HBO Max wants to stay in the Lucia Aniello/Paul W. Downs business

The Hacks co-creators have just signed a new overall deal with Warner Bros. TV, presumably keeping everybody in shiny statues for the next several years.

By William Hughes | June 26, 2025 | 8:16pm

Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs, Photo: Maya Dehlin Spach/FilmMagic

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HBO Max wants to stay in the Lucia Aniello/Paul W. Downs business

As two-thirds of the creators and showrunning team on HBO Max’s Hacks, Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello (alongside partner Jen Statsky) have brought in a lot of positive attention for their home streamer over the years, much of it in the form of awards show hardware. (Seven trophies from the Emmys alone, plus a Peabody, multiple Golden Globes, and whole armloads of other assorted statuary.) So it’s not wholly surprising to hear that the streamer would like to stay in business with the duo, with Deadline reporting today that the pair have signed a new overall deal with the streamer, as well as Warner Bros. Television. Similar to the old one, the deal will keep the pair making TV for Max (in the process of rebranding itself to a less loathed named) for the next few years.

News of the re-upped deal comes not long after Statsky, Aniello, and Downs (who also co-stars on the series) confirmed that they intend to bring the Jean Smart/Hannah Einbinder show to a close some time in the fairly near future. (They won’t commit to saying the series’ next season, its fifth, will be its last, but have said they have an endpoint they’re now driving toward pretty firmly in mind.) Downs and Aniello (who are married) are also already working with Statsky, who’s also under a deal with WBTV, on a new series starring Kaley Cuoco, titled Kansas City Star. (That one’s waiting to get a greenlight from HBO.)

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Besides the whole “being married” thing, Downs and Aniello have been working together professionally for more than a decade at this point, having both served as writers and executive producers on Broad City from the show’s old web series days forward. The duo signed their first deal with Warner Bros. back in 2021, right as Hacks was premiering, and quickly grabbing both critical and audience attention. The series has been a success for Max even beyond filling up a whole bunch of people’s mantles with shiny gewgaws: Deadline notes that the show’s recently-ended fourth season grew in viewership throughout its run, culminating in a series high for its finale.