Channing Dungey On ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Ted Lasso’ & ‘Big Bang’ Spinoff

Warner Bros Television is 2-for-2 in 2025 launches, with both of its new series to debut so far this year, Max’s The Pitt and Netflix’s Running Point, scoring with critics and audiences to earn quick renewals. The studio also has landed early broadcast renewals for hit comedies Abbott Elementary at ABC and Georgie & Maddy’s First Marriage at CBS while awaiting word on six bubble scripted shows and a comedy pilot across CBS, NBC, Fox and the CW.

Additionally, WBTV has found itself at the center of a pop culture frenzy as the studio behind some of the most anticipated new series and returns that have sparked an unprecedented level of fan interest and casting scrutiny: HBO’s Harry Potter, Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso, Max’s Big Bang spinoff Stuart Fails to Save the Universe as as well Netflix’s Scooby-Doo, one of two high-profile recent streaming greenlights for the studio alongside Not Suitable For Work at Hulu.

In an interview with Deadline, Channing Dungey, Chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Television Group | WBD US Networks, spoke of the pressure of tackling beloved titles and provided updates including whether Ted Lasso could tell the story of a women’s soccer team over a three-season arc as it did with the men’s.

She also spoke of adapting to the evolving broadcast and streaming businesses, producing for siblings HBO and Max as well as rival streamers like Netflix, Apple and Hulu, and keeping top talent under overall deals. Dungey also revealed the fate of Sex Lives of College Girls, hinted at 1990s Warner Bros movies getting series adaptation, and addressed the possibility of more Manifest and Gilmore Girls and a larger Season 2 of The Pitt.

Designed to run over a decade, HBO’s series adaptation of the hugely popular Harry Potter fantasy books has been assembling its main cast over the last several months. As Deadline reported exclusively, John Lithgow, Janet McTeer, Paapa Essiedu and Nick Frost are set or in negotiations to play Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape and Hagrid, respectively. HBO, which has not commented, is leading the casting selection, which saw some 32,000 kids auditioning for the roles of Harry, Hermione and Ron. WBTV is the studio on the project, from showrunner Francesca Gardiner and director Mark Mylod.

DEADLINE: Are you close to naming Harry, Hermione and Ron or confirming the adult cast?

CHANNING DUNGEY: We are not yet ready to announce the kids, we’re still working our way through that process. I have to give you credit, you at Deadline are consistently breaking the news even when we’re not ready, so I feel like you are very up to speed on all things Potter in that way.

DEADLINE: We don’t have Voldemort yet, that’s the one card I’m missing in my deck.

DUNGEY: You’re missing it in your deck, because we are still weighing a couple of different options there, so we’re not quite ready there yet. That’s an important role to get right.

DEADLINE: Cillian Murphy has been the one fans really want in the role, and he has been rumored for another Harry Potter character, too. Is that a possibility?

DUNGEY: I have no comment, no comment, no comment.

DEADLINE: Is the show still on track for a summer start of production? It was targeting a late 2026 or early 2027 premiere; is one of them looking more likely than the other?

DUNGEY: Still on track for summer start of production. The rest we’ll know more as we get rolling.

DEADLINE: Do you have an episode count yet, is that something that you can share?

DUNGEY: Not something that we can share, because we’re still working on some finesses on the last couple of scripts, and the question becomes, do we think that it’s worth breaking one into two more? We should know shortly I would think.

‘Ted Lasso‘s Comeback

It was Warner Bros TV’s move last August to pick up the options of British Ted Lasso cast members Hannah Waddingam, Brett Goldstein and Jeremy Swift that signaled the Season 4 return of the hugely popular Apple TV+ series. The new season, featuring co-creator/star Jason Sudeikis’ Ted Lasso coaching a women’s soccer team, was made official last month, with production set to begin in July in Kansas before returning to the UK.

DEADLINE: You never quite closed the door on Ted Lasso after Season 3. How did the new season come together?

