Warner Bros. Discovery Layoffs: Streaming Marketing Latest Division To Be Hit

Tomorrow, we hear is Courtenay Valenti’s last day as Warner Bros. President of Production and Development after we told you first that she was exiting the Burbank, CA lot after a 33-year run.

Industry veterans James Gunn and Peter Safran have been appointed to the new roles of Co-Chairmen and Chief Executive Officers of DC Studios, overseeing the overall creative direction of the DC Universe across film, TV, and animation under a single banner, the studio announced on Tuesday.Gunn and Safran will report to David Zaslav, Chief Executive Officer, Warner Bros. Discovery, and will work closely with Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, Co-Chairpersons and CEOs of Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Discovery will take a hit of between $1.3 billion and $1.6 billon in pre-tax restructuring charges for the third quarter ended in September as part of the ongoing merge of its operations, primary from content write-downs.

In what has been heavily buzzed around town, Jesse Ehrman has been named President, Production and Development at Warner Bros. Pictures.

Warner Bros. Discovery has become the first major studio to sell a movie’s NFT bundle,with The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring dropping tomorrow.

After 15 years at Warner Bros, and four as the President of DC Films, Walter Hamada has finally left the Burbank, CA lot as sources tell Deadline the exec waits for the senior Warner Discovery brass to finalize his exit payout. Hamada has run DC since 2018, and reupped in January 2021 with a contract that was supposed to take him through 2023.

Ahead of tomorrow’s tipoff of the 2022-23 NBA season, Warner Bros Discovery announced contract renewals for the four hosts of TNT’s mainstay studio show Inside the NBA.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Amazon Prime Video has scored a pair of deals with Warner Bros. Discovery and Sony to bolster its programming in France with premium titles. The agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery gives Prime Video the first-window rights to exclusive TV series from Warner Bros. Discovery in France, including “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin,” the first two seasons of “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” Ava DuVernay’s miniseries “DMZ” and “Peacemaker” Season 1. Also part of the pact are library TV titles, on a non-exclusive basis. These include “Legacies” (Seasons 1 through 3), “Pretty Little Liars,” “Fringe,” “One Tree Hill,” “The Originals” and “Shameless.”

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros. Discovery is behind a TV show telling real life stories of people overcoming severe medical conditions to show human bravery, with Netflix’s Amazing on the Inside producer Future Studios and distributor TVF International shopping Unbelievable Me at Mipcom Cannes this week.

Does the world need a reimagining of the 1990 comedy “House Party“? It’s not like that movie is terrible, and it’s an early role for Martin Lawrence, but who remembers it nowadays? And what kind of audience is there today for a remake? Well, LeBron James thinks the comedy needs a revamp three decades later whether anyone asked for it or not. He, Maverick Carter, and Warner Bros.  Continue reading ‘House Party’ Red Band Trailer: LeBron James & Warner Bros.

according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Both Tricia and Jill will be here through the rest of the year, working with me as we realign the teams through this transitional period.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Warner Bros. Discovery Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics chief marketing officer Tricia Melton is departing the company, along with Cartoon Network and Adult Swim senior VP of marketing and partnerships Jill King. Their exits rep the latest high-profile departures at the conglom as it continues to cut costs and downsize following the April acquisition of Warner Bros. by Discovery. Melton’s and King’s exits come just days after Warner Bros. TV Group’s animation division was hit hard by cuts — including the merger of development and main production teams for Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios. Both shingles remain, but with a smaller, merged headcount.  

shuttered as part of cost-cutting moves. WBD’s chief DEI officer Asif Sadiq will partner with Warner Bros. Television upon the completion of the current workshop class and will work to grow the program.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision to end its long-running writers and directors training program, which the conglom announced Tuesday as part of a series of layoffs and budget cuts at Warner Bros. TV Group, drew a strong rebuke from different parts of the industry, including a stinging statement on Wednesday by the Directors Guild of America. But what Warner Bros. Discovery hadn’t followed up to explain — and quickly revealed on Wednesday — is that its Writers Workshop and Directors Workshop will live on (albeit it, in a somewhat different form, details TBD) but now move from Warner Bros. Television and be housed inside the conglom’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion unit.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Former Warner Bros. Discovery and OSN executives are teaming up to form a new content studio serving the Middle East and North Africa, Variety can reveal. Rise Studios is being set up by industry veterans Emad Morcos, former OSN chief content and commercial officer; Amanda Turnbull, former general manager at Warner Bros. Discovery Middle East, Africa and Turkey; and Amel Farag, former head of content commercial strategy at OSN. Rise will invest in local content and talent in order to launch homegrown film and TV productions on both regional and global broadcasters and streaming platforms.

in a Twitter thread on Tuesday.“And for what? The business model isn’t working. @WBD stock has lost more than 50% post-merger. So stockholders suffer too.

Warner Bros Television is cutting more than a quarter of its workforce as part of its parent company’s drive to cut costs.

laying off hundreds of workers on the business side. Up to 30% of the combined sales teams of the merged company were expected to be cut.

Another wave of Warner Bros Discovery post-merger layoffs is coming.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Gerhard Zeiler, president of International at Warner Bros. Discovery, has moved to reassure the Asia-Pacific region that it is an integral part of the group’s post-merger strategy. “Don’t believe that we don’t know how important Asia is for our company, he said Thursday. Zeiler was speaking at the APOS Convention in Singapore on Thursday. He cited examples of theatrical success for “Batman” and “Fantastic Beasts” in the region and investment in local production in the region. The reassurance may have been necessary following post-merger announcements that proposed changes in North America, Latin America and Europe ahead of Asia – despite recent external data showing Asia-Pacific as one of the world’s fastest growth regions.