On today’s episode, Variety’s Rebecca Rubin unpacks Universal Pictures’ risky decision to break “Wicked” in two parts, and how it paid off with a record haul. And Jennifer Maas gives us an update on the mood at HBO as the parent company slides into sale mode yet again.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and
analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Monday, November twenty fourth,
twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am
co editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm
in LA He's in New York, and Righty has reporters
around the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,
we'll talk with Ridy's Rebecca Rubin about the big box
(00:31):
office hall for Wicked For Good. She details the risky
decision that Universal Pictures took to make a Wicked a
two part release one year apart, it has paid off.
And then Jennifer Moz gives us a mood report at
HBO after she spent some quality time with Casey Bloyse
and his team. But before we get to that, here
are a few headlines just in this morning that you
(00:53):
need to know. Billie Eilish has set the date for
her hit Me Hard and Soft Concert movie release. It's
a three D extravaganza co directed by James Cameron. It's
coming to theaters via Paramount Pictures on March twentieth. There
are two significant passings to note this morning. German character
actor Udo Keir died on Sunday at age eighty one.
(01:14):
He was a fixture in Palm Springs in his later years.
And Jimmy Cliff, the incredible musician who helped to find
reggae in the sixties and seventies. He's known for the
hit The Harder They Come, and for starring in the
nineteen seventy two movie of the same name. He was
also eighty one. My favorite Jimmy Cliff song is an
upbeat number called Better Days Are Coming. Here's a clip
(01:36):
in tribute to an incredible artist who was the pride
of Jamaica's upcoming by.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Don't You Get Now?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Don't you Know Now? It's time for conversations with fiddy
journalists about news and trends and show business. If it's Monday,
we're talking box office with Rebecca Rubin. There's no hunting
around for a lead. This weekend, Wicked for Good did
its job and brought traffic back to the multiplexes. Rebecca Rubin, thanks.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
For joining me, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
By the time that we got to the weekend, I
know you from your tracking and your conversations. You knew
it was just going to be a matter of how
big this movie was going to open. Rebecca was in
line with your expectations.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
There was no doubt that Wicked for Good was going
to be huge. The question was just where that final
number was going to end up. It's a opening weekend.
We made one hundred and fifty million dollars in North
America and two hundred and twenty six million dollars globally,
so by that account, it is officially the biggest domestic
(03:10):
and global opening for a Broadway adaptation, beating the record
set by the first half of Wicked, which came out
a year ago, a new mark for the main Stem
that is a very big international hall. And from what
I understand, Universal was really focused on opening big international
a ray because the first film was pretty much big everywhere,
(03:31):
but it over indexed heavily in North America, where around
sixty five percent of ticket sales came from. And that's
partially because Wicked is more popular in the States and
it's not as recognizable a property overseas, and so far
it's had a bigger debut overseas, which is pretty common
(03:52):
for now that it's an established property. But it's definitely
a good sign that interest there has grown since the
first film.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
One hundred and fifty million dollars domestic just hands down,
people who went to the movies went to see Wicked
for good. This was just a four quadrant smash.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
When you get to these numbers, one hundred and fifty
million dollars domestically and over two hundred million dollars globally,
it is resonating mostly everywhere. But what stood out to
me actually was the two parts of it all. A
few years ago, when Universal announced that they were going
to split Wicked into two parts, a lot of people,
myself included, were very skeptical about what that decision would
(04:35):
look like because it's already risky to split a movie
into two, and musicals are a very polarizing genre, and
most of the recent musicals a lot were made by Universal.
Katz is one dear Evan Hansen. These movies were not
connecting with a wider audience, and so it was a
huge gamble in Universal's part to not just need one
(04:58):
big budget musical to succeed, but two to succeed a
year apart, and so it's very encouraging now to see
that at least Financially speaking, it feels like that decision
has paid off because they have another huge opening on
their hands.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
The fact that it was this two parter movie tied
to this beloved musical did make it feel more like
a movie going event, which, as you've talked about, is
something that studios really need to think about to give
people that motivation. Large format screens were they a big
factor in driving box office for Wicked for Good?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yes, we have continued to see these premium large formats.
IMAX included counting for a big portion of box office,
and that was no exception here with Wicked for Good. Globally,
just an IMAX, the movie made twenty five million dollars
and that's not including the Dolby screens or four DX.
