WGA Says Studios’ Latest Offer Is ‘Not Yet Good Enough’

EXCLUSIVE: Fran Drescher is less concerned with meeting of several showrunners with WGA leadership this week and more concerned with studios and streamers getting back to the bargaining table to make a fair deal.

When it comes to Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts franchise filmmaker David Yates returning to the Max TV series, he tells Deadline, “Never say never.”

EXCLUSIVE: The writers have turned up to the theme parks.

At its Max streaming event earlier this year, Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed a new era is coming for Harry Potter fans. The company announced a TV series based on all seven books about the boy wizard written by J.K. Rowling. See below for the most current answers to the most important questions about the project.

David Zaslav said today that Warner Bros. Discovery had anticipated putting Hollywood strikes in the rear-view mirror this month, but with no end in sight, “We are really going to fight to get this resolved.”  

“I don’t know that much in particular about this dispute, but it feels like this is a moment,” said Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav about the current showdown between big cable provider Charter and the Disney.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery expects the ongoing Hollywood strikes to have a $300 million-$500 million negative impact on the company’s 2023 earnings.

Addressing Thursday night’s carriage impasse with Disney, Charter Communications executives told Wall Street investors on a conference call today that their linear video business is “at the edge of a precipice.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery is widely expected to name Mark Thompson, the former New York Times Co. and BBC leader who has demonstrated a knack for guiding media into digital realms, as the latest executive to oversee CNN, according to a person familiar with the matter, putting in place the fifth executive structure around the news giant since early 2022.

Disney has been hit again with another lawsuit from investors over the alleged sleight of hand accounting the company used to hide streaming losses.

EXCLUSIVE: Nautilus, the U.K. live-action Captain Nemo series commissioned by Disney+ two years ago, is no longer headed to the streamer, Deadline has learned.

EXCLUSIVE: Amid a focus on content curation and Disney-owned IP, Disney+ is not proceeding with The Spiderwick Chronicles, its live-action series adaptation of the popular children’s fantasy books, Deadline has learned.

Disney+ has “pretty much” hit its target of creating 50 original international titles, according to its Europe content boss.

Just hours after the studios and streamers made public their latest “comprehensive package” towards a deal with the WGA, the guild has responded – and its seems the AMPTP and top CEOs may have strategically overplayed their hand.

WGA leaders met face-to-face with key CEOs on Tuesday evening as executives sought to pitch the guild on their most recent contract offer in the hopes of ending the nearly four-month-old strike. Late Tuesday, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers released details of the contract offer presented to the WGA on Aug. 11.

About a month ago, Disney CEO Bob Iger talked about the ongoing dual SAG and WGA strikes. In his statements—which he clearly didn’t think through all the way—he mentioned how the demands by the unions were “not realistic.” This was his way of saying that the unions are asking for too much money.

writers strike. The CEOs of the major studios — including Ted Sarandos of Netflix and David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery — are also expected to hold a joint call on Friday to discuss the next move in the talks.

Trustees of New York City’s $250 billion pension funds have warned Disney, Paramount and Comcast that they risk losing investor confidence if they allow the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes to drag on much longer. The WGA has been on strike since May 2, and SAG-AFTRA since July 14.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Writers Guild of America responded Tuesday to the latest proposal from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, but any hopes for an easy resolution of the 106-day strike were quickly dispelled. The WGA did bend slightly on a few items, according to sources familiar with the talks. But the union negotiators did not offer the significant concessions that the studio side was looking for in response to its own offer.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis urged The Walt Disney Co. to drop its lawsuit against him, while telling CNBC that he has “moved on” from his battle with company and that it should drop the lawsuit against him.