Warner Bros Discovery is trying to pay off its mountain of debt by selling its musical assets, it’s being reported. More here.
Whichever way you come at it, this story does not read well. According to Variety, Warner Bros Discovery is planning to sell around half of its film and TV music-publishing assets for $500m. Whilst it isn’t clear exactly what’s part of the deal, it’s believed that there’s some pretty prominent music included. Compositions from Purple Rain, Evita, Sweeney Todd, Rent, and several Batman films are all said to be part of the package, with Sony said to be in pole position to snatch up the rights.
This isn’t the first instance of Warner Bros selling off or ‘disappearing’ assets to save a buck or two. From the Batgirl debacle to removing films and TV shows from streaming platform Max, or even outright selling shows like Paul Dini’s new Batman animated series, nothing is sacred since the merger with Discovery. If there’s copper in the walls or lead in the roof over at Warner Bros HQ in Burbank, we suspect CEO David Zaslav probably has his eye on it.
With rumours swirling that the Warner Bros Discovery merger was simply a precursor to make the two companies more attractive for a larger future acquisition, Zaslav is stripping the company of any assets that are deemed as ‘declining’ to make things look as lean and as profitable as possible. We’d suggest reminding him that value can exist in more than one form but he’s probably too busy seeing what other hallowed parts of the company he can sell. Happy 100th birthday, Warner Bros.
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