Warner Bros. Announces 100 Years Worth Of Fun In Products, Content & Experiences

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Paramount Global fired back on Wednesday in the battle over “South Park” streaming rights, accusing Warner Bros. Discovery of withholding $52 million in license fees. Warner Bros. Discovery sued Paramount in February, alleging that the company had breached its $500 million licensing deal with HBO Max by diverting “South Park” specials to Paramount+. On Wednesday, Paramount filed a counterclaim, alleging that HBO Max got everything it bargained for under the agreement, but has nevertheless withheld two required payments of $26 million apiece. The countersuit, filed in New York Supreme Court, also argues that the unpaid fees cover the 300-plus episodes of “South Park” now streaming on HBO Max, which are not in dispute in the lawsuit.

EXCLUSIVE: Following an intense multi-studio bidding war that went into the weekend, Warner Bros. has landed the package Maude v Maude that has Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry attached to star. Roseanne Liang is on board to direct from Scott Mosier’s script. Berry and Jolie will produce along with Berry’s producing partner Holly Jeter, producing through their banner HalleHolly, along with Jeff Kirschenbaum and Joe Roth who will produce through RK Films. Mosier and Liang will exec produce.

EXCLUSIVE: Harry Gamsu is heading back to Warner Bros. Discovery.

EXCLUSIVE: In the Heights and Transformers star Anthony Ramos looks to have found another big franchise as sources tell Deadline he is in talks to join Twisters, a new chapter to the 1996 box office hit, for Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell are also on board.

The last time the parent company of Warner Bros and HBO promoted the launch of a streaming service, it faced the once-a-century challenge of the coronavirus pandemic.

John Oliver greeted the Last Week Tonight viewers by taking a swing at “business daddy” Warner Bros. Discovery after announcing the rebranding of HBO Max to Max.

Clint Eastwood is getting back in the director’s chair.

Angelique Jackson Legendary actor and filmmaker Clint Eastwood is closing in on his next project, with plans to direct “Juror No. 2.” The legal drama is set up at Warner Bros., with Nicholas Hoult and Toni Collette circling the lead roles. Eastwood will direct and produce the project alongside Adam Goodman, Tim Moore and Jessica Meier. Jonathan Abrams penned the script. “Juror No. 2” will take place during a murder trial and follows a juror (Hoult), who realizes that he may have caused the victim’s death. He must decide whether to manipulate the jury to save himself, or reveal the truth and turn himself in. Collette would play the prosecutor. Warner Bros. is nearing a green light on the project, with a production start eyed for June, following Eastwood’s 93rd birthday on May 31.

EXCLUSIVE: Even at 92 years old, Clint Eastwood isn’t ready to slow down as he has set the thriller Juror #2 as his next film with Nicholas Hoult and Toni Collette in negotiations to star. While it isn’t official sources also add that with schedules and budget figured Warner Bros., Eastwood’s long-time home, is coming close to officially green-lighting the film. Jonathan Abrams penned the script.

EXCLUSIVE: Filmmaker Ashley Avis (Black Beauty) has been tapped to write and direct the romance City of Angels, based on Wim Wenders’ 1987 classic City of Angels, for Warner Bros, Perez Pictures and Atlas Entertainment.

“The Big Bang Theory” is approved for additional funding.

Four Democratic lawmakers want the Justice Department to investigate Warner Bros. Discovery, claiming that the merged company has harmed workers and reduced consumer choice.

Todd Gilchrist editor From pre-Code gangster films to Bette Davis blazing a trail for female protagonists to blockbuster super- hero sagas, Warner Bros. Pictures’ output has been synonymous with the most popular stories of the day — and the iconic filmmakers who brought them to life. Since being installed in June 2022, Warner Bros. Pictures Group co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy have steadily built upon this legacy that has been the foundation of the studio since its earliest days. “The history of the studio and their approach to filmmaking over the years really lines up with our belief in marrying the right filmmakers with the right IP and the right stories,” Abdy tells Variety. Adds De Luca, “We just wanted to continue that practice of trying to be a good home for the preeminent filmmakers of the day — and then try and find that next generation as well.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large In the 1950s, the motion picture industry wanted nothing to do with the young medium of television — but Jack Warner soon realized that was a losing battle. Warner Bros. was among the first to dive into TV production, when ABC approached the studio about acquiring a theatrical film package. But instead of just running films on TV, the result was “Warner Bros. Presents,” an umbrella series that debuted in 1955 and comprised programs based on existing intellectual property including “Casablanca” and “Cheyenne.” The success of “Cheyenne” ush- ered the era of the Western to televi- sion, as Warner Bros. (initially under Warner’s son-in-law, William T. Orr) brought a movie studio approach to the small screen. “There’s a spirit of independence and innovation that’s so much a part of the legacy of the studio,” says Warner Bros. TV chairman Channing Dungey. Other early Warner Bros. TV hits included “Maverick” and crime dramas such as “Hawaiian Eye” and “77 Sunset Strip.” That legacy continued with “The F.B.I.” and in the 1970s, sitcoms like “Alice” and “Wel- come Back, Kotter,” the Lynda Car- ter-led genre hit “Wonder Woman,” actioner “The Dukes of Hazzard” and the landmark miniseries “Roots.”

