When asked about the cancellation of Batgirl, David Zaslav, the current head of the new conglomerate Warner Bros. Discovery, said that “We are not going to release a movie until it is ready”, while emphasizing that a plan is in the works. 10 years for the DC cinematic universe.
Now Warner has also canceled “Batman: Caped Crusader” and “Merry Little Batman”, among four other animation projects. But, as published yesterday by the specialized site IndieWire, unlike “Batgirl”, which is already unrecoverable, these titles were only in the initial stage and their respective makers will continue negotiating with other studios. The same publication, citing an undisclosed industry source, said that the new conglomerate has decided to step aside from this target due to its high costs and the insecurity of recovery, removing its streaming network, HBO Max, from the game. of a field so competitive that today Disney Plus dominates, especially through Marvel products. Netflix also joins that fight.
Previous HBO Max owners Jason Kilar and Ann Sarnoff had released all of last year’s programming simultaneously in theaters and on the streaming network, infuriating theater owners and actors and directors alike. Zaslav has a very different game, although more drastic.
Although HBO Max no longer wants the animated projects on Batman, it will negotiate with other studios (from which, for obvious reasons, Disney and Netflix will be excluded). Those projects include a couple of Looney Tunes movies. At Warner Bros. Animation, they take advantage of HBO Max’s departure as an opportunity to take the famous characters to other places. It won’t be the first time this has happened with Warner’s intellectual property: “Animaniacs” is about to air its third season on Hulu (and only on Hulu); “Green Eggs and Ham” was on Netflix for two seasons, and the adult “Flintstones,” “Bedrock,” is currently in development at Fox.
The cancellation of “Batgirl,” which cost $90 million to make, worked as an allowable payback within months of the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger. Zaslav’s team made other cuts to underperforming movies and shows on HBO Max’s existing slate. This is all because the company’s shares are in decline, currently sitting at half the price they started at in April. Things are not going well for the young merger and its $55 billion in debt, hence the cutbacks.
Surprisingly, Zaslav has said that his goal is to make DC Comics (holder of the Superman, Batman, etc. brands) a “Marvel-like machine” in the long run. It will prioritize theaters, especially when it comes to DC releases, but animation has been hit particularly hard by Zaslav’s decision, which needs to muster up $3 billion in savings.
Source: Ambito
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