DUNGEY: It’s really all been driven by Jason. The studio, Warner Bros, and Apple were very much open to doing more Ted Lasso but so much of it was about Jason feeling good about the prospects, comfortable with the idea. It’s all coming from his creative brain, and we were fortunate enough to find ourselves in a place where he landed on an idea that he was excited about, and we are getting the opportunity to support him in that vision.

DEADLINE: Is everything coming together? Are you going to get all the cast members you want back, including Juno Temple and co-creator/writer Brandon Hunt?

DUNGEY: So far, so good. We’re still in active conversations but we’re very hopeful.

DEADLINE: Word is that Jason has another three-season arc mapped out for the women’s soccer team story.

DUNGEY: We’ve heard the pitch for this next season, for Season 4. Is there the opportunity for the story to continue after that? Absolutely. Have I heard a whole three-season pitch? Not yet.

‘Big Bang’ Spinoff’s Status

The gestational period of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, Chuck Lorre’s spinoff from The Big Bang Theory, has been about as long as Season 4 of Ted Lasso. Gearing up for a (likely) series greenlight decision by Max, co-creator Lorre a couple of weeks ago assembled the project’s main cast — Big Bang alums Kevin Sussman (Stuart Bloom), Lauren Lapkus (Denise), Brian Posehn (Bert Kibbler) and John Ross Bowie (Barry Kripke) — to workshop the two scripts he had co-written with Zak Penn and Bill Prady before turning them in to Max.

DEADLINE: What is the status of the Big Bang spinoff? I thought by now we’d get a green light because the scripts are clearly ready; John posted photos from the informal table read.

DUNGEY: Chuck, Zak and Bill are hard at work writing stuff. We’ve seen some material at the studio, and we’ve had some creative conversations with Max, so we are hopeful for good news soon.

DEADLINE: How do you feel about the scripts?

DUNGEY: They are creative, they are imaginative, and they are, most importantly, very, very funny.

DEADLINE: Any chance for some of the original stars to pop in?

DUNGEY: I would never say never. We’re very excited and focused on our series regulars who have great stuff to do in these episodes.

‘The Pitt’s Breakthrough

WBTV produced The Pitt for Max under a new broadcast-style business model, doing 15 episodes in Season 1 at a reasonable price, with HBO and Max Content CEO Casey Bloys last fall calling the medical show “a good template for a Max drama.” The series has been a success, topping Max’s rankings and growing its viewership each week while also emerging as a leading Emmy contender.

DEADLINE: What is the plan for Season 2 of The Pitt? Are you going to stick to 15 episodes or will you try to go closer to the traditional 22-episode broadcast season?

DUNGEY: There was a conversation about doing a little bit more. I think right now, we’re still looking at 15 as the model. If it ends up going up from there, it would probably only be by a couple of episodes, certainly not all the way to 22.

What’s wonderful is, this is a perfect collaboration. John Wells, who is a master showrunner, but also someone who knows how to tell premium broadcast television stories. He brought those skills to play here with R. Scott Gemmill and with Noah Wyle. And it is truly gratifying, because it’s not that often that you have a show that really hits on all measures. It’s critically acclaimed, audiences love it. It delivers on all fronts, and that’s been so satisfying for all of us.

DEADLINE: Season 1 just wrapped this week, and you already are gearing up for Season 2.

DUNGEY: One of the reasons that we wanted to have an early renewal is because we want to keep it on an annual cadence. That’s the other part of this broadcast-style model. You fall in love with these [streaming] shows, you see eight episodes, and then you have to wait 18 months for there to be more. The whole promise of The Pitt was that we would be on an annual cadence, and we’re going to be able to make that happen.

DEADLINE: Are you developing more dramas under that model for Max?

DUNGEY: We are looking at a couple of other things. We’re developing a drama series under that model. We’re looking at a couple of other procedural shows in the police space that might be done under that model. So yeah, there are a number of different things that we are developing right now for Max that would fit that same that same bill.

