Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO, HBO and Max Content, offered a peek at the 2024 slate for HBO and Max at Hudson Yards in New York November 2. A day before, a Rolling Stone story broke about Bloys directing HBO staffers to take shots at TV critics who had been critical of HBO shows through fake social media accounts. Bloys called it “a very very dumb idea,” and apologized.
He then moved on to the programming slate, including True Detective: Night Country, The Jinx – Part Two, House of the Dragon and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Issa López, True Detective: Night Country showrunner, executive producer and director, sat with Bloys to discuss the show. With a background in horror films, she said the series, which she classified as a “modern western,” set her way out of her comfort zone. “Why not make the thing that scares you the most?” López asked.
To be sure, there will be some horror in True Detective. López teased “something incredibly sinister hiding in the shadows that goes deeper than human understanding.”
The Jinx – Part Two, a follow-up to The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, will have six parts. Andrew Jarecki again directs. In six episodes, the filmmakers “continued their investigation for the next eight years, uncovering hidden material, Durst’s prison calls, and interviews with people who had never before come forward.”
Season 12 of comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm comes out in February.
The Regime spends a year in the palace of a modern European regime as it begins to unravel. Kate Winslet plays the chancellor.
“This is Kate as you have never seen her,” teased Bloys.
The Sympathizer is based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel of the same name, an espionage thriller and “cross-culture satire,” HBO said, about the struggles of a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy in the waning days of the Vietnam War. Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar are co-showrunners and executive producers. Robert Downey Jr. is in the cast and executive producers.
Bloys also showcased Jerrod, a docuseries about comedian Jerrod Carmichael. Bloys said there are “very, very few depictions of Black, gay life on television.”
He also teased season three of Hacks and The Sex Lives of College Girls, season four of My Brilliant Friend, and season two of House of the Dragon, which included a trailer not seen before. Bloys said House is done shooting and is in post. He’s shooting for an early summer release. Season two will have eight episodes.
He talked up season three of banking drama Industry, calling it “the little show that could,” and shared that Kit Harington is joining the cast.
The Franchise, meanwhile, is “a wry look at the superhero franchise movie-making machine.” Sam Mendes is on board. Dune: The Prophecy takes the Dune franchise a step further. The Penguin has Colin Farrell as a crime boss in the Batman universe. Bloys called it “an incredibly exciting extension” of Matt Reeves’ Batman work.
Bloys also talked up Magnolia Network programming from Chip and Joanna Gaines, including talent competition series Second Chance Stage (working title) and Human vs. Hamster, another competition where people go head to head with hamsters. Roller Jam, meanwhile, sees the top skating crews in the nation go against each other.
In a video, Joanna promised, “bigger, louder, lights, camera … hamsters.”
Bloys then took questions from the press for about 40 minutes, and there were no follow-ups to the fake social accounts/TV critics imbroglio. Asked about the Hollywood strikes, Bloys said season three of The White Lotus looks like it will happen in 2025. The Penguin would’ve come out in spring 2024, he added, but will not.
“We’ve had to adjust across the board,” he said.
Bloys said HBO would celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Sopranos, which premiered in January 1999.
Asked whether season 12 of Curb Your Enthusiasm will be the final one, Bloys said it is up to creator Larry David. “I think he’s thinking about what he wants to do,” he said. “I think he’s gonna decide whether he wants to do more or if this is the final season.”
Asked to pick one show that might bust out next year, Bloys demurred. “You never really know,” he said, citing what’s going on in news and culture as factors in how a show lands. “I would never put one out there. It’d be nice to be right, but I don’t want to put it out there.”
