David Zaslav Praises CNN Adding More GOP Voices; “Balance Strategy” Is “Important,” Warner Bros Discovery Boss Says

A24, the scrappy indie studio that has built a brand for itself as a home for hip and cutting-edge movies, triumphed over its deeper-pocketed rivals at the Oscars on Sunday. It scored a leading nine wins, topping that of its closest competitor, Netflix, which had to settle for six trophies. Plus, A24 not only captured best picture for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” but also pulled off the incredibly rare feat of winning every major acting category, with three statuettes coming for the cast of the head-spinning adventure film and the other one recognizing Brendan Fraser’s work in “The Whale.” But don’t expect the studio to do a victory lap. Co-founders David Fenkel and Daniel Katz (who named their shop after the highway that connects Rome to Teramo) shun the spotlight and have done almost no interviews or profiles, though they have certainly been asked. Rather, the indie moguls say they prefer to let their films speak for themselves — an anomaly in Hollywood, where executives usually push one another aside to claim credit for successes.

“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert knocked Mike Pence on Monday after the former vice president said that “history will hold Donald Trump accountable” for the events of Jan. 6 during at the Gridiron Club dinner over the weekend. “OK, that’s cool about history and stuff but could the Justice Department hold him accountable?,” Colbert asked.

“I have no breaking story about a Veep comeback,” Matt Walsh told us at Deadline’s SXSW studio, “I wish I did because it would blow up the internet.”

Bloomberg reported on Thursday and TheWrap independently confirmed.The name change is meant to signal that the service will not just be HBO Max with Discovery content, nor will HBO Max be ported over to Discovery+. “Max” is the leading contender, though Warner Bros.

Stephen Colbert continued to roast Tucker Carlson on Wednesday’s “The Late Show,” this time deploying a rather creative use of the latest fad technology to do it.Specifically, Colbert used AI to recreate Carlson’s own voice, and made said voice read tweets Carlson sent bashing former president Donald Trump. It’s pretty funny but more important, it’s eerily spot-on.Now, we’re sure by now you know what inspired this, but just in case, Fox News is being sued for billions by Dominion Voting Systems over the network content that falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen by Donald Trump and that somehow, Dominion was involved.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Hugh Jackman is officially in Wolverine mode. The actor shared a photo of his daily meal plan as his bulking phase goes into overdrive ahead of filming “Deadpool 3,” in which he will reprise the role of Wolverine opposite Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool. The film marks the first “Deadpool” movie and Jackman’s first time playing Wolverine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “Bulking. A day in the life,” Jackman wrote as a caption while sharing a photo of the six meals he will eat in a given day. “Thank you, Chef Mario, for helping me stay healthy and properly fed whilst… Becoming. Wolverine. Again.” Jackman’s meals include black bass (2,000 calories), Patagonia salmon (2,100 calories), two chicken burgers (around 1,000 calories each) and two grass-fed sirloins (1,100 calories each). That means Jackson is consuming over 8,000 calories a day now as he gets bulked up for Wolverine. To put that into perspective, Jonathan Majors ate 6,000 calories for four months in order to be play a bodybuilder in his buzzy Sundance movie “Magazine Dreams.” Jackson is eating far more.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery, which is struggling with billions of dollars in debt, is willing to pay more money to executives who might be able to help reduce it. The owner of HBO, Discovery Channel and Food Network said Monday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it would pay out new rewards to CEO David Zaslav, six senior staffers and an unspecified group of others if they could meet certain goals of new generation of free cash flow. “The changes to the Warner Bros. Discovery executive compensation program are designed to further incentivize Company employees, including members of its leadership team and others whose efforts are critical to achieving the key near-term financial objectives of increased free cash flow and reduced leverage,” said WBD board chairman Samuel A. Di Piazza, Jr. in a prepared statement.“The WBD board is confident that these additional incentives offer a more competitive package against the backdrop of ongoing industry-wide transformation and economic headwinds, and better position the company to advance core drivers of shareholder value.”

