>Hollywood is abuzz with speculation approaching Warner Bros. Discovery’s first quarterly earnings since becoming the nation’s No. 2 entertainment giant on Thursday. Multiple insiders told TheWrap they expect Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav to announce a major restructuring of marquee streaming platforms HBO Max and Discovery+ during its results or soon after.
>The move will result in a gutting of HBO Max, significant layoffs for its executives and staff to minimize redundancies with HBO and a combined streaming service with Discovery+ with a harder line separation between the scripted and unscripted content operations.
>“Everyone in Warner Bros. Discovery is nervous at the moment, and [they’re] starting to look at alternative job options in case they get the axe,” a company insider said. “Sounds like they’re not doing HBO Max scripted shows anymore with HBO taking over, so less scripted shows overall.”
>HBO Max development is expected to be especially hard hit with layoffs with two sources placing the amount of dev staff cuts at 70%. “HBO Max has a development team, which is a lot of overhead,” the agent with knowledge explained. “And why do you need a development team at HBO and HBO Max? It’s redundant. Just have Casey Bloys’ team do all the scripted TV development.”
Basically, HBO Max is dead and Discovery is canceling animated projects fast.