AT&T is merging WarnerMedia with Discovery

[mattpricetime]

Okay, i repeat something is up. Because this news today I just saw is one huge change to this situation. They literally made a new office for Jason DeMarco who is the main programer for Toonami that puts him as a subunit for creating action shows and anime for WB. Yes you read that right. We had been under the impression AT&T was selling their "anime studio" to Sony and they weren't going to bother with that. Well looks like there was more to this story after all.

Also big thing to note, like the announcement of the rebirth of the Cartoon Cartoon brand, these new initiatives are producing things for ALL AGES. Register and Owuleen are clearly still trying to get rid of Kellner influence in this new WB Animation landscape.

I'm thinking the end goal of this may be Warner Bros Animation may end up being the over head title with several subunits under it. That also might explain why the HB toons Logo seemingly disappeared.

EDIT: Also the heads of Warner and Universal's home entertainment divisions pretty much said in a press conference they are still committed to both physical discs and digital downloads in the streaming age. Which given both companies signed a contract to work together for 10 years, is kind of obvious but in case you find someone who still thinks they are going to pull the plug on home media soon, that's what the people in charge just had to say about it.

EDIT: I like how after I say something the contradiction comes out. Warner is indeed now releasing something that is only dvd in stores, on blu MOD again.

At this point while i do expect a change in Warner Archive once the pipelines cross, i'm not seeing enough of a pattern to guess how minor or major it will be.

[Ark]

Aug 10, 2021 15:52:16 GMT -5 mattpricetime said:

Okay, i repeat something is up. Because this news today I just saw is one huge change to this situation. They literally made a new office for Jason DeMarco who is the main programer for Toonami that puts him as a subunit for creating action shows and anime for WB. Yes you read that right. We had been under the impression AT&T was selling their "anime studio" to Sony and they weren't going to bother with that. Well looks like there was more to this story after all.

Also big thing to note, like the announcement of the rebirth of the Cartoon Cartoon brand, these new initiatives are producing things for ALL AGES. Register and Owuleen are clearly still trying to get rid of Kellner influence in this new WB Animation landscape.

I'm thinking the end goal of this may be Warner Bros Animation may end up being the over head title with several subunits under it. That also might explain why the HB toons Logo seemingly disappeared.

EDIT: Also the heads of Warner and Universal's home entertainment divisions pretty much said in a press conference they are still committed to both physical discs and digital downloads in the streaming age. Which given both companies signed a contract to work together for 10 years, is kind of obvious but in case you find someone who still thinks they are going to pull the plug on home media soon, that's what the people in charge just had to say about it.

EDIT: I like how after I say something the contradiction comes out. Warner is indeed now releasing something that is only dvd in stores, on blu MOD again.

At this point while i do expect a change in Warner Archive once the pipelines cross, i'm not seeing enough of a pattern to guess how minor or major it will be.

What does your first paragraph imply then? I started Primal and love it.

[mattpricetime]

Aug 18, 2021 14:28:49 GMT -5 Ark said:

Aug 10, 2021 15:52:16 GMT -5 mattpricetime said:

Okay, i repeat something is up. Because this news today I just saw is one huge change to this situation. They literally made a new office for Jason DeMarco who is the main programer for Toonami that puts him as a subunit for creating action shows and anime for WB. Yes you read that right. We had been under the impression AT&T was selling their "anime studio" to Sony and they weren't going to bother with that. Well looks like there was more to this story after all.

Also big thing to note, like the announcement of the rebirth of the Cartoon Cartoon brand, these new initiatives are producing things for ALL AGES. Register and Owuleen are clearly still trying to get rid of Kellner influence in this new WB Animation landscape.

I'm thinking the end goal of this may be Warner Bros Animation may end up being the over head title with several subunits under it. That also might explain why the HB toons Logo seemingly disappeared.

EDIT: Also the heads of Warner and Universal's home entertainment divisions pretty much said in a press conference they are still committed to both physical discs and digital downloads in the streaming age. Which given both companies signed a contract to work together for 10 years, is kind of obvious but in case you find someone who still thinks they are going to pull the plug on home media soon, that's what the people in charge just had to say about it.

EDIT: I like how after I say something the contradiction comes out. Warner is indeed now releasing something that is only dvd in stores, on blu MOD again.

At this point while i do expect a change in Warner Archive once the pipelines cross, i'm not seeing enough of a pattern to guess how minor or major it will be.

What does your first paragraph imply then? I started Primal and love it.

At present, even without saying it outloud, the implication is that the plan is probably to merge the animation studios back together. Such evidence so far includes 1. Putting Sam Register in charge of both Warner Bros Animation and Cartoon Network Studios. 2. Also putting in him in a leadership role of the Europe studio and scrubbing the CN name off it. 3. Signing people to "cross-studio" deals where it's one contract but they work at both WBA and CNS. 4. This new position working with both CN and Adult Swim.

Crunchyroll the streaming service has an animation studio itself that so far hasn't done much. It got sold with Crunchyroll to Sony but based on this news, it would appear they probably planned to eventually fold Crunchyroll Studios into Warner Bros Animation and that unit would have made new original shows and co-produced anime with other japanese studios.

When AT&T sold Crunchyroll, it appears Sam Register and Michael Ouwuleen had a backup plan, which is what they announced. Where now WBA has a new unit, that basically is going to do what Crunchyroll Studios would have done.

