You know what they say about when one massive media company gets gobbled up by another massive media company to form an even massiver engorged media conglomeration: It’s a good thing and it always leads to more creative projects getting made and more jobs …
… On opposite day!
On April 8, 2022, Discovery, Inc., purchased WarnerMedia from AT&T for the very Twitter-y sum of $43 billion. And on April 26, Variety reported that the new mutant company known as Warner Bros. Discovery will be shutting down scripted television series development at two WarnerMedia cable channels, TBS and TNT. Discovery has yet to announce how these cuts will affect already-existing scripted series at the channels, including The Last O.G., Miracle Workers, Chad, and American Dad at TBS and Snowpiercer and Animal Kingdom (which has its final season in June) at TNT. But we already know of one series that has been axed.
A spokesperson for Warner Media confirmed to Vulture that “new leadership†is “assessing our programming†and will no longer move forward with Kill the Orange-Faced Bear, an upcoming comedy series starring Damon Wayans Jr. Featuring the vocal talents of Sarah Silverman, Nicole Byer, and Sam Richardson PLAYING BEARS (!!), it was reportedly canceled by TBS a week before it was scheduled to start filming. Yes, the former home of Cougar Town, Angie Tribeca, and Conan has pulled the rug out from under a production of a show where Sam Richardson is a talking bear. Remember what they took from you.