{"id":833746,"date":"2025-03-13T12:12:49","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T17:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/13\/zaslav-wasnt-happy-about-joker-2-failure\/"},"modified":"2025-03-13T12:12:49","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T17:12:49","slug":"zaslav-wasnt-happy-about-joker-2-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/13\/zaslav-wasnt-happy-about-joker-2-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"Zaslav Wasn\u2019t Happy About \u201cJoker 2\u201d Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Warner Bros. Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

A new report at Bloomberg<\/a> has gone into how Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. CEO David Zaslav is not too happy about the misfires Warner Bros. Pictures has had recently.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cJoker: Folie \u00e0 Deux.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In a closed-door meeting, Zaslav reportedly \u201crailed against the performance of the film\u2026 [and] decried the mounting costs of the studio\u2019s upcoming releases\u201d. A WB spokesperson disputed the trade source\u2019s description of the meeting, calling it a \u201cstraightforward Joker 2 postmortem\u201d.<\/p>\n

The report indicates the movie studio\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 from the various DC flops to losing Christopher Nolan to Universal.<\/p>\n

De Luca and Abdy\u2019s appointments appeared to right the ship, the pair putting faith and financing into acclaimed directors making original projects. Unfortunately, it\u2019s not clear if that will pay off. Next month\u2019s Bong Joon Ho-directed \u201cMickey 17\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

At least $130 million has been spent on Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s new film despite his highest-grossing film to date being \u201cThere Will Be Blood\u201d at $76 million, while Ryan Coogler\u2019s \u201cSinners\u201d is already coming in at a cost of at least $90 million.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s why Warners will have more IP-driven titles in its line-up soon with new \u201cSuperman,\u201d \u201cFinal Destination,\u201d \u201cMortal Kombat\u201d and \u201cThe Cat in the Hat\u201d films this year along with the \u201cMinecraft\u201d movie and Apple\u2019s \u201cF1\u201d.<\/p>\n

MoffettNathanson analyst Robert Fishman says: \u201cClearly the focus needs to be on the returns and how the film studio is going to make more money going forward.\u201d Costs are down with the average net production cost of Warner Bros. films down from $168 million to $106 million.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Garth Franklin
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warner Bros. Pictures 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":833747,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3389,104045],"tags":[15049,142449],"class_list":{"0":"post-833746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wasnt","8":"category-zaslav","9":"tag-wasnt","10":"tag-zaslav"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}