressing on in talks with Apple Inc. and Comcast Corp. on ways to push ahead with the project even without theater chains, the people said. After months of negotiations, the two sides have been unable to arrive at a mutually beneficial way to create a $30 to $50 premium movie-download product.
UPFRONTS 2017
Warner, CBS Lead Studios In 2017-18 Shows
Among TV studios, Warner Bros. and CBS have the most new and returning shows for the 2017-18 season. Many networks are opting to renew shows made by their sister studios.
Time Warner’s Turner and Warner Bros. will test the subscription VOD waters for ‘toon fans with the launch of Boomerang, a service starting at $5 per month that will include more than 1,000 episodes of classic and current series.
VidAngel has turned to the Court of Appeals in its legal battle with Disney, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm, requesting an emergency stay that would let it get back in the business of allowlng users to filter language, nudity, violence and other content from movies and TV shows.
