It's been a hot week to say the least. Though I don't just mean all the hot topics in the news in the past week, nope, I also mean that it's been really hot outside with temperature up in almost 86 Degrees. While somethings have been looking up for a handful of people in the world (I won't say who exactly), there are things going on lately that haven't been all good for people and have turned out to be just non-sense. Even more, there have been shocking moments this past week that have taken our breaths away. In order to figure all of this out, we have a brand new 7-Day Round-Up to clear the air and help all of you KlicKNettars understand.
BIG NEWS: I'll be leaving from my Summer-long vacation from the beautiful beach resort in the wonderful country of Italy on August 24th. There will be two more episodes of FakeTV Box and Wkly Hit List airing from here before then, so mark your calendars because the last FTB in Italy will be on the 22nd. Followed by the last Wkly Hit List in Italy LIVE next day on the 23rd; I can't wait to take this show with me to New York and doing it LIVE in the Studio Saturdays this Fall. For now, it's time for this week's Sneak Peek of the Week: Universal Studios Hollywood has been hard at work constructing its own Super Nintendo World. The park announced back in March that the new land will open in 2023, making it the second Super Nintendo World in a Universal Studios after the one in Japan and the first to show up in the United States; with the second being up as we speak and will open years later at Universal's Epic Universe. To know how the construction in Hollywood is going, we turn to our good pal from Theme Park Wizard who lives right near the park and has been monitoring the progress on his channel.
Our Inside Scoop this week is about the future of Warner Bros. Discovery. Look, it's no question that this merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery, Inc. was going to have its growing pains, and it all started when AT&T and Discovery agree to last year. WarnerMedia spun-off from AT&T which decided to leave the entertainment business and relinquish its ownership, then fast forward to April 8 of this year, the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger would become a close deal. Former Chief Executive Officer and president of Discovery, Inc. David Zaslav would become the new president and CEO for Warner Bros. Discovery, while Samuel DiPiazza - the former CEO of a placed called PricewaterhouseCoopers that works in the financial business - became the chairman of the new company.
As you can tell by the interim wordmark above and the tagline "The stuff that dreams are made of"—a quote from the 1941 Warner Bros. film The Maltese Falcon, we were given the impression that the new company would be dreaming big, and all while making more money, it would spend more in content than Disney, Paramount, Netflix and Amazon. According to news outlets like Bloomberg News and Deadline, Zaslav explained that the company is aiming to be the "most innovative, exciting and fun place to tell stories in the world", and would combine Warner Bros.' "fabled hundred-year legacy of creative, authentic storytelling and taking bold risks to bring the most amazing stories to life" with Discovery's "integrity, innovation and inspiration." Well three keyword from that statement that I found interesting were "taking bold risks" and it seems like WBD is taking one too many these days.
CNN+ was the first causality of the merger, it shutdown after it launched two weeks prior to the completion of the merger, imagine that, streaming service that lasted for only one whole month. Anyway, the worst was yet to come to say the least because the new leadership has not be so kind to some of our favorite content or our would-be-favorite-content for the past couple of months. The company suspended scripted development at TBS and TNT, in order to evaluate their strategies moving forward, they've already canceled Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, not gonna get into the reasons why it shouldn't've been, 'cause there more to come. On May 11, Warner Bros. Discovery eliminated several executive positions carried over from WarnerMedia, such as the head of Kids, Young Adults and Classics Tom Ascheim, and the general manager of TBS, TNT, and TruTV head Brett Weitz. Warner Bros. Discovery has now put Kathleen Finch in charge as the head of U.S. Networks, and the Kids, Young Adults and Classics division was moved under Warner Bros. Television.
Last month, Warner Bros. Pictures head Toby Emmerich departed from the company, leaving Warner Bros. Pictures divided into three business units; with Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy becoming the co-chairs of Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema, and temporarily overseeing the DC Films and Warner Animation Group units until new executives are hired. Unfortunately, the company is far from done, as we all know by know, it has performed multiple cuts to HBO Max throughout the month of July and this month in August. This includes new programming development in much of Europe, live-action children's programming development, and direct-to-streaming films. Last week, we shared the breaking news that the nearly-completed film Batgirl was canceled due to tax write-offs, and joining it was the Scooby-Doo prequel to, Scoob! Holiday Haunt, as well as the quiet removals of multiple HBO Max original films from the platform and other upcoming releases.
For the past couple of days, the company has confirmed these cuts to children's programming development, and abandoning the production of direct-to-streaming films for HBO Max to be true. Zaslav has argued that they [including Batgirl] lacked economic value and impact in comparison to [BIG TIME] theatrical releases. So basically Batgirl is not in the "same league" as the Justice League is what they're trying to say. To say that a character that like Batgirl is not worth putting on the big screen is ridiculous, and DC fans have been even more worried that some of their favorite DC shows like Young Justice, Harley Quinn, Titans and Doom Patrol will be cut from HBO Max as well.
On the other hand, we come to what the future holds for Warner Bros. Discovery, Zaslav stated that the company plans to otherwise "embrace and support and then drive the incredible success that HBO Max is having now", he went as far to state that a "10-year plan in now development for DC Films, modeled after those of Marvel Studios." Now how original is that, I mean like to see what DC is cooking for the next 10 years but I hope, and everyone else should hope, that Batgirl played by Leslie Grace will be included in that plan. The TV division for WBD looks undetermined as we don't know if scripted programming is gone for good at several networks like TBS, TNT, TruTV and Cartoon Network, which is celebrating its 30th Anniversary in October. One thing we do know is what JB Perrette, CEO and President, Global Streaming and Interactive at Warner Bros. Discovery, revealed last week.
The planned merger of Discovery+ and HBO Max has been confirmed and will occur next year summer of 2023 in the United States, with other markets to follow. So, we've got one more year of HBO Max left and I don't wanna jinx any DC fans, but please HBO Max "GET IT DONE AND #RENEWYOUNGJUSTICE FOR SEASON FIVE!"
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