New Series Alert: Barney's World Coming In 2024 To Cartoonito And Max

Warner Bros Discovery announced that it has picked up the new CG-animated series Barney’s World for Cartoonito on Cartoon Network and streaming on Max. The series, announced earlier this year as part of Mattel’s Barney franchise relaunch, will aptly be titled “Barney’s World” and will revamp the iconic character for modern audiences. Co-produced by Mattel Television and Corus Entertainment’s Nelvana, “Barney’s World” will debut globally in 2024.

With all the heart and comfort of the original iconic dinosaur, “Barney’s World” is modernized with dynamic characters and music-filled storylines that highlight themes of love, community, and encouragement. Set in a local playground, Barney is joined by dinos Billy and Baby Bop and their three kid best friends. Throughout silly and imaginative adventures together, Barney helps kids explore big preschool emotions and shows them how to love themselves and other.

“Barney’s World perfectly exemplifies our ‘best in animation’ approach. It strikes the right nostalgia chord for today’s parents and introduces this iconic dinosaur to a new generation of preschoolers,” said Michael Ouweleen, president, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Discovery Family, and Boomerang.

“Having grown up watching the original series, many of today’s parents have fond memories of laughing, singing and learning with Barney and his friends,” said Fred Soulie, senior vice president and general manager, Mattel Television. “We are proud to partner with Warner Bros Discovery to reimagine this famed brand and bring a fresh and modern version of Barney to a global audience of families.”

The show will be executive produced by Fred Soulie and Christopher Keenan for Mattel Television and by Colin Bohm, Doug Murphy and Pam Westman for Nelvana.

Microids Announces Totally Spies! Game For Consoles, PC

Microids has announced a partnership with Banijay Kids and Family for a new video game based on the animated series Totally Spies! It will launch for consoles and PC in 2024.

Here is an overview of the game, via Microids:

The Totally Spies! video game will offer players the opportunity to step into the shoes of the three legendary secret agents, Sam, Clover and Alex. Together they must try and save the world from a new enemy, with a host of thrilling missions, offering innovative game mechanics.

“Microids is committed to faithfully and innovatively adapting well-known IP and it is a real honor for us to work on the Totally Spies! license,” said Microids CEO Stephane Longeard in a press release. “Thanks to the skills of our studios and in-house teams, we will do everything we can to offer the community a game that meets its expectations.”

Banijay Kids and Family new business and strategic alliances director Annick Bizet added, “We are seeing great momentum building for the Totally Spies! brand ahead of the much-anticipated return of the series next year. Microids’ expertise and passion for the world of video games, make it the perfect partner to recreate the universe for an authentic and captivating game for our fans.”

HBO Max To Be Renamed Max From May 23, Unveils New Content And More

“This is our time. This is our chance,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said today in his livestream intro for the company’s unveiling of Max, its rebranded streaming service that goes live May 23. “This is our rendezvous with destiny.”

Max will be the streaming destination for Max and HBO originals, Warner Bros. films, the DC universe, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and kids content, along with programming across food, home, reality, lifestyle and documentaries from leading brands including HGTV, Food Network, Discovery Channel, TLC, ID and more.

Calling WBD “the greatest storytelling company on Earth” and the biggest and most successful creator of content, Zaslav said Max is “home to shows that have a supersized effect on people an culture,” singling out The Last of Us, The White Lotus, Succession and Euphoria.

Billing Max as “the one to watch for every mood and every moment,” the service’s three-tier pricing also was announced: $9.99 a month/$99 a year for ad-supported tier Max Ad Light; $15.99/$149.99 for Max Ad Free, which offers two concurrent streams; and $19.99/$199.99 for Max Ultimate Ad Free, up to four concurrent streams.

“This new brand signals an important change from two narrower products — HBO Max and Discovery+ — to our broader content offering and consumer proposition,” JB Perrette, WBD’s President & CEO of Global Streaming & Games, said during the presentation. “While each product offered something for some people, Max will have a broad array of quality choices for everybody.”

Among the programming highlights discussed today:

• Max original Harry Potter series, a faithful adaptation of the beloved original book series by J.K. Rowling, who will serve as executive producer;
Max original comedy series derived from The Big Bang Theory;
• HBO original Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight;
Max original drama series based on The Conjuring films;
• Magnolia Network’s Fixer Upper: The Hotel;
Discovery Channel’s Survive the Raft;
Max original Peter & the Wolf short film from U2’s Bono;
• Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty: The Anime;
Investigation Discovery’s Lost Women of Highway 20;
• Cartoon Network’s Tiny Toons Looniversity; and
• TLC’s Love & Translation

Max also provided first looks today at upcoming titles including:

• The Penguin starring Colin Farrell
• HBO Original drama series The Sympathizer, an espionage thriller and cross-culture satire based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel;
• HBO Original limited series True Detective: Night Country, starring Jodie Foster and Kali Reis
• HBO Original limited series The Regime, starring Kate Winslet (retitled from The Palace);
• Max Original six-part docuseries SmartLess: On the Road, following Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes as they take viewers on an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the sold-out live tour of their podcast
• Max Original kids series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai
• HGTV’s four-part Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge hosted by Ashley Graham.

