Former HBO Miniseries President Kary Antholis Launches Crime Story Website

Kary Antholis, who stepped down as President, HBO Miniseries and Cinemax Programming in June after more than 25 years at the company, has launched his new venture, Crime Story, a news and storytelling website dedicated to crime and justice stories. The site is a partnership with Talking Points Memo, which will feature Crime Story’s top articles on its home page.

The website will feature original reporting on headline-making and lesser known court cases, with a special section about Los Angeles crime stories; columns by contributors, starting with exoneree Amanda Knox with her co-writer Christopher Robinson; crime news aggregation; as well as an interview podcast  by Antholis. It kicks off with conversations with United States Attorney General William Barr and Georgetown law professor and former US Justice Department prosecutor Paul Butler.

Antholis, who is a lawyer by trade, has had a lifelong fascination with journalism, particularly in the areas of crime and politics; he even took a summer job in the New York Times Paris bureau during his college year abroad in France.

Antholis recently taught classes at USC on crime dramas and crime documentaries, which helped him flesh out his idea for a crime-focused digital venture. Most of his conversations during his classes will be featured on his Crime Story podcast; his guests include Serial co-creators Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder; Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan along with director Michelle MacLaren; former Criminal Minds showrunner (and former Chicago cop), Ed Bernero; Oscar-winning screenwriter and the writer-director of The Night Of Steve Zaillian; and Banshee co-creator Jonathan Tropper.

“Our aim at Crime Story, simply put, is to appeal to those who are engaged by a well-told crime story, to those who want to know more about how and why stories of crime and justice are told AND to those who care about the fairness and humanity of our justice system,” Antholis said.

One of the goals for the site is to accumulate IP, mostly through its original investigative pieces, that can be exploited in film and TV.

In addition to serving as editor and publisher of Crime Story, Antholis remains involved in several projects at HBO, most of them related to crime and criminal justice. One of the last series he oversaw at the premium cable network was the global hit Chernobyl.