The Warner Bros. Thread | Will NOT merge with Paramount...capitalism is still terrible

[poweranimals]

2 hours ago, Napoleon said:

One thing DC did right over Marvel was having separate universes for their DC adaptations. Greg Berlanti and the CW were allowed to build a successful universe on TV despite all the messy changes that eventually ran the DCEU into the ground. Movies like The Batman and Joker were also successful stories that would never happen in the MCU model.

 

Marvel fans used to complain that Agents of SHIELD was ignored by the movies, and now that the Disney+ shows are part of the overall MCU storyline, some fans are complaining that they are required to watched them. Hopefully after Gunn establishes his own universe, we continue to get separate DC projects that aren't limited to fit into a larger storyline.

It's no worse than DC fans complaining that Grant Gustin wasn't cast as the Flash in the movies. There's no pleasing people.

[Bob Train]

Warner Bros. probably would have won the year in terms of theatrical market share if Dune 2 didn't move. But now it is likely Disney  will win by a very narrow margin over Universal. 

[excel1]

On 11/1/2023 at 4:11 PM, Scubasteve716 said:

Can someone explain why Shyamalan’s movie is able to film even though it’s set up at WB? Is it not set up at WB anymore?

 

Hollywood knows that this films star needs way more leading roles so they're cool w/ it

[Sheldon Cr]

22 hours ago, poweranimals said:

This isn't on James Gunn. The CW is under new ownership and they basically want to lean more into cheaply made content and S&L is more on the expensive side.

Well Put.. I just hope folks for the show making it to a season 5 prevail. Dont look good, but sometimes people with power swoop in and save great fan fave shows. Superman and LOis is excellent. Only Smallville and GAH  are better in the genre. Hope its not the end of the road when the last 10 episodes role in for Season IV.

 

Wonder if Gunn likes the show, and has any pull to get it extended if so.. 

[Eric Prime]

 

[Cappoedameron]

Zassy boy literally has destroyed WB lol.

[Potiki]

46 minutes ago, Cappoedameron said:

Zassy boy literally has destroyed WB lol.

I mean he did pick an awful time to merge with WB as since then advertising (which is very very important to Discovery) has taken a big dive for Cable (and Broadcast though that doesn't impact WBD) which has made paying off as much Debt as they would have liked to difficult. 

 

Streaming for them has been poor though as although they have cut enough costs to turn profitable they have either no growth or negative growth depending at how you want to look at integrating Discovery programming into Max. Theatrical has been challenged for them (Barbie and Horror excluded) Only really positive thing they have is the gaming segment and that is a pretty small part of their business. 

 

I didn't really want to go heavily into WBD because at this point it must seem like I am constantly shitting on them, but the reality is they are not doing very well. If they didn't have so much debt they would probably have a much much better share price, but Zaslav decided to take on that debt in order to get the merger so it is his (and his boards) own fault.

[PlatnumRoyce]

On 11/3/2023 at 4:10 PM, poweranimals said:

This isn't on James Gunn. The CW is under new ownership and they basically want to lean more into cheaply made content and S&L is more on the expensive side.

I'll simply point out that the CW technically lost money on a lot of shows because Paramount and WB were able to get significant downstream revenue especially from Netflix. 

[WittyUsername]

No wonder Zassy is licensing a bunch of their content out to Netflix. 

[Scubasteve716]

I mean the stock price fell to where it was basically a week ago. Their earnings report really wasn’t that bad. It fell due to bad guidance on advertising revenue from cable which I would imagine is the hardest thing to control. 

[dudalb]

4 hours ago, Cappoedameron said:

Zassy boy literally has destroyed WB lol.

Zassy was brough on board to get Warners out of a bad situatin, but he might have just made it worse.

[dudalb]

On 11/1/2023 at 1:12 PM, TheDude391 said:

Yeah they do this a lot.