I imagine by the end of this process we will see various subunits in Warner Bros Animation doing different types of animation. I don't think any type is going away, but I would imagine some might jump which unit they are at.

EDIT: Also listened to a George Feltenstein interview and one major bit of information the conspiracy minded have not mentioned. The guy who runs Warner Home Entertainment is actually the guy who came up with the idea of Warner Archive. George Feltenstein may have run it his way, it has always been that guy ideas  to have Warner Archive release things to disc. The odds he's going to shut down that division as a whole is probably not going to happen unless he's forced to. I imagine he might run it differently than George did, but yeah the people who thought he would snuff it out, he'd be snuffing out the project he came up with.

[Ark]

Oh wow! Well that should be interesting. Physical media sounds wonderful. Maybe even Blu-Ray if the cost ever comes down? DVD is getting outdated very quickly with 4k televisions becoming normalized.


I don't know what Primal falls under (adult swim?) but I'm realizing that Cartoon Network was still putting out good shows as of 2019 or whenever it came out. I literally dropped cable once I'd seen Teen Titans Go for the millionth time.

[mattpricetime]

I believe technically Primal is considered a co-production between Cartoon Network Studios and Williams Street. But it was clearly the Williams Street executive's side. But this all but confirmed merger would render those divisions not that important any more. Unfortunately though chances anything major happens before the Discovery merger happens is nill. Either in regards to the studios or the on-air channels.

On the home media front, WB and Universal clearly intend to stay in that business until 2030. Whether all the format options we have right now will still be with us (dvd, bluray, 4k, digital hd, etc) is a fair question. But the doom and gloom people worry WB is gonna pull the plug entirely any day now, isn't supported by the current info.

A lot of that fear seems to be because Jason Kilar who was a streaming guy when he tasked with pandemic era budget cuts made a lot in the home video department. The Warner Archive as a separate unit was probably going to be eliminated, but otherwise those guys may have still had spots in the new Warner Home Entertainment if not for said budget cuts. But as is obvious once the Discovery deal is done, Kilar's done. So any decision made specifically by him, could be considered backtrackable if Discovery thinks differently.

I just think it's funny how some people had been running that without George Feltenstein the guy in charge of Warner Home Entertainment was gonna kick it down the stairs as a worthless waste of time. And now we learn it was his idea to make it in the first place. Our real question is what parts of Warner Archive was specifically George's influence that he doesn't necessarily agree with. Or when Discovery takes over is he gonna just ask them to rehire George? And that's why George so far hasn't agree to join another company.

[mattpricetime]

So apparently chock up another thing I speculated could happen, did happen. As it appears George Feltenstein has already been rehired at Warner Bros and now has a new job title.

Now we sit back and watch some of the same people who spewed doom and gloom over the last several months acting like they knew it all the time and totally didn't spend months making up conspiracies and not knowing how to read things that weren't in their own echo chambers.

Apparently the third (and probably last) volume of Tex Avery's MGM cartoons is schedule for dvd and bluray in early October. So the animation pipeline also had to have been restarted up post January. Whether this is work done by the regular lab on the Warner lot (like volume 1 and half volume 2) or broadcast masters done overseas touched up by WA people (the rest of volume 2) I'm not sure. As I know the lab itself opened back up when the lot reopened. But I have zero clue if that meant everybody who worked their came back and when.

[mattpricetime]

Jerry Beck put out an article this morning, which details the Tex Avery volume 3. Of the 25 (and two cinemascope remakes after her left) 20 of them are on this set. While Jerry seems to hint a Volume 4 could happen that would seem odd with so few cartoons and most of them controversial. 2 of the 7 are on the Droopy dvd and it's Warner Archive re-release.

And for some reason he decided to push for a remastered Looney Tunes short as a bonus. Sometimes Jerry really only thinks to that academic "golden age is superior" spin. But even still some may have wanted one or two of the cinmescope remakes of Avery's MGM work instead of a WB Avery cartoon. Especially for the percentage that likes MGM but not WB. Or maybe the odds of more LT's releases aren't looking that great still?

But now confirmed from this article is that work at back catalog releases during the time without George Feltenstein did happen. Though we will have a couple of months worth of releases that were done without George around next year. What level of difference that is, we will just wait an see.

EDIT: Fixing that number because either I goofed on two of the titles or Beck's article goofed. Either way it's correct now lol.

[mattpricetime]

From what I gather, George Feltenstein has expanded responsibilities from his previous position. Which given that the old Warner Archive as a sub business is still defunct, i'm willing to bet he's now in charge of the whole back catalog library regardless whether it's going to stores or online.

The emails have gone back to mentioning both the classic and modern releases Warner is putting out online since his rehiring.

[vakanai]

So, take it this all looks like good news for the home media front if I'm reading you right?

[mattpricetime]

Yes, I fully expect WB to stay in that business for years to come.

As of this week, MOD releases from WB are now being announced further in advance more like regular store releases. I'd say we are now at the point where we are seeing what were Feltenstein's last things put in production and the start of what was put into production after it.

I'd imagine we still have more months of trying to fix the things along the way. Plus when the Discovery merger clears, Discovery titles will become eligible for store and mod releases to.