(05:51):
There were some very funny videos on social media on
TikTok of people who unknowingly went to four DX screenings
and saw Alphabus swooping in with her broom and they
were quite startled. But audiences are looking for experiences like
that that you're not getting in your TV screens at home,
and so this is just another example of a movie
(06:14):
that people are wanting to see in these different formats.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Did anybody else to try to open anything as counter
programming to Wicked for Good.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
There were two new releases that did not quite make
a dent on box office charts. One of them was
Searchlight's Rental Family, which is a comedic drama that stars
Brendan Fraser and it's his first big role post his
Oscar win in the Whale, and it opened in fifth place.
It made three million dollars from roughly two thousand North
(06:47):
American theaters and so not the biggest start. But something
to know is that reviews and audience scores were really positive.
It has in eighty six percent on Around Tomatoes and
it goten a cinemas score or from moviegoers. This is
the time of year where movies tend to leg out
if audiences are actually responding to them.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Rebecca, what would you consider to be good for a
hold next weekend domestically for Wicked for Good?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Well, the Thanksgiving holidays coming up, and so that always
kind of skews the metrics because it's a very popular
time to go. So what we might typically see is
like a fifty percent hold is going to be much
stronger this weekend as families are together for the holidays,
kids are out of school, and so I think it'll
(07:35):
be much bigger of a weekend than it would be
if it was not around this Thanksgiving holiday. But that
is actually part of the reason why Universal chose to
release the movie around Thanksgiving, because they're getting two bites
of an apple here. And they did the same thing
with the first Wicked, which was having it open the
week before Thanksgiving, so they have a huge weekend before Thanksgiving,
(07:57):
and then they have another huge weekend during Thanksgiving. I
think the first movie dropped maybe fifty percent, which is
pretty good because it had such a big opening.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
And given where they start, that's pretty good hol approach.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
And so we're gonna see a similar matchup. Actually, last
Thanksgiving to this Thanksgiving, there was Wicked, and then there
was a big animated sequel from Disney. Last year it
was Moana two, which was a massive hit and ended
up making over a billion dollars. This year is Utopia two,
and again it's primed to be another huge hit for
(08:35):
Disney Animation, and so it really shows that if there
are two movies that people want to see, they can
both succeed. We already have a lot to look out
for next week. As always, Rebecca Thank you for telling
us what's going on at the turnstiles. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
And now let's get a temperature check on HBO from
Jennifer Mobs, who attended last week's HBO programming presentation in
New York. HBO has a packed slate for twenty twenty six.
They'll be busy with high profile originals rolling out across
the year. The best part of these press events are
not the fire hose of facts and figures and tidbits.
(09:15):
It's the chance to read the body language and assess
the mood of leaders. HBO's programming presentation was held in
New York at the company's headquarters in Hudson Yards, and
it happened to fall on the same day that CEO
David Zaslov and his team gathered elsewhere in the building
to consider bids for selling the company. You can't make
this stuff up, Jennifer Moz, Thank you very much for
(09:37):
joining me. Happy to be back. You were down there
on Thursday at Hudson Yards as Casey Bloy's HBO's fearless
Leader met the press and gave a presentation about what's
coming for HBO. We love those kind of presentations. Oh
you always get a lot of news, but you also
get a chance to take the temperature at HBO. What
was the mood? How did you read the bodyline wuage
(10:00):
of the folks at HBO right now?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And it was definitely a light atmosphere that people were
in good spirits. And Casey opened with a joke about
I brought you here today to tell you who's going
to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, and so you know, he
definitely acknowledged this was the exact day that the bids
were due for parent company Warner Brothers Discovery. And he's like,
I'm here to focus on HBO, and so he did.
(10:23):
There was a Q and a portion at the end.
So he did field our questions about what that looks like.
He answered very specifically, is he worried about his job?