Running An Indie & Selling Amid Contraction

After almost two years at Netflix, former longtime Disney/ABC executive Dungey took over Warner Bros’ TV studio in November 2020, several months into the pandemic, when production was starting to ramp up under safety protocols. Since then, she has navigated the independent studio through the pandemic, two strikes and post-peak TV industry contraction.

The studio recently landed series orders for Mindy Kaling’s Not Suitable For Work at Hulu and Berlanti Prods’ Scooby-Doo at Netflix — both of which started as script-to-series commitments — as well as a couple of high-profile sales including Dilettante starring Jeff Daniels from Berlanti Prods. at Apple; Kansas City Star with Kaley Cuoco from Hacks creators Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky and Paul W. Downs at HBO; and Skinny Dip from Bill Lawrence at Max.

All of them as well as recent renewals for Running Point, The Pitt, Presumed Innocent, Bad Monkey, Shrinking, Abbott Elementary and Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage and upcoming new series Duster on Max and Leanne and Untamed at Netflix stem from overall or first-look deals the studio has with the likes of Lorre, Kaling, Wells, Lawrence, Greg Berlanti, J.J. Abrams, Quinta Brunson and the Hacks trio.

DEADLINE: How have the last few years treated you as the head of an independent TV studio?

DUNGEY: The greatest gift, quite honestly, is to be the head of an independent studio. We super value our partnership with Max and with HBO, and are so proud of the work that we do. But the exciting thing is that we are really able to let the stories that our creative partners want to tell drive the decisions we make about where the best homes are.

These are trying times in the industry across the board, there’s a lot of noise happening every day. But what I love, is that at Warner Bros Television, we come to work every day with just one main goal in mind, and that is to make great television. And try to drown out all of the noise, whether it’s something that’s happening just within our industry, like the strikes, or something that’s happening more broadly, in terms of things affecting our country. We try to drown out the noise with the faith that we have that if we continue to be the best at doing what we do, we will be successful. I’ve talked a lot about the fact that I feel like my role is to hold an umbrella over the creative team, shielding them from outside forces so they can focus on what they do best, which is telling great stories.

DEADLINE: You recently received a couple of series pickups and sold several big projects. Is the marketplace starting to pick up? Obviously, the strikes had something to do with buying and greenlights lagging. Is it a little easier now?

DUNGEY: I wouldn’t necessarily say anything these days is easy; it’s a very challenging time in the business. I feel like we have been fortunate to continue working steadily, and I chalk that up to the amazing creative partners that we have. It kind of comes back to be trying to be best in class, and we work with the best. We work with creators like John Wells. Mindy Kaling, Chuck Lorre, Greg Berlanti and Bill Lawrence and that’s given us, I think, a leg up. We give the best and brightest people the time, the space and the creative canvas that they need to achieve their full potential. And that part of what gives us the opportunity to score these green lights and these series renewals.

DEADLINE: The level of commitments also has changed post-pandemic. Straight-to-series orders off a pitch are very rare. It seems like the new premium commitment is script-to-series with a short window for a streamer to pull the trigger after a script is delivered. Is that your observation?

DUNGEY: It’s definitely my observation. And I think that the script-to-series step replaced in the streaming space the notion of doing a pilot. I think that they want to — as opposed to just greenlighting things to series willy-nilly — the opportunity to read a script, see it on its feet, and a lot of times it’s a script plus a development proposal or plan for the season, and then they feel confident based on those materials going off to series.

I’m actually fine with that because I’ve always felt that there was value in having a pilot. And if you aren’t going to shoot a pilot, having written that pilot script, at least, you really have a sense of what’s the blueprint for the series. So I think that that’s become the new model for a very good reason.