After Black Adam flopped, they had the trades drop articles about Dwayne Johnson to make him look bad (for serving alcohol at a premiere for his PG-13 films?) after the Snyder Cut fiasco, they had the trades drop articles on how Snyder is some Lex Luthor villain (for being rude to studio execs). 

I think every major studio does this...they just managet to keep it quiet.

[El Squibbonator]

Apparently Coyote V. Acme was picked to be cancelled for the same reason Batgirl was-- as an HBO Max movie, it didn't fit with Zaslav's vision of prioritizing theatrical movies. 

[Dominic Draper]

On 11/8/2023 at 1:10 PM, Cappoedameron said:

Zassy boy literally has destroyed WB lol.

This would imply WB was in good shape before him. 

[El Squibbonator]

 I get the impression that in particular Zaslav hates-- or at least doesn't trust-- HBO Max and is actively trying to sabotage it. Notice how Batgirl, an HBO Max film, was cancelled, but The Flash, despite being an objectively much less commercially viable movie, was put in theaters and ended up losing $200 million. WB honestly would have been better off cancelling The Flash, which was clearly going to be a nightmare to market and had a controversial lead actor. But instead they dumped Batgirl, which had a lower budget, was attached to the much more lucrative Batman brand, and would have gone straight to streaming. And now they've done the same with Coyote V. Acme. 

 

While the other big studios are more than happy to put big-budget, big-ticket movies on their streaming services, Warner Bros. under Zaslav has been very reluctant to do the same. The majority of movies that have been written off for tax purposes have been HBO Max projects. 

 

[robertman2]

Pretty sure there was never indication it was an HBO Max thing. It was on the theatrical release slate on one point.

[El Squibbonator]

According to The Hollywood Reporter: 

 

Quote

“With the re-launch of Warner Bros. Pictures Animation in June, the studio has shifted its global strategy to focus on theatrical releases,” a WB Motion Picture Group spokesperson said in a statement. “With this new direction, we have made the difficult decision not to move forward with Coyote vs Acme. We have tremendous respect for the filmmakers, casts, and crew, and are grateful for their contributions to the film.”

The previous Warners regime greenlit the movie in December 2020 as a production for HBO Max, its fledgling streaming service. It later announced that Coyote would get a release on July 21, 2023. No trailer was ever released for the film, leading to questions about the studio’s intentions for the project. In April 2022, Warners removed the feature from its release calendar, putting Barbie on its July 21 release date.

 

This implies to me that the planned theatrical release, if there ever was one, was nothing more than an idea being floated around, and it was still officially considered an HBO Max project when it was cancelled. Warner Bros. Pictures Animation has announced its intent to re-focus on theatrical films, of which several are currently in production. 

[WittyUsername]

28 minutes ago, El Squibbonator said:

 I get the impression that in particular Zaslav hates-- or at least doesn't trust-- HBO Max and is actively trying to sabotage it. Notice how Batgirl, an HBO Max film, was cancelled, but The Flash, despite being an objectively much less commercially viable movie, was put in theaters and ended up losing $200 million. WB honestly would have been better off cancelling The Flash, which was clearly going to be a nightmare to market and had a controversial lead actor. But instead they dumped Batgirl, which had a lower budget, was attached to the much more lucrative Batman brand, and would have gone straight to streaming. And now they've done the same with Coyote V. Acme. 

 

While the other big studios are more than happy to put big-budget, big-ticket movies on their streaming services, Warner Bros. under Zaslav has been very reluctant to do the same. The majority of movies that have been written off for tax purposes have been HBO Max projects. 

 

Batgirl was meant to directly follow up the events of The Flash, so ditching the former while keeping the latter would’ve just confused people, unless they decided to reshoot all of Michael Keaton’s scenes with Ben Affleck. 

[SpiderByte]

Damn if only there were a family friendly property with a movie filmed with over the top slapstick that kids could enjoy. Something really... wily.

[El Squibbonator]

We should still be getting The Day The Earth Blew Up next year, hopefully. *crosses fingers*

Edited November 10, 2023 by El Squibbonator