HBO press tour : True Detective, David Milch, Girls, the Entourage movie, the future of Curb and Eastbound & Down, etc

HBO's Co-President Richard Plepler and President of Programming Michael Lombardo talked to the press today.

— On Game of Thrones season 3 and beyond : "As long as George R.R Martin keeps writing, we'll keep producing".

— On True Blood season 6 and beyond : "As long as the show keeps exciting the storytelling, we're here".

— On Entourage - The Movie : "As of this week, Doug Ellin is on Page 65".

— On The Corrections (failed drama pilot) : "Unfortunately, we can't do everything we want to do". Lombardo praises the writing and acting. "It's very difficult material and I thought they did a beautiful job with it. The decision wasn't based on cost".

— On True Detective (upcoming drama series) : "It's very much a character piece. The strength of the writing is that in a familiar drama it blew my socks off. The show is set up as an anthology. This 1st season narrative ends after these episodes conclude, we haven't had talk about what a 2nd season would be".

— On Curb your Enthusiasm season 9 : "Larry David has essentially carte blanche. I think he wants to do another season of Curb if he has a great idea for another season of Curb".

— On David Milch (creator of Deadwood, John from Cincinatti and Luck) : he is working on a new pilot for HBO. Plus, he has movies and miniseries on his plate (probably an adaptation of William Faulkner's work).

— On Eastbound and Down season 4 : Danny McBride and Jody Hill have pitched HBO an idea for another season of Eastbound and Down but it hasn't been written.

— On Tremé season 4 : HBO is absolutely having conversations now with David Simon regarding if there should be a 4th season and what that 4th season would be.

— On The Newsroom : "We're very proud of The Newsroom, and there are 7 million people loving The Newsroom each week. Aaron Sorkin is one of the network's original voices, there's only one Sorkin and we're very proud that he's working for us".

— On Girls and Enlightened coming back in 5 months : "We move the second seasons of Enlightened and Girls to January 2013 because there was a hole in our schedule produced by the abrupt cancellation of Luck. We did not have anything ready for that period. Those will be HBO's only January-February originals. Both shows have dedicated audiences who will find them".

— On the early renewals of their comedies : "The reason why we renew shows so fast is that we had seen all the episodes of Girls and Veep, we knew creatively they were strong. We were able to see already that there was an audience and that the audiences returned for second episodes. The ratings aren't the top criteria. The big question is : 'is it hitting part of the 30 million in a way that's resonating?'".

— On what HBO stands for : "Creators come to the brand and the brand represents distinctive quality. The network's matrix for success is 'quality & excellence' more than ratings. We want to create passionately engaged programming across all parts of the HBO audience. Game of Thrones is a show we're proud of being associated with, we responded to the writing. We want to be proud of everything that we greenlight and put on the air, and we are proud of everything that's on the air".

— On the audience of HBO : "The streaming audience for HBO is only 5%, but it gets closer to 25% when you add in OnDemand. Girls is the most viewed show on HBOGo".

— On their scheduling : "At this point, we're Sunday night. We realize that we trained people to come on Sunday nights. We're always looking at our schedule trying to figure out the pieces and we still have room to add programming on Sunday nights".

— On Showtime, Starz and other competitors : "We congratulate other networks when they do good work. It takes nothing away from us".

— On broadcast dramas absent of the Emmys : "There's some great shows on broadcast. They weren't nominated this year, but it's hard to argue with why The Good Wife wouldn't fit into that group of shows. And FOX's The Following is a smart, well-executed show".

Sadly, nothing was asked/announced about an hypothetical Bored to Death TV movie (Ted Danson evoked the subject at Monte Carlo).

Source.