DEADLINE: Virtually all of your recent high-profile sales, greenlights and renewals come from talent under overall or first-look deals. Talk about the value of those pacts. Obviously, they’re not as many as before, with studios largely holding onto their most prolific showrunners and producers. How would you evaluate the current state of the overall deal marketplace?

DUNGEY: I think there was a point in time when we all remember, as I like to call them, the glory days of broadcast where everyone had huge stables of overall deals because you would have the people who are the preeminent story generators. Those showrunners obviously were at the head of the list, but there was a point where everyone had to have a really long roster of talent because you were doing multiple shows that were 22 to 24 episodes a season, and you had to make sure that you had enough people to staff all of that up.

I think that a lot of that has gone by the wayside across the board. The truth of the matter is, when we look at our roster now, we are fortunate to have some of the top showrunners in the business, people who define excellence, and it’s an unmatched roster.

Their success is our success, and we give them a lot of creative freedom. We want Warner Bros to be an amazing creative home for them, and then we are also looking to develop new voices, people that have come out of our shows that we feel have the opportunity to grow and become that next level of top talent.

What we don’t have as much as we once did is a number of writers that are just on call for staffing because so much more of the business now is a little bit auteur-driven. You have a showrunner at the top who has a creative idea and a vision. We’re doing a lot of shows for streamers which are 8- to 10-episode orders. So you don’t have that same longer list of needs in terms of staffing. So some of those deals, unfortunately, we don’t have any more.

DEADLINE: There also have been few deals purely for development, they usually go to people who already have a successful show for the studio.

DUNGEY: We do have some deals that are based on development but that is usually because it’s for a show, or wrapped around a particular show, or comes as a product of a particular show. So yeah, that’s true.

DEADLINE: WBTV recently renewed its deals with Abrams’ Bad Robot, Kaling and All American and Found’s Nkechi Okoro Carroll. Talk about the decision to re-up those, and also how you decide overall vs first-look; Bad Robot’s new pact is first-look, a super popular deal type these days.

DUNGEY: Yeah, I think first-looks have become a little bit more popular because it’s a little less expensive than an overall, and it gives the creative talent some optionality. I think for me, if it’s someone that we are really excited about and believe in and feel have the opportunity to do different types of shows for different types of platforms, I would always prefer to have a overall deal to a first-look, if I can swing it.

DEADLINE: And for J.J., how did you make the decision to continue that relationship? There was some turbulence during Bad Robot’s previous deal.

DUNGEY: We’re very happy about our relationship with J.J. We had a big success last year with Presumed Innocent and are really excited about continuing to work on the second season within that universe. We have some exciting development going on right now with J.J., and we also have Duster, which is about to launch on Max. It is a show that it’s been a little bit long in the gestation, but we are thrilled with it and very, very hopeful that it’s going to connect with audiences in a significant way.

Producing For HBO/Max & Other Streamers

As a studio, WBTV has a dual identity, feeding its own platforms with shows like the upcoming IT: Welcome to Derry, Lanterns, Steve Carell/Bill Lawrence comedy and Kansas City Star for HBO and Peacemaker, The Pitt, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe and a suite of DC animated shows, including Creature Commandos, for Max. But as an indie, the studio also has been taking big pieces a business with big auspices to Netflix (Running Point, Scooby-Doo, Untamed, Leanne), Apple (Ted Lasso, Shrinking, Dilettante) and Hulu (Not Suitable For Work).

DEADLINE: Do you determine whether to pitch outside with the creators, or do you always give Max and HBO heads-up what is coming? And what is the goal — do you want to be on every major streamer and have a hit on every single one?

DUNGEY: Believe me, yes, I absolutely want to be on every major streamer and have a hit on every single one. We’ve kind of been doing that; where we are at this point, we have had significant success on almost every platform, and we have meaningful development and/or series orders at every platform, which is exciting.

DEADLINE: What about making the decision to take something like Running Point outside? Was that competitive? Was there some jealousy because it could’ve worked for Max too?

