Latest news with #CaseyBloys
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
J.K. Rowling Praises Scripts for ‘Harry Potter' HBO Series as Fans Continue Boycott Over Anti-Trans Views
As backlash over J.K. Rowling's stance on transgender rights continues to grow, the controversial author is doubling down on her involvement in the upcoming Harry Potter reboot at HBO — and giving fans a first taste of what's to come. While many longtime fans have vowed to boycott the new series due to Rowling's anti-transgender rhetoric, the author is hyping up those still on her side as the Warner Bros. Discovery project heads into production this summer, with a 2026 premiere date on the horizon. 'I read the first two episodes of the forthcoming HBO Harry Potter series and they are SO, SO, SO GOOD!' Rowling shared on X, adding that she's 'worked closely' with the show's writers' room. When one follower asked if she's directly writing the new scripts, Rowling clarified, 'No, but I've worked closely with the extremely talented writers.' HBO Chairman and CEO Casey Bloys has previously addressed the controversy surrounding Rowling and whether her politics will influence the reboot. 'The decision to be in business with J.K. Rowling is not new for us,' Bloys said during an appearance on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast. 'We've been in business for 25 years. We already have a show on HBO from her called C.B. Strike that we do with the BBC.' Bloys continued, 'It's pretty clear that those are her personal, political views. She's entitled to them. Harry Potter is not secretly being infused with anything. If you want to debate her, you can go on Twitter.' According to Deadline, Rowling was involved in the original pitch process and will executive produce the series through her Brontë Film and TV banner. Bloys confirmed her involvement, saying, 'She will be involved. She's an executive producer on the show. Her insights are going to be helpful on that.' He added that Rowling's ongoing controversies are 'very nuanced and complicated,' but emphasized, 'Our priority is what's on the screen. Obviously, the Harry Potter story is incredibly affirmative and positive and about love and self-acceptance. That's our priority — what's on screen.' Rowling sparked renewed outrage after she publicly praised the UK Supreme Court's ruling that trans women can be excluded from the legal definition of 'women.' In response, more than 400 individuals signed an open letter demanding the UK film and TV industry take action. Among them was actor Paapa Essiedu — who is now confirmed to play Professor Snape in the upcoming reboot.
Business Upturn
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Upturn
The Pitt Season 2: Release date speculation, cast and plot details – Everything we know so far
By Aman Shukla Published on May 20, 2025, 18:30 IST Last updated May 20, 2025, 11:05 IST The Pitt , Max's gripping medical drama, has captivated audiences with its intense portrayal of life in a Pittsburgh hospital's emergency room. Following the success of its debut season, which premiered on January 9, 2025, fans are eagerly awaiting news about The Pitt Season 2. With a renewal confirmed and exciting details emerging, here's everything we know so far about the release date, cast, plot, and more. The Pitt Season 2 Release Date Speculation The good news for fans is that The Pitt Season 2 has been officially renewed, with a release window set for January 2026. This aligns with Max's plan for yearly releases, as confirmed by Max CEO Casey Bloys in an interview with Vulture . The second season is expected to premiere exactly one year after Season 1, maintaining a consistent schedule. While an exact release date hasn't been announced, production is slated to begin in June 2025, supporting the January 2026 timeline. The Pitt Season 2 Cast: Who's Returning? The core cast of The Pitt is expected to return for Season 2, led by Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby, the central figure navigating the chaos of the ER. Wyle, a veteran of ER and a key creative force behind The Pitt , will continue to anchor the series. Other returning cast members, based on Season 1's ensemble, are likely to include key doctors and staff, though specific names haven't been fully detailed in recent reports. The Pitt Season 2 Plot: What to Expect While specific plot details for The Pitt Season 2 remain under wraps, some intriguing hints have surfaced. The second season will reportedly take place roughly 10 months after the events of Season 1, focusing on a high-stakes Fourth of July weekend. Aman Shukla is a post-graduate in mass communication . A media enthusiast who has a strong hold on communication ,content writing and copy writing. Aman is currently working as journalist at
American Military News
18-05-2025
- Business
- American Military News
Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming service Max becomes HBO Max — again
It's not Max, it's HBO Max. Warner Bros. Discovery has decided its streaming service Max would once again benefit from being associated with the most prestigious brand name in TV history. The company announced Wednesday that the service will go back to being called HBO Max starting this summer. In a statement, WBD said the change was a response to an audience desire for quality over quantity. 