HBO’s Leading Man: Casey Bloys on Perfecting ‘The Last of Us,’ HBO Max Streaming Merger and Axing Shows

with his performance as the King in “Elvis,” and who’s nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars on Sunday.The kid’s on the brink of the big-big-time, right when the industry needs it badly. For more than a decade, Hollywood has searched in vain for worthy successors to Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio while trade publications have mourned the death of the old-school Leading Man. Our former heartthrobs can still sell tickets (see: “Top Gun: Maverick”), but they are getting long in the tooth and caring less and less about the state of their beards.While plenty of great young actors are on the rise, there’s no cultural consensus around most of them. Timothée Chalamet, 27, is a major talent and has rapidly become a film fixture, but has so far preferred prestige films (“Dune” is as arthouse as science-fiction gets) by filmmakers such as Luca Guadagnino and Wes Anderson, whose work most Americans don’t know or go out of their way to see.Smiley Eddie Redmayne and Andrew Garfield are quirky if good-looking and respectable Brits (Garfield, who has a British accent, is technically British-American) and already, respectively, 41 and 39.

Batman is coming to Amazon.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves’ animated series “Batman: Caped Crusader” has been picked up at Amazon after being scrapped at HBO Max, Variety has confirmed. The streamer has placed a two-season order for the cartoon, which is described as “a reimagining of the Batman mythology through the visionary lens” of executive producers Abrams, Reeves and Bruce Timm. “Batman: Caped Crusader” was ordered to series at HBO Max in May 2021. In August 2022, the show was scrapped along with five other upcoming animated series set up at the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned streamer, including “Merry Little Batman,” “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie,” “Bye Bye Bunny: A Looney Tunes Musical,” “Did I Do That to the Holidays: A Steve Urkel Story” and “The Amazing World of Gumball: The Movie.”

Actor, wild man, and comic book nerd Nicolas Cage was at the Miami Film Festival this week to accept Variety’s Legend & Groundbreaker Award. And EW reports that the actor opened up about the current state of superhero movies.

Ellise Shafer HBO Max will host its own coffeehouse at SXSW this year, featuring events centered around the streamer’s popular titles like “The Last of Us” and “The White Lotus.” The two-day activation is presented by HBO Max’s Human by Orientation and Pa’lante initiatives, which are designed to “elevate and celebrate the LGBTQIA+ and Latinx communities,” according to a press release. The coffeehouse will be open to the public on March 11 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and on March 12 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. The coffeehouse will host both invite-only and public events, including a HBO documentary filmmaker roundtable, “The Last of Us” fireside chat with Gabriel Luna and Variety‘s Selome Hailu, an acoustic performance by Ambar Lucid, a queer cocktail party and “The White Lotus” discussion with writer Evan Ross Katz and Variety‘s Adam B. Vary.

Ellise Shafer HBO Max’s “Dune” prequel spinoff “The Sisterhood” is going through some changes. Both director Johan Renck and star Shirley Henderson have exited the HBO Max series, Variety has confirmed. The news comes as the production takes a “pre-scheduled hiatus,” according to the streamer. “There are some creative changes being made to the production in an effort to create the best series possible and stay true to the source material,” a HBO Max representative said in a statement. “Johan Renck has completed his work on the series and a new director will be brought on; through mutual agreement Johan is moving on to pursue other projects. Additionally, Shirley Henderson will be exiting the series and will no longer be playing Tula Harkonnen.”

EXCLUSIVE: HBO Max‘s Dune prequel TV series’ long journey to the screen is taking another turn.Dune: The Sisterhood (wt), which started production in late November, is undergoing a creative shift, a director change and a recasting.

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong has hinted he is musing on the prospect of a spin-off from his worldwide hit show. 

is expanding, with a prequel series coming to HBO Max. Set in the world of Stephen King's universe, is based on the author's novel as well as filmmaker Andy Muschietti's successful feature film adaptations, and . The series is being developed by Andy Muschietti as well as sister Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs, both of whom were involved in the films.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO, HBO and HBO Max Content will deliver a keynote at Series Mania’s Lille Dialogues whose one-day summit looks set to take the pulse on a global content industry as content investment flattens and ask how to build a more responsible industry in the future. Marking an early opportunity to hear from streaming platforms after both Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney have announced multi-billion dollar cuts in content investment, the Lille Dialogues also count on a keynote from James Farrell, head of local originals, Prime Video. Further keynotes will be delivered by top execs at France’s biggest free-to-air service, TF1, as well as its energetic public broadcaster France Télévisions and Europe’s biggest pay TV operator, Sky. Jan Mojto, CEO, Beta Film, can be expected to deliver a wide-angled vision of how stories made in Europe can find a market worldwide.

