Michele Imperato Stabile Named President of Worldwide Physical Production, Warner Bros Pictures

EXCLUSIVE: Smokehouse Pictures partner George Clooney and Grant Heslov have signed an overall film deal with the Warner Bros. Pictures Group and its Co-Chairs and CEOs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy. It amounts to a homecoming for the filmmakers, who named their company for the Smoke House steak joint right off the Warner Bros lot, where they used to eat all the time. Clooney’s history with the studio goes back to his breakthrough starring role in the Warner Bros Television drama ER. They made their first deal at Warner Bros when they formed Smokehouse in 2006.

EXCLUSIVE: In one of the wildest book rights auctions the town has seen in some time, Warner Bros. production co-heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy tonight landed screen rights to the upcoming T.J. Newman novel Drowning: The Rescue Of Flight 1421. Studio paid $1.5 million against $3 million, and there were five seven-figure bids on the table, sources said.    

Todd Gilchrist editor Warner Bros. will commemorate its 100th anniversary with a block of programming on Turner Classic Movies starting April 1. TCM will broadcast remastered and newly restored versions of 10 classic Warner Bros. films, each featuring an introduction from a filmmaker or film expert culled from the network’s ongoing partnership with the Film Foundation, a non-profit preservation and exhibition organization. The program coincides with the April 13-16 run of the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. On April 13, a new 4K restoration of 1959’s “Rio Bravo,” Howard Hawks’ classic western starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Angie Dickinson, will premiere on TCM and serve as the opening night film of the festival. Dickinson will attend the in-person event, while Martin Scorsese will introduce the film on TCM’s small-screen presentation. Similarly, Warner Bros. will premiere a new 4K restoration of Elia Kazan’s “East of Eden,” starring James Dean, on both the big screen and the network, the latter featuring an introduction by filmmakers Wes Anderson and Joanna Hogg.

Turner Classic Movies is devoting the entire month of April to celebrating the 100th anniversary of its landlord, Warner Bros. with hundreds of films from every decade of the studio, plus a variety of interstitials, documentaries, shorts, and Looney Tunes cartoons, as well as interviews with stars and directors focusing on the cinematic achievements of the storied movie factory.

EXCLUSIVE: Howard Swartz, who has overseen hundreds of hours of Shark Week programming, is exiting Warner Bros Discovery to take up a new role at Banijay Americas-owned Stephen David Entertainment.

Shazam!: Fury of the Gods” was released by Warner Bros. and New Line and sunk to a $30.5 million box office opening, a big drop from the $53.5 million launch that the first “Shazam!” made four years ago. Levi, who is very interactive with his fans on Twitter, responded to some tweets sent his way about the struggles his sequel is facing and felt that the marketing campaign that Warner Bros.

What’s David Robert Mitchell been up to lately? Well, since “Under The Silver Lake,” not much, but that’s about to change. Deadline reports that Mitchell has his next project lined up at Warner Bros., and the director is teaming up with Anne Hathaway and the Bad Robot crew for a new mystery project.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery received stock upgrades from two media analyst firms Friday for, among other things, making the decision to tie bonuses for CEO David Zaslav and his team to free cash flow performance. “We threw everything and the kitchen sink at a Downside Case scenario for WBD, and it still delevers to 3x by ’25E,” Wells Fargo analysts wrote in a research note published Friday, in which they upgraded WBD’s stock to “overweight” with a price target increase from $13 to $20 per share. “We now have conviction in FCF to limit downside, while the stock has asymmetric upside.” Meanwhile, Wolfe Research moved WBD from its “peer perform” rating to “outperform” and also upped the price target to $20. (At time of publication Friday, WBD stock was trading at $14.51 per share.)

