HBO chief Casey Bloys is the focus of a feature story at Variety. It's a career spanning piece that is a good read if you want a sense of who he is and decisions made at HBO recently. It's 50% weightier than a puff piece, but is certainly a very deliberate narrative setter.

More interesting is the additional story Variety has published regarding the future/fate of a number of marquee HBO titles from recent years. Noted in the piece:

Game of Thrones: House of The Dragon - We don't see it back before the end of May next year, so expect it likely in June/July 2024.

Watchmen - He won't do it without Damon Lindeloff. Which seems right.

True Blood - They developed some scripts for a return, but weren't feeling it.

Six Feet Under - Despite rumors, a revival was never really a thing.

Parasite - The TV adaptation of the film is still in the works.

Half-hour comedies - They have become too expensive to make.

‘House of the Dragon’ Likely to Return Summer 2024 — Plus, HBO Boss on ‘Succession’ Spin-Off Odds and Killing ‘True Blood’ Reboot
There will be no dragons before it’s time. With production on Season 2 of the “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” just getting underway, HBO and HBO Max co…
VarietyMichael Schneider

This is the larger profile piece:

HBO’s Leading Man: Casey Bloys on Perfecting ‘The Last of Us,’ HBO Max Streaming Merger and Axing Shows
Casey Bloys was about four years into his tenure as a programming executive at HBO when he was driven to champion a project that was disliked by others at the network. At first blush, the brilliant…
VarietyMichael Schneider

The origins of Party Down

Ahead of the Party Down revival, The Ringer has an oral history of the show. I was rather taken with this aspect of the origin story in which co-creator Rob Thomas  meets Adam Scott and Paul Rudd in a bar.

Paul Rudd (cocreator and executive producer): What was so crazy is we didn’t know anyone in Austin. We randomly ran into this guy and his girlfriend.

Scott: This guy comes up and he’s like, “Hey, are you Paul Rudd from Clueless?” And we start talking to him, and he’s like, “I teach English at the high school. Also, I sometimes write for Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Have you ever heard of this show?” We’re like, “No.” He’s like, “You want to come to my house and we can watch Space Ghost for a while?”

Thomas: They came over to my house, and we watched episodes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast until four or five in the morning. And we managed to stay in touch. And then on my first day in Los Angeles, I met Dan Etheridge.
Are We Having Fun Yet?!: The Oral History of ‘Party Down’
As the Starz comedy makes an unlikely return to air, its creators look back on creating a unique inside-Hollywood workplace sitcom, scrapping through a difficult development period, and getting gold from Adam Scott, Ken Marino, and Jane Lynch
The RingerAlan Siegel
  • Amazon Prime Video will move forward with a second season of The Rig. Read: Deadline
  • Nintendo is expanding out its entertainment offer beyond games - with Mario at its center. Read: The Verge
  • Whoopi Goldberg will guest star in The Conners. I don't understand how she isn't a regular on a sitcom like this... Read: THR
  • Your fave drama and mine When Calls The Heart has been renewed for an 11th (!!!!) season by Hallmark. Read: Deadline
  • Netflix has cancelled an unannounced Gorillaz movie. If unannounced - did it ever actually exist? Read: Dark Horizons
  • Schlocky cultural vacuum Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey is a smash hit, returning over $2 million globally on a budget of under $100,000. Read: Complex
  • BBC & BritBox have co-commissioned an Agatha Christie mini-series based on Murder Is Easy. Read: TBI
  • Speaking of BritBox, it now has 3 million subscribers globally. Read: The Streamable
  • HBO Max has cancelled comedy South Side after 3 seasons. Read: THR

Most Dangerous Game: New York is the sequel to Quibi/Roku series/movie Most Dangerous Game. Christolph Waltz returns.

That's it for today. More newsletter tomorrow. If you behave yourself.