Also making announcements during WBD’s streaming day were Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, and HBO SVP Programming Kathleen McCaffrey.

“Our incredible team has been hard at work taking the best of both legacy technology platforms to deliver a product that works much better,” said Perrette. “We’re confident that all these enhancements will deliver a stronger experience for our customers, which will drive more engagement, help enhance retention, and improve customer satisfaction, which in turn will help us continue to scale.”

Here are some highlights of Max product features:

Premium Video Playback. A new video playback experience will deliver smooth and cinematic video to users, wherever and however they prefer to watch. Whether binging their favorites, watching offline on-the-go, or tuning in on Sunday nights for the latest episode of Succession, users can count on seamlessly diving into their preferred worlds.

Personalization. Max will expand personalization beyond just the home page, offering a differentiated and high-performing experience for every user across the whole service.  By significantly increasing our investment in machine learning while maintaining an editorial voice, Max will deliver a unique human and machine approach that will help surface the best content for our users.

More Prominent Kids Experience. At launch, Max will introduce a default kids profile for new subscribers along with accompanying parental controls. Parents can choose to customize settings and select to limit content for the kids profile by ratings: little kids (tv-y), big kids (tv-y7, tvy7-fv), big kids plus (tv-g, g), preteens (tv-pg/pg), or teens (tv-14, pg-13). Parents will also have the ability to set individual profile PINs to lock access to their adult profiles, as well as a parent code to lock their children inside of the Max kids experience.

Simplified Navigation. Max works harder so viewers don’t have to. Streamlined categories, improved content details pages, shortcuts, dedicated brand hubs and thematic content rails, make exploring the app and discovering new interests easier. The updated design coupled with a better personalization engine will help consumers quickly find and discover the best of what they are looking for.

4K UHD. The Ultimate Ad-Free tier of Max will have an expanded catalog of content available in 4K UHD including key programming such as Game of Thrones, The Last of Us, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight Trilogy and more. All Warner Bros. movies released this year and going forward will also be available in 4K UHD when they arrive on Max following their theatrical windows.

Newly Rebranded Max Streaming Service Unveils New Content For Kids And Families

Warner Bros. Discovery disappointed the children’s TV industry last year when it pulled a number of shows from HBO Max, signaling an exit from this part of the business.

However, now, with the launch of the rebranded Max service, the company behind the Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera libraries is returning strong to the sector and admitting that it was ostensibly technical difficulties that caused some of its problems for younger folk.

“We sit on the best library of IP for kids content [compared] to anyone so we’re not only going to reboot a lot of what we already have in our library but we’re also going to make new [shows],” said Kathleen Finch, Chairman and Chief Content Officer, Warner Bros. Discovery’s U.S. Networks Group

Finch revealed three new kids projects as part of the Max launch: Peter and the Wolf, a short film from Bono and Gavin Friday, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, which launches on May 23, and Tiny Toons Looniversity.

She also added, “We’ve got all kinds of projects… in the works. It’s a way for us to really target the kids market in a way that that HBO hasn’t been able to because… HBO is not a kid friendly brand, necessarily, even though Warner Bros. has some of the best IP in the business.”

David Zaslav, President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, seconded this. He pointed out that parents were unlikely to tell their babysitter to turn on HBO Max to sate their children and the service, known for airing series such as The Sopranos and The Wire, didn’t have the requisite parental controls.

"We have great kids content from Sesame Street to Harry Potter to Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera and all the original content that Kathleen’s team produces Cartoon Network. But there wasn’t an entry point. So, when anybody goes to Max on [launch] day, they will wake up and there will be a kids hub and right away it will be kid friendly. And we never we didn’t even have the parental

JB Perrette, President and CEO of Global Streaming and International at Warner Bros. Discovery, added that kids hasn’t “met its true potential” on the old HBO Max service.

“Our leading kids brands like Cartoon Network and Boomerang, bolstered by content from DC, Wizarding World, Hanna Barbera and Looney Tunes used to get double digit shares with 2 to 11 linear audiences [but] in streaming that has virtually disappeared even though all the great content and franchises as are still here. Max will better curate our rich history of amazing animation, seminal children’s television and blockbusters the whole family can enjoy as well as new product features.”

HBO Max did have Sesame Street, with new seasons running on the service through 2025.

However, one of the problems that Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, found was that it didn’t surround it with other similar types of programming.

“We had Sesame Street on HBO, which is one of the greatest brands in kids. One of the problems was we didn’t surround it with anything else. So, [this solves] part of the problem. One of the benefits here is we don’t have to go figure out how are we going to get a kids business up and running. We have the expertise in house doing so,” Bloys added.