'No consumer today is saying they want more content, but most consumers are saying they want better content,' the company said. The streaming service was initially called HBO Max when it was launched in 2020. HBO was stripped from the name in 2023. At the time WBD Chief Executive David Zaslav said the name change was aimed at broadening the audience. But in an era when the consumer is swamped with choices and a high volume of TV series and movies, WBD gave up a distinctive brand name that has long been associated with high quality and culturally resonant programming, recent examples being new seasons of 'The White Lotus' and 'The Last of Us.' Casey Bloys, chairman of HBO and Max Content, told the audience at the WBD upfront advertiser presentation in New York that the HBO brand tells consumers the service has 'programming worth paying for.' Bloys pointed out that he still has a drawer full of stationery with the HBO Max name 'from the last time around.' HBO's legacy as cable network was built on being a premium service that required an additional fee on a household cable bill. Such groundbreaking series as 'The Sopranos,' 'Game of Thrones' and 'Sex and the City' put the channel at the vanguard of creativity. But as streaming overtook cable TV as the destination for scripted TV shows and movies, the HBO name was at risk of becoming a relic. Media companies are deciding that their cable network names are the best option for their direct-to-consumer streaming services. The Walt Disney Co. decided it was best to call ESPN's stand-alone streaming service by its familiar name. The new streaming service from CNN, which will launch this fall, will also simply be called CNN without a plus sign or any other designation that separates it from the core network. ___ © 2025 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Forbes
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Max Brand Reversal Driven By Warner's Changing Ambitions, Direction
Would a streaming service by any other name smell as sweet as the anodyne and largely meaningless 'Max?' Uh, yes, and probably be a lot more popular long-term with consumers around the planet. At this week's New York upfronts presentation to advertisers, Warner Bros. Discovery executives said its Max streaming service this summer would revert to its natal name, HBO Max. The reversion reinstates the only brand that compels many of the service's 122 million customers to pony up several dollars in subscription fees each month. It's also a sign of where WBD and HBO Max are headed next after an often wobbly half-decade that included one huge and debt-ridden merger, a ruinously expensive ambition to compete with Netflix and Amazon, and a reconsideration of what a smaller, more sustainable media company could be post-Streaming Wars. The good news about the return to HBO Max, as HBO chief Casey Bloys joked, "is I have a drawer full of stationery from the last time around." It took WBD a few years to figure it out, though. The streaming service launched almost exactly five years ago, and was called HBO Max by two sets of leaders ago. The launch was a shambolic mess, hobbled by the pandemic lockdown that started two months earlier, and which shut down several planned original shows. Jason Kilar, who had just become head of what was then called Warner Media and was part of AT&T, was enraged enough at the messy debut that some marketing executives soon would move on. Perhaps Warner executives were suffering from a near-fatal over-exposure of HBO-branded streaming services at the time. There was the premium cable mothership, called simply HBO, but also included proto-streaming, on-demand services HBO Go and HBO Now. Consumers could be forgiven for some market confusion before HBO Go and Now went. Even after they shuffled onto an ice floe, confusion remained. HBO Max included pretty much all of HBO's current and library content and a bunch of other great stuff from Warner's rich library of films and TV stretching back most of a century. If you were an HBO cable subscriber, you even got to use HBO Max for free. Deal! Provided you could figure out this newfangled streaming app thing. Fast forward, past the 2022 merger of reality-show haven Discovery Networks with the much-bigger Warner Media. Now, new leadership wanted to signify that they had an 'everything' streaming app capable of competing with the big boys, even if it didn't have their international reach, bottomless pockets, and financially sustainable scale. Max featured shows for awards-driven fans of premium original scripted series and features, sports geeks (eventually), classic movie obsessives, animation fans young and old, and trashy reality show lovers, among much else. Basically, the idea was to provide a lot of something for everyone who might be willing to pay for it. So, in 2023, HBO Max lost half its name, leaving just the minimalist Max to stand in for one of television's most storied brands. 'Even two years ago, the idea was still that we were gonna be something for everybody,' Bloys told the upfronts audience. 'Everybody wanted to be the next Netflix, and it's so incredibly expensive to do that ... We have accepted and understand that the majority of our subscribers at this point are going to have Netflix, and they're going to have Amazon.' So the question now is what does the re-christened HBO Max become? Per Bloys, 'We did a lot of research and focus groups. The things subscribers want from us are HBO programming, scripted dramas, comedies, documentaries, the pay-one [licensed] movies, library movies, and basically the Warner Bros. TV library.' Not on that list: children's programming and animation. Earlier this year, WBD cut ties with Sesame Street, is carving down what's left of Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, and mothballed access to many classic kid-focused animated shows such as Looney Tunes. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Max's children's shows couldn't compete with CocoMelon (on Netflix and YouTube) and Bluey (on Disney+). So HBO Max won't have much in the way of children's programming, and less of animation, once a strong suit. WBD has finally begun to make modest streaming profits ($339 million in Q1 adjusted EBITDA, after too many quarters of even bigger losses. And Max continues to roll out internationally, already in around 75 countries with plenty more to come. The international push has helped drive subscriber growth, which last quarter added 5.3 million more subs. That still leaves Max far behind Netflix, which operates in more than 190 countries, with Q1 operating income of $3.35 billion, up 27% over 2024. Netflix stopped reporting its total subscriber count in the previous quarter, at 301 million but continues to far outstrip everyone else but YouTube. Given that reality, one sign of good management might be to do something different. That's what's happening. Based on Bloys' comments, and those of CEO David Zaslav, 'different' means fewer, bigger swings with content spending than Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. That less-is-more approach leverages Warner's deep library of films and TV shows, and HBO's still reliable knack for producing culture-grabbing originals such as House of Dragons, Hacks, and The Last of Us. It also may set the stage for further deal-making by Zaslav, who welcomed Donald Trump's election with comments about hoped-for deregulation and openness to mergers & acquisitions. Given many other macro uncertainties, we'll see if anything happens this year, but it's safe to say the spirit is willing if the deal is solid. Accordingly, earlier this year, the company reorganized its operations, putting its burgeoning streaming service and the studios behind its movies, DC superhero franchises, games, and television production on one side, and the company's cable networks in a separate division. Many in Hollywood expect that reorg is a predicate to spinning off WBD's cable operations (TNT, CNN, Discovery, etc), perhaps similar to what Comcast is already doing with most of its cable networks other than Bravo. Certainly, rebranding to HBO Max, emphasizing a brand that means quality television, would nicely accommodate the bright line the reorganization draws between the growing streaming and production side versus the fading cable networks. At least people will know what they're getting when they sign up, far more than they ever did with 'Max.' By the way, HBO Max isn't the only streaming product based on a vastly popular brand that's getting an official new/old name this week. Elsewhere at the upfronts, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the everything-on-ESPN streaming app expected to launch before football season this year will officially be called (drum roll, please) ESPN. That's a shift, but at least a sensical one, from the long-awaited project's internal code name of 'ESPN Flagship.' Flagship suggested the app's vital importance to the continued success of the Worldwide Leader, especially as its cable birthplace continues to fade. At least somebody at Disney got this branding thing right.
Tom's Guide
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
‘Game of Thrones' spinoff ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' just got delayed — and now I'm worried about ‘House of the Dragon' season 3
Sorry, Dunk and Egg fans — 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' is no longer slated for release in 2025. Despite assertions from Warner Bros. Discovery execs that the next 'Game of Thrones' spinoff would be coming our way at some point this year, that's no longer the case. This news comes from WBD's upfront presentation on Wednesday, where (per Variety), we know that advertisers were given a first look at the 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' trailer (and before you ask, no, that trailer's not made it into the wild yet). The publication reports that the footage ended with a card confirming that the series would drop in 2026. HBO content chairman Casey Bloys narrowed that release window down a little further. When cuing the teaser on-stage at Madison Square Garden, he said the spinoff was coming in the 'winter,' which hopefully means the series will at least air very early in 2026. Admittedly, we didn't have a precise release date for 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' up until now (just the expectation that it was coming in 2025), but it's still disappointing news — and it's also got me worried about another Max series altogether. Given the nature of George R.R. Martin's 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' stories, it seemed to be the perfect, smaller-in-scope series to keep us immersed in Westeros between seasons of the 'Game of Thrones' prequel series 'House of the Dragon.' Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. And while I still think that's probably the core aim here, I can't help but be a little worried that this delay could mean the wait for 'House of the Dragon' season 3 could be even longer than expected. Back in March, we learned that 'House of the Dragon' season 3 had entered production and would be filming in the U.K. (in Hertfordshire and North Wales) between March and October of this year. At the time, showrunner Ryan Condal also teased that the third season was 'huger' than what we've seen from the show so far. So far, we've waited roughly two years between seasons and have seen new installments of 'House of the Dragon' in the summer, so I was working under the assumption that a summer 2026 release would be a likely window. But if we consider the season's bigger scope, HBO surely wants to give 'Game of Thrones' spinoff plenty of time in the sun, and the info that the third season is expected to be filming through to October, I'm concerned we won't be reunited with Rhaenyra, Alicent, Daemon and the rest of the "House of the Dragon" crew for a while yet. Hopefully, I'll be proven wrong when HBO shares confirmed release dates for both shows. In the meantime, if you need something new to watch while you wait for more spinoff news, you can check out our guide to the best Max shows you can stream on the service.