Is he worried about the HBO brand? He said no,
and he said no, and he said he's been through
this enough times. And he told his staff this the
other day in a town hall, which is just we
have to keep focusing on making good programming and that's
all we can do.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
We have no control over this.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And he made the point, like I said, because Casey's
been through this several times that this could take a
year to a year and a half and then closing
time as well. So like he understands that this cannot
impact them every day moving forward, they have to keep
doing what they're doing, and what they're doing is they
showed us a lot of really good content that's coming
out next year. This presentation was held at their headquarters
(11:05):
in Hudson Yards. But where was it An auditorium, a
conference room, So we were on the third floor and
we were in a screening room. It was probably several
dozen journalists and then HBO executives gotcha.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Well.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
While that was happening, also at Hudson Yards, David Zaslov
and his top lieutenants, most of them named Bruce or David,
were there and they were in fact receiving the bids
that I understand mostly came in electronically. So in terms
of the programming, what stood out to you.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Say us just like a full roadmap, which is very
impressive because I think the past few years when they've
done something like this, they have a few things they're
really proud of, have a general idea of what's coming.
This is a really stacked year coming up, and it's
just one thing after another. So there will be the
new season House of the Dragon coming out in the summer.
I did Some Kingdoms that's the prequel for Game of
(11:53):
Thrones that's coming out in January, and both those shows
were renewed that day. They wanted to make a big,
splashy announcement. They renewed those, They renewed Tim Robinson's The
Chair Company, they renewed I Love La, And then in
the footage they showed us we got first looks at
a whole bunch of shows coming up, not the new
Harry Potter show yet, because they're still filming that. Casey
did talk about it a little bit and that the
(12:14):
plan there is also to shoot those seasons as close
together as possible to get ahead of those kids getting
too big for the parts. We got to see Look
at Lanterns, the Greg Burlanty and Greenlantern show that has
been at works for a while. So one of the
interesting things was seeing so many shows that we've been
writing about for years now, some of these pre covid
that have taken this long to come to fruition.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I have to ask you, you are the biggest Tim
Robinson fan I know. How does the Chair Company. How
does this show stack up in his cannon. I'm sure
you're happy that it's renewed. It's really good. Now I'm
partial too, I think you should leave.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Similar kind of humor, different format, obviously, so I want
to make sure hearing that it's renewed, very exciting, Worried
we won't get more. I think you should leave if
he's busy on Chair Company. But it's it's really good.
It's top tier, Tim Robinson.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
As you noted in your story, this time around they
are very drama heavy, but this time around they are
putting an emphasis on comedy, trying to restock the larder
there and the interesting too. Rachel Senna is the star
and creator of I Love La. Seems the epitome of
twenty twenty six talent, somebody who birthed her career on
social media and seems to be like just She's hit
(13:24):
the pop culture radar all of a sudden in the
last six months in a way, and she seemed very
adept at keeping herself in the conversation.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
She did to the point where they brought her. Actually,
I forgot about this part. She was in a brief
Q and A in the middle of it. They brought
her out and interviewed her for us up front, and
it was a little time for them to.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Talk about it.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
She was very excited, obviously, and it was a cool
thing to see them feature her and feel like this
is an important thing to devote time to.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Every generation of Bicoastal twenty somethings gets its representative series
on HBO. Let me ask you, was there much discussion
of the HBO Max half of the house. Actually, a good.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Portion was devoted to that because one thing that Casey
brought up, and I know it's something that he was
also transparent about, like, we haven't actually answered this question
in a definitive way, which is what is a Max
Original Now. He's answered it many times over the years,
but this time he was like, you know, it's been
nebulous and I haven't had a great answer in The
answer now is very much the pit. The pit is
(14:22):
what a Max original is and should be moving forward.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
A pit bagged an upset Emmy Drama series win for
the company.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yes, there was a slide that had the number of
Emmys that they had up there, so he pointed to
that as an example. He wants Max originals to be
larger episode counts to come out every year. They're very
proud of the pack that Pitt is coming back in January,
and that is such an interesting We're back to TV, right,
We're back to having it sounds like network television. Yes,
(14:53):
so that's you know, probably the best answer. Max's network television.
