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Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) Batman Series Welcomes Theo Rossi

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Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD - Free Report) HBO Max original series The Penguin has signed Theo Rossi for a key role. Theo Rossi will have an important and recurring role opposite Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti.

The Penguin will be an eight-episode drama, a continuation of the Warner Bros. picture The Batman. The Penguin will center around the character Colin Farrell in the movie. Cristin Milioti plays the female lead Sofia Falcone. Rossi’s character details have not been revealed yet.

The Penguin’s executive producers are Reeves, Dylan Clark and Farrell. Lauren LeFranc is the writer and the showrunner. Craig Zobel will be the director for the first three episodes. Due to the characters created for DC by Bob Kane with Bill Finger, The Penguin is produced by Reeves’ 6th & Idaho Productions and Dylan Clark Productions in association with Warner Bros Television, whereas  Reeves and 6th & Idaho are under an overall deal. The 6th & Idaho’s Daniel Pipski is also an executive producer and Rafi Crohn is the co-executive producer for this eight-episode drama.

Rossi recently appeared opposite Aubrey Plaza in Emily the Criminal for which he received an Independent Spirit award nomination. He is also best known for major roles in Marvel’s Luke Cage, Sons of Anarchy and Army of the Dead.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Focus on Increasing Subscribers to Boost Revenues

This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company’s focus is to increase subscribers with the aim to boost revenues in a cluttered market. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery have declined 44.9% in the past year compared with the Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector’s fall of 23% in the same period.

The company’s revenues declined 9% year over year for the quarter ended Dec 31, 2022, to $1.1 billion. The net loss was $2101 million, which included acquisition costs of $1850 million.

Management has been planning to boost its top line by focusing on content in a very competitive market. Warner Bros. Discovery faces stiff competition from Disney (DIS - Free Report) , Netflix (NFLX - Free Report) and Paramount Global (PARA - Free Report) .

According to an Indiewire report, Netflix has 230.75 million global paid subscribers followed by Disney, which has 235.7 million subscribers. Warner Bros currently has 96.1 million subscribers, followed by Paramount Global with almost 77 million subscribers.

All major streamers reported losses for the streaming business in the last quarter except for Netflix. All these companies are spending more in acquiring subscribers and focusing on growing the top line. This clearly indicates that this industry is still in the growing market with a lot of scope. Intense competition also encourages the companies to spend more on focusing and acquiring customers.

Some upcoming projects of Warner Bros. Discovery are Creed III, Lord of the Rings, Flash, Shazam and from Paramount are Transformer: Rise of the Beasts, The Tiger’s Apprentice, IF. Upcoming projects from Netflix are Murder Mystery 2, Still Time, and from Disney are Visions, Loki Season 2, and Ironheart.

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