Succession” is coming to an end with Season 4. And yes, this will be a real finale: As Variety reported in a cover story with HBO chief Casey Bloys, the network is not developing any spinoffs. Creator and executive producer Jesse Armstrong revealed the news on Thursday in an interview with the New Yorker. “It’s been a bit tortured, and I felt unexpectedly nervous about talking to you, because it’s all theoretical until this point, and I have tried to keep it theoretical for a whole number of reasons,” he said. “Who knows about the psychological reasons, but the creative ones were that it felt really useful to not make the final, final decision for ages. You know, there’s a promise in the title of ‘Succession.’ I’ve never thought this could go on forever.”

Succession is heading to an end.

earnings call comments suggest that he is even more adamant in this direction. On Thursday, Zaslav spoke about Warner Bros.’ recent strategy to move films greenlit under previous CEO Jason Kilar’s leadership for exclusive release on HBO Max to an exclusive release in theaters before going to the streaming service.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer HBO, HBO Max and Discovery+ added 1.1 million subscribers in Q4 to end 2022 with a total of 96.1 million worldwide. That’s up from the 95 million combined global streaming customers Warner Bros. Discovery hit from July 1-Sept. 30, the quarter during which the highly anticipated “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” debuted. During the Oct. 1-Dec. 31 quarter, “House of the Dragon” concluded its first season the second season of HBO’s hot Mike White drama “White Lotus” premiered. Details about the upcoming combined HBO Max-Discovery+ streamer — which does not yet have a name, launch date or pricing details — will be revealed at an April 12 press day.

HBO Max is expanding the world of Stephen King‘s IT with the drama series Welcome To Derry (wt) from Warner Bros. Television and developed for TV by filmmakers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti (IT, IT Chapter Two) and Jason Fuchs (IT Chapter Two, Wonder Woman).

Joe Otterson TV Reporter HBO Max is officially moving forward with the “It” prequel series currently titled “Welcome to Derry,” Variety has learned. The show was first reported as being in development in March 2022, while Variety exclusively reported that the project had attached its co-showrunners in November. As previously reported, the series was developed for television by Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, and Jason Fuchs. “As teenagers, we took turns reading chapters of Stephen King’s ‘It’ until the thick paperback fell to pieces,” said the Muschiettis. “‘It’ is an epic story that contains multitudes, far beyond what we could explore in our ‘It’ movies. We can’t wait to share the depths of Steve’s novel, in all its heart, humor, humanity and horror.”

Andy Muschietti‘s two “IT” films from 2017 and 2019 brought Stephen King‘s 1986 epic horror novel to the big screen for the first time. Now Muschietti will develop the franchise even further.

HBO Max. The streamer announced on Thursday that “Welcome to Derry” has been ordered to series, with “It” and “It: Chapter Two” director Andy Muschietti onboard to executive produce and direct multiple episodes.

HBO has another major hit with “The Last Of Us,” its first season premiering now. But as “Succession” approaches its fourth season, its projected end after Season 5 looms.

GQ magazine in an interview published on Tuesday that the possibility of bidding farewell to the character after the fourth season would “feel like a death, in a way.” However, he said that he envies some of his peers who have had “that freedom to just shoot yourself out of some different cannons.”“Sometimes Kendall feels like the same cannon over and over again,” Strong added.An HBO spokesperson declined to comment.In addition to Strong, the show’s ensemble cast includes Brian Cox, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, Alan Ruck, Matthew Macfadyen, Nicholas Braun, J. Smith-Cameron, Peter Friedman, David Rasche, Fisher Stevens, Hiam Abbass, Justine Lupe, Dagmara Domińczyk, Arian Moayed, Scott Nicholson, Zoë Winters, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Juliana Canfield and Jeannie Berlin.