That's what it's going to be moving forward. They want
to have more episodes, They wanted to be procedural, they
wanted to be coming out at consistent pace so that
fans know, and obviously that also helps reduce churn.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And they love the pits so much. They're about to
trot it out on TNT.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Casey talked about that a little bit in terms of
bringing in a new audience.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And then also you.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Can't overstate the power of having those linear networks for
stuff like that. They're like, yeah, let's try it. We'll
see what happens. We've seen this with Hulu and ABC
are experimenting more along those lines. It seems like such
a natural decision. And Hello, windows historically have been very
important to the whole making money part with contents, so
they're rediscovering windows. So there's new hope in Mudville. You say,
(15:40):
that they didn't show any Harry Potter, But what did
they say? I'm sure everybody was hanging on every word. Yes,
they are filming right now. They've released a few first
look images. We know what Harry looks like, we know
what Hagrid looks like. But Casey did give an update,
which is that they're in production on season one, but
they're also writing season two and they are working through
(16:01):
for looking at a max format. Totally different shows, but
they clearly want it to release in every year. They're
gonna have a new season out and they're doing it
this way. So he was like, I don't see it
being a world in which we finish filming season one
on Friday and start season two on Monday. There'll be
a break, but they're definitely prioritizing getting back in there
as soon as possible. I see this show probably filming
(16:24):
year round for several years. It's a huge undertaking, and
not like the fans are obsessive or anything. Jenny, I
am so glad that we can summon team coverage for
these kinds of things on both coasts and many other locales.
As always, I appreciate your time and your reporting. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
As we close out today's episode, here's a few things
we're watching for. Variety's one hundred Best Comedies of All
Time list is out today. We'll hear more about that
from the people who assembled it. Later this week. ESPN
will pay tribute to its late anchor Stuart Scott with
a thirty for thirty documentary Boo Yah, A Portrait of
Stuart Scott Premier's December tenth. Scott died in twenty fifteen
(17:07):
at the age of forty nine. And finally, we have
established a new email address to receive feedback from listeners
on our three primary podcast Daily Variety, Strictly Business, and
Award Circuit. All of us who work on podcasts would
love nothing more than to get some constructive feedback from
listeners on what you enjoy, what you don't enjoy, and
what you think you should be covering. So please drop
(17:29):
us a line at podcasts at Variety dot com. That's
podcasts at Variety dot com before we go. Congrats to
marro Brokakiel, the veteran series creator and showrunner, received the
Norman Lear Achievement honor at the Producer's Guild Awards on
February twenty eighth, I've had the pleasure of knowing and
covering Mara Brokakiel for many years. Truly, nobody deserves this
(17:52):
accolade more. Thanks for listening. This episode was written and
reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from Rebecca Rubin
and Jennifer Mobs. Stick Snacks, hig Picks. Please leave us
a review at the podcast platform of your choice, and
please tune in tomorrow for another episode of Daily Variety,
And don't forget to send us feedback at podcasts at
(18:12):
variety dot com.
Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and
analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Monday, November twenty fourth,
twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am
co editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm
in LA He's in New York, and Righty has reporters
around the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,
we'll talk with Ridy's Rebecca Rubin about the big box
(00:31):
office hall for Wicked For Good. She details the risky
decision that Universal Pictures took to make a Wicked a
two part release one year apart, it has paid off.
And then Jennifer Moz gives us a mood report at
HBO after she spent some quality time with Casey Bloyse
and his team. But before we get to that, here
are a few headlines just in this morning that you
(00:53):
need to know. Billie Eilish has set the date for
her hit Me Hard and Soft Concert movie release. It's
a three D extravaganza co directed by James Cameron. It's
coming to theaters via Paramount Pictures on March twentieth. There
are two significant passings to note this morning. German character
actor Udo Keir died on Sunday at age eighty one.
(01:14):
He was a fixture in Palm Springs in his later years.
And Jimmy Cliff, the incredible musician who helped to find
reggae in the sixties and seventies. He's known for the
hit The Harder They Come, and for starring in the
nineteen seventy two movie of the same name. He was
also eighty one. My favorite Jimmy Cliff song is an
upbeat number called Better Days Are Coming. Here's a clip
(01:36):
in tribute to an incredible artist who was the pride
of Jamaica's upcoming by.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Don't You Get Now?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Don't you Know Now? It's time for conversations with fiddy
journalists about news and trends and show business. If it's Monday,
we're talking box office with Rebecca Rubin. There's no hunting
around for a lead. This weekend, Wicked for Good did
its job and brought traffic back to the multiplexes. Rebecca Rubin, thanks.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
For joining me, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
By the time that we got to the weekend, I
know you from your tracking and your conversations. You knew
it was just going to be a matter of how
big this movie was going to open. Rebecca was in
line with your expectations.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
There was no doubt that Wicked for Good was going
to be huge. The question was just where that final
number was going to end up. It's a opening weekend.
