In total, 14% of staff – around 70 people – are being laid off on Monday, the vast majority on Max’s side. This includes at Max Non-Fiction Originals, International, Acquisitions, Casting and previously mentioned Live-Action Family Originals, which are either significantly reduced or virtually eliminated, leading to the departure of most of the staff, led by Jennifer O’Connell EVP, Non-Fiction & Live-Action Family Originals for HBO Max? Jennifer Kim, SVP, International Originals for HBO Max? Michael Quigley, EVP of Content Acquisitions at HBO Max. and Linda Lowy, EVP Casting for WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, TNT, TBS and truTV. I hear the layoffs are happening via conference calls this morning. The cuts are part of a commitment by WBD leadership to save at least $3 billion. (LR) Amy Gravitt and Sarah Aubrey Courtesy of Amy Gravitt/WarnerMedia Despite the constant rumors about HBO Max’s writing team, its leadership under Bloys remains largely intact—albeit with some changes in responsibility—with all executives who have reported to Bloys remaining in place and continuing to do so ( except for O’Connell, who had a dual unscripted/scripted role). HBO’s longtime head of comedy, EVP programming Amy Gravitt, is also overseeing original comedy for HBO Max as the two groups combine. The move was foreshadowed a few weeks ago when news broke that Gravitt had started taking Max comedy pitches. Suzanna Makkos, who ran comedy for HBO Max, most recently EVP Original Comedy and Animation for HBO Max and Adult Swim, will continue to report for Gravitt. Makkos had reported to HBO Max head of original content Sarah Aubrey, who is also staying on. The veteran development executive, who comes from an extensive drama background, will continue to oversee Max Original dramas and add a new international programming role, working with the WBD International team, led by Gerhard Zeiler, to make the programming teams internationally to be coordinated country by country. I hear the reasoning behind merging HBO and Max’s comedy divisions is that there is more overlap in comedy between the two brands than in drama. This is evidenced by Max’s comedies like Hacks and, of course, the Sex and the City sequel And Just Like That…, which would be a fine fit on HBO. John Cena in HBO Max’s “Peacemaker.” The discrepancy is greater in drama. where Max has gone for wider pop culture content. Aubrey’s future focus will be on large, heavily IP-based sets. (Joey Chavez remains as EVP Programming and lead for drama Max Originals, reporting to Aubrey.) That includes DC’s high-profile series The Peacemaker and the upcoming The Penguin and Green Lantern, all of which are moving forward, as well as another upcoming series, Dune, now in casting, and an adaptation of the It series, which is in rapid development. In addition to The Peacemaker, Max has had success with dramas based on WB IP series, including Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl. Last month, there were also rampant rumors that Max’s script was being destroyed, with dozens of shows being canceled and development being re-evaluated or even cut. I hear some third-party projects in development have been released recently, but no major changes are planned for the Warner Bros. script. produced by television apart from the recently announced withdrawal of children’s and family programming. WBD’s commitment to Max’s original programming was recently emphasized by WBD CEO David Zaslav during the company’s quarterly earnings call, where he also confirmed that the Bloys team remains in place. “Quality is what counts. Quality is what Casey and this team deliver. They are the best team in the business. We are doubling down on that HBO team,” Zaslav said. “They’re all under contract and we’re going to spend dramatically more this year and next year than we spent last year the year before.” He later added, “The majority of the people on Casey’s team have been shut down.” The cuts of Max Original reality, International, Acquisitions and Casting are not surprising. With the pending merger of HBO Max and non-fiction Discovery+ into one platform, HBO Max had already halted development of new unscripted series. O’Connell’s other HBO Max and Live-Action Family Originals territory was also recently put on hold. Going forward, existing non-scripted Max series will continue or premiere as scheduled and, if they perform well, will be retained. There simply won’t be any new developments in light of the large volume of nonfiction fare coming from Discovery+ when the two services merge next summer. HBO Max “Selena + Chef” HBO Max HBO Max’s reality show includes shows like Selena + Chef, which has been renewed for a fourth season. FBoy Island, which is airing its second season. and Legendary, which recently premiered its third season. The move will be a blow to the unscripted community, as HBO Max has been known to pay between $1.5 million and $2 million per episode for some of its unscripted shows, well above Discovery’s usual rates, which generally up to $500,000 an hour. The removal of HBO Max’s casting department brings the streamer in sync with HBO proper, which has never had an in-house casting department and instead used casting directors on individual shows. The situation is similar to the gradual withdrawal of Max’s international group. HBO’s drama and comedy divisions had produced their own co-productions on series like I May Destroy You and Years and Years, something that would likely be repeated on the Max side. The shrinking of the HBO/Max acquisitions group, which does library deals, comes amid a collapse of the Pay 1 window in the new era of vertically integrated movie studios that largely outsource their streaming platforms and declining sales of third-party series libraries for the same reason. The last major Pay 1 pact for HBO/Max, a 10-year deal with 20th Century that was recently restructured to include 20th Century and Searchlight Movies shared with Disney+ and Hulu, is set to expire with the new Avatar movie in 2023 On the television side, South Park is a rare non-Warner Bros. television series. whose library grabbed HBO Max. it is slated to move to its corporate stream, Paramount+, in 2025. The moves further dismantle the Max structure as a standalone entity with its own infrastructure built under Kevin Reilly. The process began soon after HBO’s Bloys added Max’s content operation to its purview in 2020 by closing Warner Max, a film company started by the previous regime to provide mid-budget films exclusively for the streamer. Individual layoffs are expected at HBO in programming, production and BA.
