A new report at Bloomberg has gone into how Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. CEO David Zaslav is not too happy about the misfires Warner Bros. Pictures has had recently.
The outlet indicates Zaslav summoned Warner Bros. Pictures co-chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy to company headquarters in New York after the critical and commercial disaster that was “Joker: Folie à Deux.”
That film famously cost four times as much to make as its predecessor but earned only one-fifth of the box-office revenue of the original. De Luca and Abdy supervised the project from start to finish after joining Warner Bros. in 2022.
In a closed-door meeting, Zaslav reportedly “railed against the performance of the film… [and] decried the mounting costs of the studio’s upcoming releases”. A WB spokesperson disputed the trade source’s description of the meeting, calling it a “straightforward Joker 2 postmortem”.
The report indicates the movie studio’s struggles have weighed on earnings at parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, which has lost more than half its market value since the $43 billion merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia in 2022.
Warner Bros. Pictures used to be one of the most stable and profitable studios in Hollywood but was lagging behind rivals Disney and Universal. In addition it had been having issues (eg. DC, Harry Potter) well before the Discovery takeover – from the various DC flops to losing Christopher Nolan to Universal.
De Luca and Abdy’s appointments appeared to right the ship, the pair putting faith and financing into acclaimed directors making original projects. Unfortunately, it’s not clear if that will pay off. Next month’s Bong Joon Ho-directed “Mickey 17” cost more than $100 million to produce but the film is tracking for an opening weekend of no more than $20 million in North America.
At least $130 million has been spent on Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film despite his highest-grossing film to date being “There Will Be Blood” at $76 million, while Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” is already coming in at a cost of at least $90 million.
The most successful box-office these days is tied to existing IP and properties that can produce sequels, consumer products, spinoff series and more. That’s why Warners will have more IP-driven titles in its line-up soon with new “Superman,” “Final Destination,” “Mortal Kombat” and “The Cat in the Hat” films this year along with the “Minecraft” movie and Apple’s “F1”.
MoffettNathanson analyst Robert Fishman says: “Clearly the focus needs to be on the returns and how the film studio is going to make more money going forward.” Costs are down with the average net production cost of Warner Bros. films down from $168 million to $106 million.
Garth Franklin
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