HBO Boss Has Bad News for Future Half-Hour Comedy Series

HBO has gotten a great reputation for all the brilliant series they have released over the years, like Curb Your Enthusiasm, Silicon Valley, and even Barry. But the most profitable series comes in the form of event series like Game of Thrones, The Last of Us, and House of the Dragon. It seems that the higher ups at HBO have started to notice that fans are responding more to those event series than comedies, and the budget for the half hour comedy may be at too steep of a price. In a new interview with Variety, HBO and HBO Max Content CEO Casey Bloys revealed that they will have to perform a bit of a course correction and reign in the costs to make those half hour comedy series.

“Everybody knows that there’s been such an arms race in content in general. There’s been so much competition for actors, writers, directors, stage space and materials. Everything has gotten so expensive. With a drama, even at that higher expense, they tend to move the needle a little bit more,” Bloys revealed. “Comedy budgets got a little bit out of whack compared to how they perform. You’re going to see some contraction there. You’re going to see, maybe, reining in some costs in comedy across the board as an industry.”

HBO recently released on of their biggest series in the past ten years with The Last of Us, so the shift in development makes sense. The series has already been renewed for a second season and has been getting a ton of praise from critics and fans alike. Craig Mazin, the Emmy-winning creator of HBO’s Chernobyl, produced The Last of Us alongside Druckmann, the creator behind the hit video game series. In an interview earlier this year, the writer said The Last of Us is the “greatest” video game story ever told. “It’s an open-and-shut case: this is the greatest story that has ever been told in video games,” Mazin said in an interview with Empire Magazine. “[Joel and Ellie] didn’t shoot anything out of their eyeballs. They were just people. And that, in and of itself, is remarkably rare in games. The fact that they kept it so grounded, and really made you feel – I had never experienced anything like it, and I’ve been playing video games since 1977.”

Joining Pascal (Joel) and Ramsey (Ellie) include Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Anna Torv as Tess, Nico Parker as Sarah, Murray Bartlett as Frank, Nick Offerman as Bill, Melanie Lynskey as Kathleen, Storm Reid as Riley, Merle Dandridge as Marlene, Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, Lamar Johnson as Henry, Keivonn Woodard as Sam, Graham Greene as Marlon, and Elaine Miles as Florence. Original game stars Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, having played the part of Ellie and Joel in both video games, are also set to appear.

The first six episodes of The Last of Us are now streaming on HBO Max. The show’s first season is set to last nine episodes in total with new episodes rolling out on a weekly basis.

What do you think about his comments? Do you watch the half hour comedies on HBO? Let us know in the comments below or by hitting up our writer @NateBrail on Twitter!