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Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) and HBO Max to Stream Short Films

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Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD - Free Report) and HBO Max Discovery Access Animated Shorts Program will release the short films collection on HBO Max on Mar 23, 2023.

These animated short films will be released as episodes in a Max original series titled as Only You: An Animated Shorts Collection.

Twelve underrepresented artists created these eight short films. They were selected last year for a full year program which included training, budget for production and tools to help them complete their five-to-seven-minute animated film.

The selected participants were partnered with executive mentors from across WBD brands, including HBO Max, Adult Swim, Warner Animation Group and Rooster Teeth and all the animated films were supervised by Amanda Miller, an established producer.

Masterclasses were organised for the selected candidates by award-winning producers, artists and writers, including Justin Halpern & Patrick Schumacker (Harley Quinn), Erica Rivinoja (Clone High), Dan Dominguez (Seis Manos, VP Powerhouse Animation), Matthew A. Cherry (Hair Love), Noëlle Raffaele (DC Super Hero Girls), Ron Kurniawan (Puss in Boots) and Teddy Newton (The Incredibles).

Warner Bros. Discovery Incurs Huge Costs to Promote HBO Max

This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company incurs huge cost for marketing and creating content for HBO Max. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery have declined 47.8% in the past year, comparing with the Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector’s decline of 17.6% in the same period.

In the third quarter, according to the management, the company’s primary use of cash includes the acquisition and creation of content, business acquisitions, overhead costs, income taxes and costs to develop and market HBO Max and Discovery+.

Content revenues declined by 25% for the quarter ended Sep 30, 2022 but increased 15% for the nine months ended Sep 30, 2022. The content revenues decreased for the quarter ended Sep 30, 2022 due to third party licensing of HBO content.

The management has been planning to boost their subscribers in a very competitive market. The main competitors of Warner Bros. Discovery in the U.S. market are Paramount Global (PARA - Free Report) and Netflix (NFLX - Free Report) and Amazon’s (AMZN - Free Report) prime video.

According to a Civic science report, 65% of U.S. adults have a Netflix subscription, 59% users having Amazon prime video followed by Paramount global and HBO Max having 41% each.

Warner Bros. Discovery reported a capital expenditure of $623 million incurred during the nine months ended Sep 20, 2022. These included amounts to support next generation platforms like HBO Max and Discovery+. The management expects to incur high costs in the future to develop and market HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming products.

Some upcoming HBO Max’s projects are Parasite series, Jon Snow, The Last of Us, Empire of Light, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and many more.

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