DUNGEY: If it’s important IP, like the DC stuff, The Penguin or Lanterns, obviously that’s going to be something that we do inside, either at Max or at HBO. When it’s something like Running Point … I have regular conversations with Casey, [WBTV President of Creative Affairs] Clancy Collins White is constantly talking with [Max head of drama originals] Sarah Aubrey. We have a really good sense of what it is that they’re looking for, particularly for Max, and if we have something coming down the pike in terms of development that we think would be right for them, or would be good for them, we try to talk about it early so that we can develop it collaboratively with them. There are other pieces of material that the town would want to explore, multiple places, so we will pitch things wide.

What I do try to avoid is, we try not to take anything out If we have already had conversations with Max or with HBO about doing it internally; that’s just not fair to our partners at other platforms. When we bring something out, if we’re bringing it wide, we want to sell it to the most passionate and most committed place.

DEADLINE: You also have been doing more for HBO proper after a break with a slew of new series and development.

DUNGEY: We’re thrilled about that. We love working with the team at Max and the team at HBO. Not a lot of times but some of the times when we’re pitching, we’ll pitch to Casey and also [HBO head of drama] Franny [Orsi] and Sarah and they’ll make a determination after the fact about whether they feel like it feels more like an HBO or a Max property. At the end of the day, we’re agnostic about it. We’re happy to work on either side. Wherever Casey and the team feel like it’s going to have the best success is where we want it to be.

DEADLINE: It’s also has been a good relationship in terms of Max allowing the studio to find new homes for shows like Dead Boy Detectives, originally produced for Max, which ended up on Netflix. Will you be able to do the same for Sex Lives of College Girls following its Max cancellation?

DUNGEY: I don’t think so. We were very much hoping to find a new home for that one, and I think we’ve now come to the end of the road, which is disappointing, because it’s a show that we really love. I’m so proud of the three seasons that we did at Max but I don’t think there’s going to be more of College Girls.

DEADLINE: What about more Manifest on Netflix? That was a canceled show you successfully found a new home for.

DUNGEY: Never say never!

State Of Broadcast & Bubble Show Odds

Warner Bros TV helped revitalize broadcast comedy with Brunson’s critical and ratings hit Abbott Elementary, and is bringing The Big Bang Theory franchise’s run on CBS to two decades with a third consecutive hit, Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage. The studio also reestablished itself as a major supplier to the Big 4 broadcast networks after a vertical integration push a decade ago hit independent studios hard. Still, the broadcast business is tough with smaller margins as networks keep pushing for license fee reductions and more digital rights.

With the 2022 sale of the CW — previously co-owned by Warner Bros and CBS — to Nexstar, Warner Bros TV’s broadcast slate got cut roughly in half overnight as Nexstar moved away from pricey original scripted series, canceling most existing shows. The last remaining scripted series from the “old CW” still on the network is WBTV’s All American. It is one of six WBTV broadcast scripted series on the bubble.

DEADLINE: Is broadcast still viable for the studio?

DUNGEY: Absolutely, absolutely. I love that the 18th consecutive year we have shows on all five of the broadcast networks, and I will continue to call CW a broadcast network, because my heart is still there. As long as we’ve got All American going, I’m still feeling really good about CW.

Look, the broadcast business certainly has its challenges, but on the other hand, you still are reaching a very broad audience. That’s one of the reasons why Quinta Brunson very much wanted Abbott to be a broadcast show, that was very important to her when we took that out as a pitch. And, between Abbott and Georgie and Mandy, we’ve got The Cleaning Lady and Rescue HI-Surf at Fox, and then we’ve got a bunch at NBC, Brilliant Minds, Found, Night Court. We just finished shooting a pilot for CBS called Zarna, which is a multi-camera comedy. So we feel like there still is a good bit of life left in broadcast, and it’s a space that we still really enjoy working in.

