TNT has greenlighted four-hour miniseries Debriefing the President (working title), about the 2003 interrogation of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, to air in 2025. This marks the cable network’s first original scripted order since the 2022 Warner Bros.-Discovery merger. The news comes two weeks after WBD took a $9.1 billion write-down on its cable assets and a week after the company announced that Kathleen Finch will be retiring as chairman and CEO of U.S. Networks, with Channing Dungey, Warner Bros. Television Group Chairman and CEO, adding the linear networks to her purview.
TNT has no current original scripted shows after all remaining ones at the time of the merger have been canceled. The plan to bring back original scripted programming to the network had been put in motion by Finch, including the greenlight for Debriefing the President, which comes from independent production companies AR Content and Big Dreams Entertainment.
Separately, TNT has bought The Librarians: The Next Chapter, which was recently pulled by The CW. The original series previously aired on TNT between 2014 and 2018.
It is in the long-form genre as TNT had been looking to eventize its scripted return, I hear.
The recent executive restructuring, which brings the cable networks, including TNT, TBS and TruTV, which have traditions in scripted programming, under the same umbrella as Warner Bros. Television, creates potential new opportunities.
Warner Bros. Television is a rare major TV studio not affiliated with a broadcast network after the sale of the CW, previously 50% owned by Warner Bros. (The company remains a minority stake holder in the net.)
The CW accounted for a significant portion of WBTV’s scripted output, serving as a domestic linear platform for series that could be sold internationally and in streaming. The network’s new owners pulling away from U.S. studio-made scripted originals has left a hole in WBTV’s portfolio, which observers believe a cable network like TNT could fill. Among the TNets, the speculation has been that TNT would be designated as the original scripted brand going forward.
Of course, in the current linear TV economic environment that triggered WBD’s write-down, price point is important, so potential scripted series for TNT would have to be done with a very disciplined financial approach.
All that is currently hypothetical as Channing only has been in her new role for a few days and is expected to spend time examining her new assets before starting to make moves.
Debriefing the President (w/t) is the story about a man’s relentless quest for truth, a nation’s complicated campaign for justice, and the bonds between fathers and sons. It tells, for the first time, the intimate story of two men at the heart of one of the 21st Century’s most formative conflicts. In 2003, John Nixon, a CIA analyst became the first American to positively identify and interrogate Saddam Hussein. During their time together, Nixon began to understand the potential consequences of the invasion, the humanitarian horrors and geopolitical turbulences that would follow Saddam’s deposing.
Executive producers are Alexander Rodnyansky, Joel Kinnaman, Stuart Manashil, Michael Kupisk, Peter Gerwe, Shelley Browning, and Leslie Greif. Cristi Bostanescu and Eric Tomosunas serve as producers and Krzysztof Skonieczny directs.