Warner Bros Discovery boss David Zaslav wants more ‘big IP’ franchise films, fewer filmmaker-driven projects. More here.
As much as Warner Bros Discovery, under the stewardship of CEO David Zaslav, has given the impression that films sometimes are more an accounting inconvenience than something to be cherished, it’s also the studio of late that’s been taking the biggest swings.
Movies such as Joker: Folie A Deux, Sinners, The Alto Knights, One Battle After Another and Mickey 17 are all on the studio’s recent slate and sadly, none of them stand much chance of turning an immediate profit. They’re movies, of course, so they live forever (assuming the studio doesn’t delete them), and will thus keep earning money. But in a Hollywood dominated by quarterly reports, they’re not cutting the commercial mustard.
Not unexpectedly, but sadly, there’s a course correction on the way. As per The Hollywood Reporter, the new direction for Warner Bros Discovery on the movie side is to move away from ‘filmmaker-driven fare’ and focusing instead on ‘big IP’. Franchises, blockbusters and sequels look like being the order of the day, with Zaslav said to be ‘unhappy’ with the money that movie studio bosses Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca have spent on certain productions.
Adby and De Luca are widely expecting to be departing their roles over the next month or two, and it seems to be an open secret in Hollywood that Zaslav is hunting for successors for the pair. Zaslav’s own job looks perfectly secure, as is the modern way.
The future, then, looks like Disney and Warner Bros focusing on a small collection of big films, and everyone else left to take the risks and gambles going forward. It’s not been the best of times for cinema takings in recent years, as you don’t need us to tell you.
More on all of this as we hear it, of course. Hopefully there’s some good news in the midst of it all. Who knows? If Ryan Coogler’s Sinners becomes a huge hit – and here’s hoping it does – there may yet be room within Warner Bros for more films of its ilk. Crossing a lot of fingers…