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer The modern superhero movie would not exist without the version of Superman limned by Christopher Reeve in Warner Bros.’ 1978 smash “Superman.” First created in 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for Action Comics, the Man of Steel became a pop-culture mainstay with the syn- dicated “Adventures of Superman” TV series in the 1950s. But it wasn’t until DC Comics moved into the world of Warner Bros. and Reeve donned the last son of Krypton’s blue-and-red tights for the Richard Donner-directed “Superman” that bringing a comic book superhero to life on the big screen was seen as blockbuster business. And the spoils were considerable: In the moment, “Superman” ranked as WB’s highest-grossing movie ever.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor David Zaslav went office-furniture shopping when he moved into the executive building on the Warner Bros. lot last year. The new CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery had Jack L. Warner’s large dark-wood desk pulled out of storage for his use. He also found a leather legal pad holder once clutched by another of his predecessors at the storied studio: Steven J. Ross. Zaslav wanted these totems in his sunken workspace overlooking Olive Avenue in Burbank to show the formidable legacy, in business and in popular culture, he has inherited. “I wanted them to remind me that we need to show as much courage now in leading this business as the Warner brothers did in launching it one hundred years ago,” Zaslav says. As the studio marks the centen- nial of its incorporation as Warner Bros. Pictures Inc. (the official date is April 4, 1923), the company has never been more focused on using the wealth of intellectual property assets, the production expertise and the global distribution muscle built up over the past 100 years to power its second century. The vast Warner Bros. movie and TV library is the foundation of WB Discovery’s empire-building ambition to transition from traditional cable to direct-to-consumer streaming.

reported that insiders at Warner said the studio hadn’t ruled out more theatrical films and HBO Max projects for the “Harry Potter” universe, even as the “Fantastic Beasts” films came to a close.“‘Fantastic Beasts’ was always meant to be one piece of a larger plan to build the Wizarding World,” Warner Bros. domestic distribution head Jeff Goldstein told TheWrap at the time.

J. Kim Murphy Warner Bros. Discovery is looking to close a deal to produce a “Harry Potter” television series. According to Bloomberg, which was first to report news of recent talks surrounding the project, the project would be directly based on J.K. Rowling’s best-selling book series, rather than an in-universe spinoff such as the “Fantastic Beasts” film series. Each season would reportedly draw from one of the books, suggesting an ongoing franchise that would stretch for years for the studio. Sources close to the situation suggest that talks between Warner Bros. Discovery and Rowling’s camp remain in a preliminary state. The studio is looking to house the series under its streaming banner HBO Max, soon to be combined with Discovery+ and rebranded under a new name.

EXCLUSIVE: It’s been nearly three decades since Michael Mann’s crime classic hit theaters and it now feels like Mann and Warner Bros. are finally feeling more heat around the corner for a sequel to Heat. While rumors have been swirling for weeks, Deadline is hearing Warner Bros. is now in negotiations to come on to develop Heat 2, the sequel to the 1995 classic that Mann recently turned into a novel that became a New York Time #1 best-seller when it was published last August. On top of Warner Bros. in talks to return, insiders add that Adam Driver, who recently starred in Mann’s Ferrari pic, is in discussions with Mann to play young Neil McCauley in the movie.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Andrea Scrosati, who is group COO and continental Europe CEO of Fremantle, isn’t too worried about various types of turbulence that are currently creating anxiety in the U.S. media market such as draconian cost cuts being made by juggernaut groups and the impending prospect of a Writers Guild of America strike. Speaking in Italy at a panel titled “Less is More – What to Do When the Streaming Boom is Over” Scrosati noted that the effect of market consolidation in the U.S. and fear due to plunging stock market results that is prompting cost cuts at Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery certainly means that “some of the big buyers are in a conflict.”