June 19, 2019 at 04:27AM
CANNES — Actress Laura Dern may be basking in the success of "Big Little Lies" but her boss is anxious that HBO won't be able to pump out as much quality shows to keep pace with Netflix and Amazon.
"It's an arms race as every platform comes online," said Bob Greenblatt, the chairman of WarnerMedia Entertainment, which owns HBO. "Volume is both a good thing and a bad thing. It requires us to put things in production faster than we should … We are in a world now where it's insatiable. You cannot get enough programming. Ultimately it's a danger if we keep going at that pace … I don't know if that's good in the long run for our business."
The exec spoke about that issue with Dern on a panel moderated by Vanity Fair editor in chief Radhika Jones at Cannes Lions on Tuesday.
Greenblatt, who joined the company in March, is tasked with developing the company's streaming service, in order to compete with rivals Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, as well as newcomers Disney and Apple, which will launch services later this year. That means more shows without losing HBO's "handcrafted" approach.
WarnerMedia's service, which will launch in the first quarter of 2020, will roll out with 10,000 hours of content from across the company's channels such as CNN, HBO, Cartoon Network and Warner Bros. Weighing on Greenblatt is finding HBO's next big hit now that blockbuster series, "Game of Thrones," has wrapped up.
"It's a challenge," Greenblatt said, of the need to find the next "GoT," "The Sopranos," or "Big Little Lies." "The talent pool is stretched even thinner because we are in peak TV."
Currently, WarnerMedia is trying to retain that talent and is nearing a deal to keep "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" filmmaker J.J. Abrams.
"We hope to keep him in the family," Greenblatt said, while acknowledging the gonzo budgets of rivals Netflix, Amazon and Apple, which are also sniffing around Abrams.
For her part, Dern, who has a supporting role as Renata Klein, a bougie, uptight tiger mom on "Big Little Lies", acted as a cheerleader for Greenblatt and HBO for the power it gives its actors.
"I am in bliss, that's all I can say," she said of her experience working on the HBO show. "To listen to [co-star] Meryl [Streep] on set talk about: 'It never occurred to me that I would get to be part of the storytelling outside of being cast by someone and I could forge my way and say this is the kind of character I want to play instead of just waiting for the phone to ring.' That was just extraordinary to me given such an amazing career."
CANNES — Actress Laura Dern may be basking in the success of "Big Little Lies" but her boss is anxious that HBO won't be able to pump out as much quality shows to keep pace with Netflix and Amazon.
"It's an arms race as every platform comes online," said Bob Greenblatt, the chairman of WarnerMedia Entertainment, which owns HBO. "Volume is both a good thing and a bad thing. It requires us to put things in production faster than we should … We are in a world now where it's insatiable. You cannot get enough programming. Ultimately it's a danger if we keep going at that pace … I don't know if that's good in the long run for our business."
The exec spoke about that issue with Dern on a panel moderated by Vanity Fair editor in chief Radhika Jones at Cannes Lions on Tuesday.
Greenblatt, who joined the company in March, is tasked with developing the company's streaming service, in order to compete with rivals Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, as well as newcomers Disney and Apple, which will launch services later this year. That means more shows without losing HBO's "handcrafted" approach.
WarnerMedia's service, which will launch in the first quarter of 2020, will roll out with 10,000 hours of content from across the company's channels such as CNN, HBO, Cartoon Network and Warner Bros. Weighing on Greenblatt is finding HBO's next big hit now that blockbuster series, "Game of Thrones," has wrapped up.
"It's a challenge," Greenblatt said, of the need to find the next "GoT," "The Sopranos," or "Big Little Lies." "The talent pool is stretched even thinner because we are in peak TV."
Currently, WarnerMedia is trying to retain that talent and is nearing a deal to keep "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" filmmaker J.J. Abrams.
"We hope to keep him in the family," Greenblatt said, while acknowledging the gonzo budgets of rivals Netflix, Amazon and Apple, which are also sniffing around Abrams.
For her part, Dern, who has a supporting role as Renata Klein, a bougie, uptight tiger mom on "Big Little Lies", acted as a cheerleader for Greenblatt and HBO for the power it gives its actors.
"I am in bliss, that's all I can say," she said of her experience working on the HBO show. "To listen to [co-star] Meryl [Streep] on set talk about: 'It never occurred to me that I would get to be part of the storytelling outside of being cast by someone and I could forge my way and say this is the kind of character I want to play instead of just waiting for the phone to ring.' That was just extraordinary to me given such an amazing career."