Justin Timberlake and Kobe Bryant Are in Talks to Make Shows for Quibi

Pop star Justin Timberlake and basketball legend Kobe Bryant are in talks to create programs for a new online service called Quibi, according to people with knowledge of the matter, joining a video startup backed by titans from Hollywood and the Silicon Valley.

The two globally known stars would produce and appear in the series for service, whose name is short for quick bites, under the deals being discussed, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations haven’t been completed.

Quibi is a new video service led by Jeffrey Katzenberg, the long-time head of DreamWorks Animation, and Meg Whitman, the former chief executive officer of EBay and Hewlett-Packard. The two have raised $1 billion to build a paid outlet for high-end, short-form video — promising HBO-like quality in TV shows that run 10 minutes or less.

“This quick-bite form of entertainment should be as big a growth opportunity, as TV was when it came around in the mid-1950s”, Katzenberg said on a panel at Vanity Fair’s New Establishment Summit in Beverly Hills.

The talks with Timberlake and Bryant offer a glimpse into the programming strategy of the service. The two executives on Wednesday also announced a handful of other creative partners, including “Get Out” producer Jason Blum, Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro and “Training Day” filmmaker Antoine Fuqua.

Quibi plans to produce more than 70 programs in its first year, about half of which will be original series, according to the people. The company plans to spend the equivalent of up to $5 million an hour on those shows and pay the producing studios a fee on top of production costs.

Bloomberg