Inside Warner Bros. Discovery’s Upfront: Execs Address ‘Ellison in the Room’ Before First Looks at ‘Minecraft Movie 2,’ ‘Harry Potter’

Warner Bros. Discovery opened its annual upfronts presentation to advertisers Wednesday with a tribute to the late, great Ted Turner led by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Following a sizzle promoting every modern WBD property from James Gunn’s new “Superman” movie to HBO‘s upcoming “Harry Potter” TV series, WBD’s presidents of U.S. advertising Ryan Gould and Bobby Voltaggio took the stage to welcome the audience and promise to try to keep this presentation to an hour-long runtime. Then they brought up the “Ellison in the room,” in reference to Paramount Skydance’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery:

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“Listen, we don’t deflect,” Gould said. “That’s not who we are. Everyone here knows that there’s change ahead and that there’s change in our company, but there’s change across the entire media industry, and we’re well aware that your business is changing, but we believe that success is a team effort. So our best in class organization, the team and people you know and trust so well, are here to help guide you through this transition. We’ve been through change and challenges before. We don’t flinch. We meet the moment and continue to push forward in your best interest. There is one thing that is not changing, and that’s our world class content portfolio, the passionate connections that fans have to our stories, our worlds and moments, and the fact that it all remains only available to you.”

“Heated Rivalry” cast members François Arnaud and Robbie Graham-Kuntz came in to talk about the craze surrounding the HBO hockey romance series abd tee up the real-life sports rivalries covered by the TNT Sports team. This athletic celebration ended with Shaquille O’Neal acting as bandleader for a marching band plastered with WBD’s Bleacher Report logo.

Leslie Jones arrived to tease her new HGTV show, “Roast My Rental,” and then roast the number of cable channels with initials in the title that Warner Bros. is home to.

WBD chief marketing officer Karen Bronzo spoke about the company’s efforts to engage the TikTok generation particularly through partnering with popular content creators for food programming, like Nick Digiovanni. Terry Crews came out to talk about his partnership with Digiovanni for new Food Network series, “100 Cooks.”

After Cooper returned to the stage, this time with his CNN colleagues, to promote a lineup of CNN original series, including “Variety’s Actor on Actors,” and introduce comedian Craig Ferguson. Ferguson cracked a few jokes about his Kennedy-esque hair and Cooper’s glorious Vanderbilt locks before sharing a look at his new CNN show, “American on Purposes.”

The presentation shifted to focus on Warner Bros. films lineup with a behind-the-scenes look at the start of filming on “A Minecraft Movie 2” in New Zealand and a teaser for M. Night Shyamalan’s “Remain,” cued up by the director himself.

Voltaggio and Gould returned to the stage to highlight some of their new latest ad tech offerings and spreading those options over not just HBO Max, but for Discovery+ and CNN’s streaming platform, as well.

Then it was HBO and HBO Max’s turn, with “The Pitt” stars Noah Wyle and Katherine LaNasa (who gave the audience her best, “Baby Jane Doe!”) appearing to hype up Season 3 of the wildly popular medical drama.

The power of HBO carried us through the end of the show, with more references to the upcoming “Harry Potter” TV series than we can count, a teaser for “Big Bag Theory” spinoff “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe,” first-look images from the upcoming fourth season of “The White Lotus,” and a behind-the-scenes video for “The Gilded Age” Season 4, which was introduced by the Railroad Daddy himself, Morgan Spector.

After one more look-ahead sizzle reminding the audience about the power of WBD’s IP, the show ended at just about 10 minutes over the hour mark. And based on the quick movements of the audience, they were pleased that Voltaggio and Gould stuck to their promise.