We made one hundred and fifty million dollars in North
America and two hundred and twenty six million dollars globally,
so by that account, it is officially the biggest domestic
(03:10):
and global opening for a Broadway adaptation, beating the record
set by the first half of Wicked, which came out
a year ago, a new mark for the main Stem
that is a very big international hall. And from what
I understand, Universal was really focused on opening big international
a ray because the first film was pretty much big everywhere,
(03:31):
but it over indexed heavily in North America, where around
sixty five percent of ticket sales came from. And that's
partially because Wicked is more popular in the States and
it's not as recognizable a property overseas, and so far
it's had a bigger debut overseas, which is pretty common
(03:52):
for now that it's an established property. But it's definitely
a good sign that interest there has grown since the
first film.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
One hundred and fifty million dollars domestic just hands down,
people who went to the movies went to see Wicked
for good. This was just a four quadrant smash.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
When you get to these numbers, one hundred and fifty
million dollars domestically and over two hundred million dollars globally,
it is resonating mostly everywhere. But what stood out to
me actually was the two parts of it all. A
few years ago, when Universal announced that they were going
to split Wicked into two parts, a lot of people,
myself included, were very skeptical about what that decision would
(04:35):
look like because it's already risky to split a movie
into two, and musicals are a very polarizing genre, and
most of the recent musicals a lot were made by Universal.
Katz is one dear Evan Hansen. These movies were not
connecting with a wider audience, and so it was a
huge gamble in Universal's part to not just need one
(04:58):
big budget musical to succeed, but two to succeed a
year apart, and so it's very encouraging now to see
that at least Financially speaking, it feels like that decision
has paid off because they have another huge opening on
their hands.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
The fact that it was this two parter movie tied
to this beloved musical did make it feel more like
a movie going event, which, as you've talked about, is
something that studios really need to think about to give
people that motivation. Large format screens were they a big
factor in driving box office for Wicked for Good?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yes, we have continued to see these premium large formats.
IMAX included counting for a big portion of box office,
and that was no exception here with Wicked for Good. Globally,
just an IMAX, the movie made twenty five million dollars
and that's not including the Dolby screens or four DX.
(05:51):
There were some very funny videos on social media on
TikTok of people who unknowingly went to four DX screenings
and saw Alphabus swooping in with her broom and they
were quite startled. But audiences are looking for experiences like
that that you're not getting in your TV screens at home,
and so this is just another example of a movie
(06:14):
that people are wanting to see in these different formats.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Did anybody else to try to open anything as counter
programming to Wicked for Good.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
There were two new releases that did not quite make
a dent on box office charts. One of them was
Searchlight's Rental Family, which is a comedic drama that stars
Brendan Fraser and it's his first big role post his
Oscar win in the Whale, and it opened in fifth place.
It made three million dollars from roughly two thousand North
(06:47):
American theaters and so not the biggest start. But something
to know is that reviews and audience scores were really positive.
It has in eighty six percent on Around Tomatoes and
it goten a cinemas score or from moviegoers. This is
the time of year where movies tend to leg out
if audiences are actually responding to them.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Rebecca, what would you consider to be good for a
hold next weekend domestically for Wicked for Good?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Well, the Thanksgiving holidays coming up, and so that always
kind of skews the metrics because it's a very popular
time to go. So what we might typically see is
like a fifty percent hold is going to be much
stronger this weekend as families are together for the holidays,
kids are out of school, and so I think it'll
(07:35):
be much bigger of a weekend than it would be
if it was not around this Thanksgiving holiday. But that
is actually part of the reason why Universal chose to
release the movie around Thanksgiving, because they're getting two bites
of an apple here. And they did the same thing
with the first Wicked, which was having it open the
week before Thanksgiving, so they have a huge weekend before Thanksgiving,
(07:57):
and then they have another huge weekend during Thanksgiving. I
think the first movie dropped maybe fifty percent, which is
pretty good because it had such a big opening.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
And given where they start, that's pretty good hol approach.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
And so we're gonna see a similar matchup. Actually, last
Thanksgiving to this Thanksgiving, there was Wicked, and then there
was a big animated sequel from Disney. Last year it
was Moana two, which was a massive hit and ended
up making over a billion dollars. This year is Utopia two,
and again it's primed to be another huge hit for
(08:35):
Disney Animation, and so it really shows that if there
are two movies that people want to see, they can
both succeed. We already have a lot to look out
for next week. As always, Rebecca Thank you for telling
us what's going on at the turnstiles. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
And now let's get a temperature check on HBO from
Jennifer Mobs, who attended last week's HBO programming presentation in
New York. HBO has a packed slate for twenty twenty six.
