The tenure of J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot at Warner Bros. Television is expected to cross the 20-year mark. The company is in advanced negotiations with Warner Bros. to re-up its film and TV deal with the studio, sources tell Deadline.
The pending multi-year extension comes more than two years after Bad Robot’s current massive five-year pact experienced serious turbulence at the half point following the April 2022 close of the Warner. Bros.-Discovery merger when it was among a number of big-ticket items scrutinized by the new regime. At that time, HBO pulled the plug on Abrams’ sci-fi drama Demimonde before production was slated to start on the ambitious — and expensive — series.
The rough post-merger period included a handful of other greenlighted Bad Robot series not going forward at Warner Bros. Discovery streamer Max, including The Shining offshoot series Overlook and the animated Batman: Caped Crusader.
Ultimately, Bad Robot stayed put and saw a couple of new series get on the air this summer, Caped Crusader, which launched on Prime Video, and David E. Kelley’s Presumed Innocent for Apple TV+, which started as a limited series but was renewed for a second season after becoming the streamer’s #1 drama launch. Three documentaries/docuseries, Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose, Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes and Yankees Win, also debuted this summer.
The current five-year pact, valued at $250 million, was signed in September 2019, at the height of the Peak TV-fueled overall deal bubble, in a competitive situation. The TV marketplace is not where it used to be five years ago, with overall deals down significantly in volume and price tags after the pandemic and the strikes amid unprecedented industry contraction and strong headwinds and belt-tightening for the legacy media companies.
Deal points are still being negotiated but Bad Robot’s new deal — as well as the vast majority of mega nine-figure pacts made in 2019 — is not expected to match the terms of the old one. A number of other pacts from that crop have already been either released or converted into less expensive first-look agreements.
Coming up for Bad Robot is drama series Duster on Max, with a Speed Racer series in works at Apple TV+ along with other shows set up around town. On the film side, the company has a slew of projects in development, with its first movie under for Warner Bros. deal, Flowervale Street, slated for 2025 release.
Abrams, who is currently at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, has been at Warner Bros. TV for 18 years. His company Bad Robot had been based at Paramount before he signed the film and TV deal with Warner Bros. in 2019.
