Variety: HBO’s Casey Bloys on Mike White’s ‘White Lotus’ Season 3 Pitch, Wanting More Seasons of ‘Succession’ and Plans for International Shows

Story from Variety:

“The White Lotus” creator Mike White’s idea for Season 3 of the hit show has already gone down well with HBO bosses, confirmed Casey Bloys at Series Mania.

The executive revealed at the French drama festival on Thursday that White has “just pitched us the idea and it’s great. It’s a really fun idea and he’s shown it’s possible.”

Speaking to entertainment journalist Edith Bowman, Bloys added that White is “casting people you know” in the show, but writing their characters in a way that “allows you to rediscover them or see them in a new light” — an obvious nod to now Golden Globe-winning actor Jennifer Coolidge.

The HBO exec also noted that he “would have taken more” seasons of “Succession” but respected showrunner Jesse Armstrong’s decision to end the hit drama with Season 4.

“I would have taken more, but generally speaking, that is the kind of thing you want to leave to a creator,” said Bloys. “When a show is doing well, in this case, Jesse felt it was the right ending. He knew there is an open door, and if he felt it, he could have done more. But that’s an ideal situation that he’s choosing to end on his terms when he wants, telling the story he wants. But if he said, ‘I’ve got two more seasons,’ I would have said, ‘Okay, good.’”

The final season of “Succession” premieres on Sunday (March 26).

In the half-hour keynote conversation, Bloys also discussed HBO’s international ambitions. Interestingly, he noted that the pre-Discovery merger era did not see a great deal of communication between the domestic and international HBO brands. This is already changing under Warner Bros. Discovery, said Bloys.

“Discovery has a huge international operation so in bringing them together, one of the things that we wanted to do as a company that we never did at HBO and what we’re trying to do now that we’re combined [is]…At HBO, the domestic and the international operation didn’t have a lot of contact regarding programming. So [Warner Bros. Discovery president of international Gerhard Zeiler] and I and our teams are trying to be very coordinated and looking at the programming investment around the globe as one team.”

HBO Europe has been operating across the continent since 1991, when its first channel launched in Hungary. The European team built out a stable of strong original programs over the years, with some playing on the U.S. cable channel as well. However, Warner Bros. Discovery dramatically halted European originals last year — just four months after the HBO Max Europe team carried out a major presentation at Series Mania — and has since restructured the entire division.

Bloys’ comments on Thursday suggested that there seems to be a reimagining of what HBO’s international pipeline will look like in the future.

“Where are we putting our bets, and in what shows? You come out with a better result that way,” continued Bloys. “And obviously the best case scenario is something like ‘Squid Game,’ where something is produced as a local original, and only as a local original to service the local market it’s in, [but] if something like that can break out, it’s great.”

Bloys noted that it’s “hard to engineer any hit show” but to do so in the hopes of landing in one market and then traveling internationally is “very hard to do.”

“American shows that travel are tentpole shows, it’s not the comedies,” said Bloys. “My guess is that shows that will break out from local original programs are genre shows. But [French comedy] ‘Call My Agent!’ did very well, so it’s not always drama.