They'll be busy with high profile originals rolling out across
the year. The best part of these press events are
not the fire hose of facts and figures and tidbits.
(09:15):
It's the chance to read the body language and assess
the mood of leaders. HBO's programming presentation was held in
New York at the company's headquarters in Hudson Yards, and
it happened to fall on the same day that CEO
David Zaslov and his team gathered elsewhere in the building
to consider bids for selling the company. You can't make
this stuff up, Jennifer Moz, Thank you very much for
(09:37):
joining me. Happy to be back. You were down there
on Thursday at Hudson Yards as Casey Bloy's HBO's fearless
Leader met the press and gave a presentation about what's
coming for HBO. We love those kind of presentations. Oh
you always get a lot of news, but you also
get a chance to take the temperature at HBO. What
was the mood? How did you read the bodyline wuage
(10:00):
of the folks at HBO right now?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And it was definitely a light atmosphere that people were
in good spirits. And Casey opened with a joke about
I brought you here today to tell you who's going
to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, and so you know, he
definitely acknowledged this was the exact day that the bids
were due for parent company Warner Brothers Discovery. And he's like,
I'm here to focus on HBO, and so he did.
(10:23):
There was a Q and a portion at the end.
So he did field our questions about what that looks like.
He answered very specifically, is he worried about his job?
Is he worried about the HBO brand? He said no,
and he said no, and he said he's been through
this enough times. And he told his staff this the
other day in a town hall, which is just we
have to keep focusing on making good programming and that's
all we can do.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
We have no control over this.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And he made the point, like I said, because Casey's
been through this several times that this could take a
year to a year and a half and then closing
time as well. So like he understands that this cannot
impact them every day moving forward, they have to keep
doing what they're doing, and what they're doing is they
showed us a lot of really good content that's coming
out next year. This presentation was held at their headquarters
(11:05):
in Hudson Yards. But where was it An auditorium, a
conference room, So we were on the third floor and
we were in a screening room. It was probably several
dozen journalists and then HBO executives gotcha.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Well.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
While that was happening, also at Hudson Yards, David Zaslov
and his top lieutenants, most of them named Bruce or David,
were there and they were in fact receiving the bids
that I understand mostly came in electronically. So in terms
of the programming, what stood out to you.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Say us just like a full roadmap, which is very
impressive because I think the past few years when they've
done something like this, they have a few things they're
really proud of, have a general idea of what's coming.
This is a really stacked year coming up, and it's
just one thing after another. So there will be the
new season House of the Dragon coming out in the summer.
I did Some Kingdoms that's the prequel for Game of
(11:53):
Thrones that's coming out in January, and both those shows
were renewed that day. They wanted to make a big,
splashy announcement. They renewed those, They renewed Tim Robinson's The
Chair Company, they renewed I Love La, And then in
the footage they showed us we got first looks at
a whole bunch of shows coming up, not the new
Harry Potter show yet, because they're still filming that. Casey
did talk about it a little bit and that the
(12:14):
plan there is also to shoot those seasons as close
together as possible to get ahead of those kids getting
too big for the parts. We got to see Look
at Lanterns, the Greg Burlanty and Greenlantern show that has
been at works for a while. So one of the
interesting things was seeing so many shows that we've been
writing about for years now, some of these pre covid
that have taken this long to come to fruition.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I have to ask you, you are the biggest Tim
Robinson fan I know. How does the Chair Company. How
does this show stack up in his cannon. I'm sure
you're happy that it's renewed. It's really good. Now I'm
partial too, I think you should leave.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Similar kind of humor, different format, obviously, so I want
to make sure hearing that it's renewed, very exciting, Worried
we won't get more. I think you should leave if
he's busy on Chair Company. But it's it's really good.