DEADLINE: But isn’t it tougher with networks constantly cutting license fees? You have three shows on NBC, which has to free up primetime real estate for the NBA. Maybe you can use The Voice as a bargaining chip because it still does well, but do you have a sense how things will shake out for Found, Brilliant Minds and Night Court?

DUNGEY: We don’t yet. They’re going through all of their internal deliberation processes. We have presented a Season 2 overview for Brilliant Minds and a Season 3 overview for Found and got great response from the creative teams on both. We’re optimistic. It comes back to what I had said earlier, which is, we believe that we are delivering the best quality programming, and that is what gives us the courage to continue to move forward in a space that is increasingly competitive. And we are also very adept at Warner Bros. We know how to produce things at a low price point, at a high price point, and everything in between. So we feel like even in the even in this era where broadcast belts are getting tighter, we still feel like we can do an excellent job, even within budget constraints.

DEADLINE: That leads me to CW and Fox, because both now have different models; Fox’s dramas are in the $3M-$4M an episode range, while the CW’s license fees are now mostly well bellow $1 million an episode. Do you think you can continue to produce All American under their new business parameters?

DUNGEY: We’ll see. Could we produce something for the CW if we were starting from scratch, yes, absolutely. It’s tough when you have a an established show like All American because there are some costs built into that multi season. But we’re going to put our best efforts towards it. And as for Fox, we are still working there quite avidly and we’re figuring it out. But again, it feels like it’s one of those things where you have to build the show correctly to be able to produce it for a budget. And luckily, that’s something that we have many, many years of experience doing.

DEADLINE: And your Fox shows already are built that way. At CBS, you have the comedy pilot Zarna, which is facing two pilots and one bubble series, all from CBS Studios, likely for one spot on the schedule. How did it turn out? Do you have hope that it can get that slot?

DUNGEY: We are thrilled with it. CBS has only just seen it, so you’ll have to find out from them how they’re feeling. But we think the creative team has done an excellent job, and it’s a really funny pilot with a great family that you feel like you’ve known them forever. Everyone settled in really immediately within this pilot, which doesn’t always happen. So I am optimistic, and keep my fingers crossed.

Unscripted Slate Beyond ‘The Bachelor’

The next Warner Bros TV series set to premiere is not scripted, it is reality show Love Hotel for Bravo and Peacock from subsidiary Shed Media, which is also behind two of Bravo’s Real Housewives shows.

While the studio has an established cable reality business, which is expected to grow as Dungey now also oversees Warner Bros Discovery’s U.S. networks, and it also produces NBC’s flagship The Voice, its unscripted brand is probably most closely associated with The Bachelor franchise on ABC, which has been going for 23 years, spawning multiple spinoffs. Deadline’s Peter White recently reported on the alleged “toxic” culture of the franchise, which is skipping a Bachelorette cycle this year. Since then, multiple producers, including The Bachelor showrunners, have exited.

DEADLINE: What is the future of The Bachelor franchise? There has been some behind-the-scene turmoil lately. Is it still a valuable piece of business for the studio?

DUNGEY: Absolutely, it’s still a valuable piece of business for us. It’s still an important piece of business for ABC. And we’re grateful. We’ve had a lot of excellent conversations with our counterparts at ABC. It is still a huge priority for us, and we’re very much looking forward to Bachelor in Paradise, which is next up for us.

DEADLINE: You also are part of the Bravo universe with multiple Real Housewives offshoots, including the upcoming Love Hotel.

DUNGEY: Love Hotel, we’re getting tremendous feedback on from the team over at Peacock. Part of what I love about playing around in the unscripted space is the opportunity to explore different types of storytelling. And I feel like everyone always goes straight to Bachelor when they talk about it. But we’ve got a lot of other fun things going on, Real Housewives of New York and Salt Lake City, which, if you haven’t watched it, is a delight.

