WarnerMedia’s forthcoming streaming service HBO Max is building up its programming slate, and CNN is providing it with a quartet of projects from the nonscripted space.
This announcement comes one month after WarnerMedia named veteran CNN Original Series executive Lizzie Fox its new svp, nonfiction programming for HBO Max.
Heaven’s Gate and Generation Hustle are two CNN Original Series heading to the OTT service, while The Scoop and Persona are documentary features for HBO Max being produced by CNN Films.
“We are tremendously inspired by CNN’s history of award-winning documentary storytelling and journalistic integrity,” said HBO Max original content chief Sarah Aubrey. “This slate of projects with CNN demonstrates our power as a media family to create quality programming that covers the captivating and critical issues of today.”
“We are so pleased to produce original nonfiction projects with HBO Max and to release new content from CNN Films and CNN Original Series via a streaming partner that complements our brands and creative goals,” added CNN Worldwide evp for talent and content development Amy Entelis. “We look forward to partnering on future projects as well.”
Heaven’s Gate is a four-part HBO Max original series from CNN Original Series that explores the infamous religious movement and the stranger-than-fiction circumstances that culminated in the biggest mass suicide to ever take place on U.S. soil.
Generation Hustle (working title) is a 10-part HBO Max original from CNN Original Series about the lengths young people will go to for fame, fortune, and power.
Then the two CNN Films-produced documentaries: The Scoop (working title) is a documentary feature that will follow the exhilarating and exhausting lives of CNN’s female political reporters as they cover the 2020 presidential campaign in American history.
Persona (working title) is a documentary feature that explores the riveting and unexpected origin story of America’s obsession with personality testing. Embedded in everything from dating sites to job applications, Persona reveals the profound ways personality testing has formed and influenced the world around us.
HBO Max is set to debut in spring 2020, and feature roughly 10,000 hours of curated premium content. In addition to providing existing HBO content, the OTT service will offer a slate of new original series, third-party licensed programs and movies, and WarnerMedia-owned content from Warner Bros., New Line, DC, CNN, TNT, TBS, truTV, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Crunchyroll, Rooster Teeth, Looney Tunes and more.