Warner Bros. Discovery has tweaked its CEO’s employment contract, granting a bigger pot of restricted stock units but linking them to free cash flow targets.

With today’s “urgent reminder” directed to its membership, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences again is doing its damnedest to get out the vote. The Oscar event is still a battlefield of “gold, sweat and tears” as portrayed in Oscar Wars, Michael Schulman’s new book, despite the ominous industry challenges.

CNN will launch its new dayside lineup in April as CNN News Central, an effort to highlight its newsgathering and coverage of breaking stories and events.

“If it’s Biden against Trump, Biden will win – that’s a good bet,” Bill Maher predicted to Jake Tapper tonight on CNN of a potential 2024 showdown between the 2020 rivals.  

Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke feels about Warner Bros. making competing projects based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” Salke, who has held the top content job at Amazon since 2018, walked a Monday red carpet for the premiere of Michael B. Jordan’s “Creed III” where she spoke with Variety about last week’s news that Warner Bros. had secured film rights to some of Tolkien’s books. One of Salke’s defining moves at Amazon was to secure television rights to the same literary works, which she achieved at great expense. The first season of Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” premiered in 2022 with a big global marketing push and critical acclaim — as well as a reported budget north of $450 million for the first batch of episodes. Previously, Warner Bros. pushed out two massively successful film franchises with auteur Peter Jackson beginning in 2001. Those films grossed over $5 billion at the worldwide box office and brought home a best picture Oscar for one of the entries.

Seven months after landing the highly coveted top jobs at Warner Bros. Motion Picture studios, Co-Chairpersons Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy were bestowed with the PGA Milestone award tonight and paid respect for their mega industry mentors, remembered emotionally their cinematic NYC and New Jersey youths, and gave a huge shoutout to their new boss, Warner Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

Middle Earth is returning to the big screen.

The obvious question in David Zaslav’s reveal today that Warner Bros/New Line intend to to head back into Middle-earth with rights owner Embracer and expand the Lord of the Rings franchise is this: What do the Kiwi creatives who architected the Oscar-winning, billion-dollar-grossing franchise feel about the whole thing?

The motivation for continuing to offer Discovery+ as a stand-alone streaming service after a combined offering with HBO Max debuts later this spring, is largely financial, Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav says.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor David Zaslav sounds tired of taking lumps. After months of cost cutting, write-downs, and getting pilloried among Hollywood natives for killing projects, the Warner Bros. Discovery chief showed off some new truculence, making the case that while his newly-merged company has been having a tough time, so too were others. “‘Last year was a year of restructuring,” said Zaslav, during a call with investors Thursday. “This year will be a year of building.” Over the course of an hour, Zasalv and Gunnar Wiedenfels, Warner’s chief financial officer, made the case that their company was just as well-equipped as any of its rivals — perhaps even more so — to withstand a stormy era during which media companies are pressed to grow their streaming operations but maintain profitability. Zaslav elbowed Netflix for releasing all of the episodes for a program’s cycle all at once; suggested that a move to launch new “Lord of the Rings” movies would take away some of the momentum that Amazon had enjoyed from its launch of a series based on the novels; and told listeners Warner Bros. Discovery could launch an ad-supported streaming service without having to buy an outside asset, as Fox Corp. and Paramount Global had. “We can create a Tubi or a Pluto without having to buy anybody,” he boasted.

canceling Brian Stelter’s Sunday morning show, “Reliable Sources,” and shifting Don Lemon from his primetime gig to co-host “CNN This Morning” alongside Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow.

Warner Bros Discovery revenue fell 11% to $11 billion (or a drop of 9% when foreign exchange fluctuations are excluded), mostly due to advertising softness and tough studio comparisons.

Warner Bros. Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels today predicted the company will hit $4 billion in total cost savings from the merger of Discovery and Warner Media – up from a previous commitment to hit $3.5 billion.