And then, in my new U.S. networks remit, It’s fun when all the things come together, like when we do something like Wizards of Baking. It’s the Harry Potter space, but it’s also my unscripted team at Warner Bros Television producing for the Food Network, all of those things coming together in one fell swoop. That’s to me an example of the one WBD, the idea that we can work across multiple divisions of the company, all coming together to make something successful, both for Food Network and for Max.

On the animation side, I would love to see even more partnership between my animation group and what we’re doing for Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. We’re playing a lot in the IP space. Creature Commandos has been a big success for us. And we’re looking forward to do more there, DC Superpowers, My Adventures with Green Lantern, Starfire!, those are some new things that have been greenlit in our partnership with DC Studios.

Mining The WB IP & More ‘Gilmore Girls’

Like any storied Hollywood studio, one of Warner Bros’ most valuable holdings is its IP. A significant number of WBTV’s current series portfolio is based on company IP, from a slew of live-action and animated DC properties including Peacemaker, Lanterns and Creature Commandos to Dune: Prophecy, IT: Welcome to Derry, Scooby-Doo, a One Tree Hill sequel at Netflix, a Crazy Rich Asians adaptation at Max with Adele Lim, and, of course, Harry Potter.

DEADLINE: How much are you focusing on mining Warner Bros IP?

DUNGEY: We’re certainly looking at mining IP. It is something that most platforms have a lot of interest in. We’re blessed at Warner Bros to have such a rich history and so much to draw from, both in terms of series that we’ve made in the past, and also the huge Warner Bros film library, which is fantastic. We’ve been at this 70 years on the television side, So there are a lot of great stories that are ripe for redevelopment.

All that said, my belief about IP is that there needs to be a reason to tell the story now. There needs to be a reason to reinvest in that IP, and it’s all about the creative talent and their take and their perspective. Why is this the right moment to revisit beloved title? I’m also a big believer in developing new IP and new franchises, things that you come up with today. Running Point, for example, that’s a fantastic show on its own. You want to continue to build the library of new IP as opposed to only relying on established titles.

DEADLINE: Is there anything that is coming in down the pike on the IP front, anything that you’ve been trying to crack in this job?

DUNGEY: We’ve got a number of different things in development right now, some of which are a little too early to talk about, but I will say that we have some interesting things coming down the pike that are based on beloved Warner Bros films of the ’90s. I’ll leave it at that.

DEADLINE: Any chance of The Penguin coming back?

DUNGEY: The Penguin is one of those things where — and it’s interesting, because when you talk with everyone involved, everyone is interested in possibly revisiting those characters and doing more — it was very much designed as a limited series. But I would never say never. I think if we can get the creative stars to line up in the right way, and the talent is available — because we certainly wouldn’t want to do this without Colin [Farrell] and Cristin [Milioti] and that team — I would say it’s definitely a possibility, but there’s nothing in the works at the moment.

DEADLINE: This year we mark the 25th anniversary of Gilmore Girls, which has aged well, remaining a perennial favorite, especially around the holidays. Any chance of another A Year In the Life or anything more to do with Gilmore Girls or are you just celebrating the milestone?

DUNGEY: For now, we’re excited to be commemorating the milestone, and all divisions of the company are working together to celebrate with our fans. As for the future, I’ll simply repeat: never say never.

DEADLINE: With IP power comes responsibility. How does it feel to be under the microscope on all of your high-profile current projects, with fans constantly analyzing and speculating your every move?

DUNGEY: With any of these, we always are driven by the creative first, and we want to be as true to the stories we’re trying to tell as we possibly can. Yes, there’s always a lot of speculation. And when you’re working with beloved IP, be it something that’s new and original, like Ted Lasso, or Scooby, which is so beloved to those of us that grew up watching the animated cartoons, or, of course, Harry Potter with legions of fans around the world, we’re trying to let the creative drive us. We are fortunate enough to be working with incredibly talented showrunners on all of the projects, and, trusting your instincts, but letting the creative drive the decision making.