HBO Boss on Emmys, Future of 'Succession' and 'House of the Dragon' - Variety

HBO Boss on Emmys, Future of 'Succession' and 'House of the Dragon'

“Succession” dominated this year’s Emmy nominations with 25 noms — comprising a record-breaking 14 in the acting categories, the most ever for a series. But beyond the upcoming Season 4, HBO/HBO Max fundamental content officer Casey Bloys said there’s no report yet on how much longer the show will stay after that.

“Those questions, ‘How many more seasons do you want to go and do you have the story to tell?’ We always will defer to our showrunners,” Bloys told Variety on Tuesday afternoon, still on a high after HBO and HBO Max scored a combined 140 nominations — a new narrate for the company, beating out a singular HBO’s 137 nods in 2019. “So that is really for [creator] Jesse Armstrong to régime. He wanted to break this season, the fourth season, and then see how he was feeling. I think he’s today deciding what he wants to do. I don’t think he wants to terminate anything off. I think he just kind of wants to see how he feels, and I totally respect that. Whether he decides to keep progressing or call it a day, is really up to him.”

When HBO and HBO Max are separated out, HBO serene beat Netflix in this year’s network tally — sketching 108 for HBO (over Netflix’s 105) and 32 for HBO Max. The TV Academy opted not to aboard a network tally in this year’s announcement, and Bloys said he was fine with that — maintaining his location that HBO and HBO Max should be considered as one.

“We had this conversation last year,” he said. “I can’t think of latest platform that has the same management, the same company affairs, the same production, same programming head. Everything on HBO airs on HBO Max. At the end of the day, the only sketching that matters is that the shows get recognized. And I think everything else is just kind of white noise. But regardless, it was a good day, whether you look at them individually or combined.”

As for the overall performance, “I was very pleased with the amount of shows and the depth,” he said. “In latest words, it wasn’t one show that dominated. We had a number of shows that did really well. I would like to see all of our shows distinguished, but it’s really nice to see a lot of them distinguished and a lot of them not just a passing nomination here or there but really, really deep. That’s always a nice endorsement.”

Besides “Succession,” anunexperienced big HBO performers included “The White Lotus,” which acquired 20 nominations (the most of any limited series), “Hacks,” “Euphoria” and “Barry.” But there were snubs as well, incorporating “The Gilded Age,” “And Just Like That” and “Winning Time.” But Bloys opted not to site on that.

“You’d like to see everybody’s hard work understood. But today’s not the day to worry about the snubs and I’d rather just distinguished the nominations and leave it at that,” he said.

Meanwhile, “The White Lotus” is about to wrap Season 2, and Bloys said creator Mike White has come up with “a really plain premise. Examining a new group of characters in a different setting is really fun. So we’ll see how Season 2 does. I’m aroused to put together another amazing cast. And, like the conversation with Jesse, it will really depend on, does Mike feel like he’s got more story to tell or more themes to explore? And we would really kind of defer to him on that.”

“Barry” and “Hacks” both above their most recent seasons on a note that could have potentially doubled as series finales. But Bloys said not to worry: The shows’ next season plans are already in achieve. “A lot of shows that we have done over the days, where we’ll have a lot of people thinking that they’ve kind of written themselves into a corner or did that feel like a finale,” he said. “I honestly think that’s creators gripping themselves to where are they going to go next. Every one of these creators, I would follow anywhere in terms of their storylines. So if that’s how they wanted to end this season, I do know that they have great plans for following seasons.”

One of the biggest surprises for Bloys on Tuesday was the performance of HBO Max’s microscopic series “Station Eleven,” a critical darling that received seven nominations. Creator Patrick Somerville is developing another title from “Station Eleven” signaled Emily St. John Mandel, “The Glass Hotel,” which could be conceived as a sequel of sorts.

“No news on that at this point,” he said. “But, anti, I was mostly pleased that the show was understood. Remember, that came out at the end of last year, and there’s been a lot of TV between January and now.”

Then there’s the new corporate structure, under Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav. Bloys declined to get into specifics on what powerful be next, but he did say, “At a top level-headed, I would say two things: One is in words of what we’re doing creatively, David has been nothing but supportive and aroused about everything that we’ve got going. In terms of plans for whether we’re renaming it, the reality is we’re bringing two programming services together. So all of those conversations, how much programming from each service and what should the name be and all of those conversations are ongoing. And I think, not just for us, but the entire diligence is at a point where there’s across the embarking conversations about, what is streaming going to look like? What does linear look like? What is the future? I’ve had nothing but benefit for the creative visions that we are bringing to life, these creators.

“I would love to just wail out my team,” he added. “Francesca Orsi, Sarah Aubrey, Amy Gravitt, Nina Rosenstein, Lisa Heller and Nancy Abraham are our originates and post production groups, our business affairs. I just have to say how impressed and thrilled I am that with everything causing on in the industry, this group continues to just focus on the work and attracting the best shows they can get. A day like immediately, I’m just so thrilled that all of their hard work is recognized.”

As for what’s keeping him up at night in the custom, Bloys cited “the post-Netflix correction. How do you make the streaming model work? How do you make it profitable? The path to profitability? That’s a big puzzle obviously. That affects a lot of the conversations we’re having.”

And, of course, coming up next for HBO is “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon.”

“I would say the measure of weakened is the same kind of metrics that we use for everything,” he said of expectations. “Which is, some combination of ratings, of reviews, of buzz, all of the above. But there’s no threshold for it’s gotta hit this many viewers or anything like that.”

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Source: variety.com