{"id":313240,"date":"2026-03-04T22:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T22:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/313240\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T22:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T22:41:09","slug":"hbos-rooster-premiere-gives-crowd-jolted-by-paramount-wbd-merger-some-welcome-laughs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/313240\/","title":{"rendered":"HBO’s ‘Rooster’ Premiere Gives Crowd Jolted By Paramount-WBD Merger Some Welcome Laughs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn a convenient bit of timing, the first premiere hosted by Warner Bros. Discovery since the jolt of its pending acquisition by Paramount<\/a> was a comedy.<\/p>\n

\n\tRooster<\/a> is not just a comedy, but one with broad-audience potential, co-created by Bill Lawrence<\/a> of Ted Lasso and Scrubs fame. The Warner Bros-produced show\u2019s debut Sunday on HBO<\/a> will be one of the first half-hours in years to come from the network\u2019s corporate cousin. <\/p>\n

\n\tThose factors helped to explain the explosive laughter inside the 787 Seventh Avenue screening room in New York. Steve Carell<\/a> scored big, but so did many members of the ensemble casts. Premiere crowds are always exuberant, of course, but there was a particularly hearty ovation for HBO\u2019s \u201cstatic angel\u201d<\/a> when it played before the opening credits.<\/p>\n

\n\tLawrence kept things light in his opening remarks, shouting out Scrubs star Zach Braff in the audience for laughing at a zinger aimed at Rooster co-creator Matt Tarses. (\u201cThat\u2019s a familiar laugh \u2013 love it!\u201d) But when things took a more sincere turn, it was hard not to imagine that the $111 billion mega-merger<\/a> unsettling Hollywood was a point of reference.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m proud of everyone in here and everyone couldn\u2019t make it that worked on the show,\u201d Lawrence said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a normal feeling for me. I\u2019m feeling joyful, you know. Oh, to be honest, it\u2019s a shitshow. At a time when it\u2019s kind of hard to feel joyful, you know, getting to come here and spending this evening talking about the show and being with you guys \u2013 I\u2019m just grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the after-party at The Pool, one senior executive reflected the mood across the company as workers soldier on while bracing for their fourth takeover in a decade. \u201cI just keep showing up,\u201d the executive said. \u201cWhen my phone stops working, that\u2019s how you\u2019ll know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTop WBD<\/a> brass did not make an appearance. Not long before the lights went down, attendees\u2019 phones lit up with a notification: CEO David Zaslav had just cashed out $114 million from the deal<\/a>, selling 4 million WBD shares.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a convenient bit of timing, the first premiere hosted by Warner Bros. Discovery since the jolt of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[165133,156,2592,28126,111,139,69,421,169726,167342,170224,437,75382],"class_list":{"0":"post-313240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bill-lawrence","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-hbo","11":"tag-merger","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-paramount","16":"tag-paramount-wbd","17":"tag-rooster","18":"tag-steve-carell","19":"tag-tv","20":"tag-wbd"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}