HBO and HBO Max chief Casey Bloys showed off the brand’s upcoming slate during a press preview event at the company’s Hudson Yards headquarters in New York Thursday. The event happened to be held on the same day Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO’s parent company, had set to receive bids for a potential sale of its assets.
After making an initial joke up top about announcing who would be buying WBD, Bloys returned to the topic later with a definitive “no, I’m not,” when asked if he was worried about his own job or the HBO brand.
“And I’ll tell you something that I told the team,” Bloys continued. “I had a town hall a couple weeks ago, and I said, the only thing you can do in this process, and the best thing you can do, is just focus on your job, which is our job, which is making the most impactful programming in whatever genre. All you can really think about, all of that theoretical, it’s kind of a waste of energy, because I don’t know what’s going to happen, you don’t — maybe you know what’s going to happen, but we don’t know what’s going to happen. So I don’t spend a lot of time trying to game it out. And even when we find out, the process takes a year, or year and a half to close, so it’s not something that we really have to think about. Now, that being said, I’m obviously very proud of what we’ve done at HBO and HBO Max. I would like to see that continue. We’ve all worked at HBO for a long time. I’m proud of our track record. But you kind of have to go into this process with an open mind and a lot of it is out of our hands.”
During the presentation, Bloys rolled footage from several upcoming series, including a few very quick looks at HBO’s “Harry Potter” TV series. Bloys confirmed that the writers for the show based on J.K. Rowling’s best-selling novel series are currently working on the Season 2 scripts as the first season is filming in the U.K.
“They’re still shooting Season 1, obviously. They’re writing Season 2. So the plan is to try and get it — I don’t know if it’s going to be like, stop shooting Season 1 on Friday and start Season 2 on Monday. There will be a break in there,” Bloys says. “But we’re going to do whatever we can to not have a huge gap, for the kids, obviously, but also for viewers. We’re trying not to have massive gaps. It is a big show. Lots of special effects, obviously, a massive operation. But we’re going to do what we can, for the kids ages, but also for viewers as well.”
While showing off both HBO and HBO Max series in the lineup, Bloys gave his most concise definition of an HBO Max original series yet, admitting: “Until recently, a Max original may have been a bit nebulous for you. You probably asked me about it. A bit nebulous for you, a bit nebulous for me. But I can say now that Max originals serve a very specific purpose.”
The short answer is: more shows like Emmy winner “The Pitt.”
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“We are leaning into more cost efficient yet elevated and high quality series with a greater number of episodes that can return each year,” Bloys continued. “These originals are designed to attract audiences that are adjacent to the typical HBO fans, while also feeding our strategy to deliver 52 weeks of new programming a year. ‘The Pitt,’ of course, was our first shot, and we really did catch lightning in a bottle. Audiences embraced 15 weeks of habitual viewing. Five Emmys, including Outstanding Drama Series followed, and we were able to turn the second season around quickly, already returning this January. We’re in the pilot stage on two more: ‘American Blue,’ which is a cop drama from Jeremy Carver, and the family drama, ‘How to Survive Without Me,’ from creator Greg Berlanti.”
From Variety US