It's top tier, Tim Robinson.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
As you noted in your story, this time around they
are very drama heavy, but this time around they are
putting an emphasis on comedy, trying to restock the larder
there and the interesting too. Rachel Senna is the star
and creator of I Love La. Seems the epitome of
twenty twenty six talent, somebody who birthed her career on
social media and seems to be like just She's hit
(13:24):
the pop culture radar all of a sudden in the
last six months in a way, and she seemed very
adept at keeping herself in the conversation.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
She did to the point where they brought her. Actually,
I forgot about this part. She was in a brief
Q and A in the middle of it. They brought
her out and interviewed her for us up front, and
it was a little time for them to.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Talk about it.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
She was very excited, obviously, and it was a cool
thing to see them feature her and feel like this
is an important thing to devote time to.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Every generation of Bicoastal twenty somethings gets its representative series
on HBO. Let me ask you, was there much discussion
of the HBO Max half of the house. Actually, a good.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Portion was devoted to that because one thing that Casey
brought up, and I know it's something that he was
also transparent about, like, we haven't actually answered this question
in a definitive way, which is what is a Max
Original Now. He's answered it many times over the years,
but this time he was like, you know, it's been
nebulous and I haven't had a great answer in The
answer now is very much the pit. The pit is
(14:22):
what a Max original is and should be moving forward.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
A pit bagged an upset Emmy Drama series win for
the company.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yes, there was a slide that had the number of
Emmys that they had up there, so he pointed to
that as an example. He wants Max originals to be
larger episode counts to come out every year. They're very
proud of the pack that Pitt is coming back in January,
and that is such an interesting We're back to TV, right,
We're back to having it sounds like network television. Yes,
(14:53):
so that's you know, probably the best answer. Max's network television.
That's what it's going to be moving forward. They want
to have more episodes, They wanted to be procedural, they
wanted to be coming out at consistent pace so that
fans know, and obviously that also helps reduce churn.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And they love the pits so much. They're about to
trot it out on TNT.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Casey talked about that a little bit in terms of
bringing in a new audience.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And then also you.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Can't overstate the power of having those linear networks for
stuff like that. They're like, yeah, let's try it. We'll
see what happens. We've seen this with Hulu and ABC
are experimenting more along those lines. It seems like such
a natural decision. And Hello, windows historically have been very
important to the whole making money part with contents, so
they're rediscovering windows. So there's new hope in Mudville. You say,
(15:40):
that they didn't show any Harry Potter, But what did
they say? I'm sure everybody was hanging on every word. Yes,
they are filming right now. They've released a few first
look images. We know what Harry looks like, we know
what Hagrid looks like. But Casey did give an update,
which is that they're in production on season one, but
they're also writing season two and they are working through
(16:01):
for looking at a max format. Totally different shows, but
they clearly want it to release in every year. They're
gonna have a new season out and they're doing it
this way. So he was like, I don't see it
being a world in which we finish filming season one
on Friday and start season two on Monday. There'll be
a break, but they're definitely prioritizing getting back in there
as soon as possible. I see this show probably filming
(16:24):
year round for several years. It's a huge undertaking, and
not like the fans are obsessive or anything. Jenny, I
am so glad that we can summon team coverage for
these kinds of things on both coasts and many other locales.
As always, I appreciate your time and your reporting. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
As we close out today's episode, here's a few things
we're watching for. Variety's one hundred Best Comedies of All
Time list is out today. We'll hear more about that
from the people who assembled it. Later this week. ESPN
will pay tribute to its late anchor Stuart Scott with
a thirty for thirty documentary Boo Yah, A Portrait of
Stuart Scott Premier's December tenth. Scott died in twenty fifteen
(17:07):
at the age of forty nine. And finally, we have
established a new email address to receive feedback from listeners
on our three primary podcast Daily Variety, Strictly Business, and
Award Circuit. All of us who work on podcasts would
love nothing more than to get some constructive feedback from
listeners on what you enjoy, what you don't enjoy, and
what you think you should be covering. So please drop
(17:29):
us a line at podcasts at Variety dot com. That's
podcasts at Variety dot com before we go. Congrats to
marro Brokakiel, the veteran series creator and showrunner, received the
Norman Lear Achievement honor at the Producer's Guild Awards on
February twenty eighth, I've had the pleasure of knowing and
covering Mara Brokakiel for many years. Truly, nobody deserves this
(17:52):
accolade more. Thanks for listening. This episode was written and
reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from Rebecca Rubin
and Jennifer Mobs. Stick Snacks, hig Picks. Please leave us
a review at the podcast platform of your choice, and
please tune in tomorrow for another episode of Daily Variety,
And don't forget to send us feedback at podcasts at
(18:12):
variety dot com.
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