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon Prime Video have set the launch date and pricing for their ‘Warner Pass’ offer in France to March 16. Priced at €9.99 per month, the offer will be available exclusively on Amazon Prime Video Channels in France, and will boast all of HBO programs, along with 12 channels, including Warner TV, Eurosport, Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network and CNN, as well as their associated on-demand services. Subscribers will benefit from a 30-day free trial until April 3. “The launch of Warner Pass exclusively as a Prime Video channel in France is the next step in our journey to become the destination for customers in France to find the best in storytelling, premium entertainment and sports,” said Brigitte Ricou-Bellan, Prime Video French Country Director.

EXCLUSIVE: Film industry veteran Michele ‘Miss’ Imperato Stablile has been named President, Worldwide Physical Production, Warner Bros. Pictures. She will report directly to Warner Bros Pictures Group Co-Chair and CEOs Michael DeLuca and Pam Abdy. She’ll join the studio in the coming weeks.

Jenna Ortega may be ready to reunite with Tim Burton on his next project as sources confirm to Deadline that Ortega is in early talks to reunite with the Wednesday creator on Beetlejuice 2 at Warner Bros. Insiders add that Michael Keaton and Wyonna Ryder are expected to reprise their roles with Burton directing.

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.

Warner Bros. Discovery is continuing its directors program after all.

Charna Flam After the recent decision to reshape its directors’ training program, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced its new Access Directors Program. WBD has rebranded and expanded the directors’ program to assist and nurture television directors through workshops and shadowing, led by WBD’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) team. Participants will receive the opportunity to direct a full WBD television episode. In addition to workshops, directors will have the chance to work on WBD shows and participate in a virtual curriculum focused on best practices and equity mindset sessions, with the ability to shadow directors on up to two television episodes (during which participants may receive a small childcare stipend).

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Never fear, genre fans: Warner Bros. Discovery is intent on mining as much of its tentpole Warner Bros. IP as possible in the near future, whether that be through its upcoming revamped DC Universe, the newly announced “The Lord of the Rings” movies, or more projects based on J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” franchise amid the success of video game “Hogwarts Legacy.” “DC is an enormous opportunity and two important building blocks are in place now with the leadership team, Peter [Safran] and James [Gunn], and James has been breathing comics for as long as he’s been alive, essentially,” Warner Bros. Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said during a panel at Morgan Stanley’s investor conference Wednesday. “A great creative leader here. And the second building block that is in place is the one-company approach, because I think you can only manage a franchise if everything is coordinated and the team is working together extremely well. There’s an enormous level of collaboration and joint decision making around what should work hand in hand across the franchise.”

Japanese streamer U-Next has renewed its content deal with Warner Bros Discovery, under which it will continue to be the SVOD streaming home of HBO programming in Japan. 

Naman Ramachandran A rerelease of “Superman the Movie” will kick off a year-long 100th anniversary celebration of Warner Bros. Studios across the U.K. and Ireland, Warner Bros. Discovery has revealed. Warner Bros. was founded by Albert, Sam, Harry and Jack Warner and incorporated on Apr. 4, 1923. The “Superman” rerelease at BFI Southbank and BFI Imax in April will coincide with the 85th anniversary of the character. The rerelease of “The Exorcist” in September will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the horror classic. An Imax version of “Elf” will be released in November. In Ireland, a restored “Cool Hand Luke” screening kicked off the celebrations on Feb. 27, in partnership with the Dublin International Film Festival. The event also featured a Q&A with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lenny Abramson, discussing the impact of the film as a key influence on his career. 

Batman fans have clamored for a while now that Willem Dafoe would be a great fit to play The Joker in a movie at some point. And Dafoe has acknowledged that interest, like in his monologue when he hosted “Saturday Night Live” last year.

Ruben Östlund has been named president of the jury at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Cannes organizers announced Tuesday morning in Paris.Östlund is a two-time winner of Cannes’ highest honor, the Palme d’Or, which he won in 2017 for “The Square” and last year for “Triangle of Sadness,” which is currently an Oscar nominee for Best Picture. He is one of only nine directors to have won the Palme twice, and one of only three to win the award for consecutive films.

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.