People have lots of opinions about David Zaslav, the new-ish CEO of the company now known as Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).
As soon as Warner. Bros merged with the lifestyle channel Discovery, Zaslav pledged to Wall Street that he would find $3 billion in cost savings across the company.
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This meant aggressively canceling series he deemed underperforming along the WBD corporate portfolio (including several shows on The CW), as well as removing shows and films from the service and canceling the release of the nearly completed “Batgirl” series and cutting back on movies made directly from the streaming service, as he says they provide “no value.”
HBOMax
Plenty of TV fans have worried that Zaslav doesn’t understand, or care about, HBO’s long legacy as a hub for creativity and a place that breaks boundaries for what television is. Instead, the worry is that he’s chasing quick returns at the cost of HBO’s legacy.
It’s also possible that these concerns are overblown, as Zaslav took advantage of certain tax breaks last year that have now expired. Maybe everything will settle down and find equilibrium, and HBO Max will continue to have a balance of populist hits and more prestige fare.
Time will tell if fans' fears are grounded or not. But for now, they can reassure themselves that HBO is still capable of doing HBO things.
The Video Game Show Is A Huge Hit
Until very, very recently, video game adaptations had a very low ceiling of “dumb, but fun for what is it” and a high floor of “absolutely terrible.”
But somehow HBO’s adaptation of the 2013 post-apocalypse video game “The Last of Us,” (which was created by Naughty Dog studios) has emerged to so far be the show of the year. Featuring the suddenly ubiquitous Pedro Pascal and actress Bella Ramsey, the movie has drawn critical raves, with many hailing the third episode “Long, Long Time” (a tender love story between two survivors) as an instant classic.
The show definitely carries an air of “much better than this strictly needs to be,” with gripping performances, plots that mix character works with surprising action beats, and impressive set design. Also, the monsters look absolutely gross.
It’s also one of HBO’s biggest hits in years, as it just notched its first billion-minute week since it debuted in January, reports Deadline. With five episodes available, it’s the fourth most watched streaming series in Nielsen’s latest report, with 1.2 billion views.
So What Will HBO Do?
So HBO has a critical and viewership hit.
But what’s next? Will the channel use the massive success of “The Last of Us,” as ballast so they can continue to do what the brand has always done, experiment with different series, some of which will find audiences, some which will be acclaimed cult favorites and some which will be flops? Or is HBO going to head in the direction of only making prestige-y, big-budget action fare?
Later this month, the last season of the Emmy-winning show “Succession,” will air. Fans are bummed, but there’s something to be said about going out strong. “Succession” has an older, more adult audience than the the young-skewing “The Last of Us,” and a dialogue- and character-driven corporate intrigue drama isn’t going to find as big of an audience as a zombie show. (Sorry, a “fungus monster” show.)
But smart adult dramas in general once defined the public face of HBO; the channel was the place that had both “Game of Thrones” and “Succession.”
When “Succession” ends, will Zaslav care about finding its natural, er, successor? Or are quality dramas that don’t have monsters and dragons in them another thing that Zaslav feels provides no value?
