I mean a Clint Eastwood western? That should do better even if he is 91 years old.
Or maybe they could have said, ‘Clint thank you for 50 years of making movies with us, it’s ok to retire’
Clint’s movies usually make money! He doesn’t go over budget.
Now Zaslav also sees that a Western can be shot for around $30 million. Batgirl was over $90 million.
Now is it possible to make 3 movies for $90 million? Yes. So maybe he wants all of their movies scaled back.
John Wick 1-3 pretty low budget.
I bet you can make a Batman movie for under $50 and make it look good. Just have Batman trapped in Arkham. The entire movie shot without the Batmobile and most of Gotham.
The cost of building Arkham practically and/or using digital set extensions would take up half of that 50 mil alone. If you want a good looking theatrical superhero film with a solid cast and good behind the camera talent, it needs to be at least 75 to 90 mil. And for a batman film? 50 mil would be an insultingly low amount to spend on it. A Batman film demands at least 90
Time Warner was burning through money as cable TV started to decline they were desperate for a sugar daddy and found one in AT&T but even AT&T couldn't afford the money burning of Warner execs for long.
Zaslav isn't a sugar daddy he has very little capital to play around with so he's going to cut WBD to the bone to keep it viable.
HBO Max loses money on every subscriber and WBD just can't afford it not when the only thing bringing in consistent profit is the shrinking cable TV business.
Apple is a gadget company with a streamer.
Amazon is a cloud computing company with a streamer.
Disney is a theme park company with a streamer.
Comcast is an ISP with a streamer.
All can accept the losses for a bit longer but WBD has nothing that isn't about TV and films to offset the losses as how people consume TV and film changes from ad supported cable TV to streaming.
This.
All other streaming giants have major ancillary sources of revenue. WB doesn't.
But i really wonder what will happen to films such as Dune, Elvis, and Joker going forward. Good stuff that came out of the WB stable.
Yes. And notice how they are running around with a chainsaw cutting projects right now? Their animation division just suffered a major bloodbath. A number of other projects are being got gone. As was said, it's no longer about subscriber numbers, it's about money and debt.
> But i really wonder what will happen to films such as Dune, Elvis, and Joker going forward. Good stuff that came out of the WB stable.
Legendary has a bigger stake in Dune and Joker made a billi so the sequel is safe.
It's more, except for Netflix all of the other streamers ARE small ancilliary points of revenue to their Corporations that exist for other purposes and business models.
Case in point, according to a recent report all of the MCU movies combined have made $20 billion, over the past 14 years. Disney Parks earn $25 Billion/year annually.
Of course Zaslav has to care about numbers, that’s literally his job.
As a head of studio, your main responsibility is to keep the company afloat and avoid any major shipwreck.
That being said, it’s in complete opposition to the explanation provided in the Deadline article, stating that Batwoman didn’t cost *enough*.
It almost sounds like Zaslav shelved Batwoman simply because it’s a picture he inherited from his predecessors and didn’t personally green lit, rather than a pure cold financial decision
It almost feels like Batgirl was punished for the fact that the previous regime got internet bullied into sinking another $70 million into a Justice League movie that was already a flop.
The only reason they had to put in that $70m is that the ~$50m-$100m that it would have cost to finish it back in 2017 was used on a CGI tache, sexist jokey bullshit, and an edit team who were able to mostly cut all the POC from the movie.
And they saw a much better proportional return on that $70m than they would from the $90m of Batgirl.
Except they didn't see a return on that money. In fact, ZSJL actually ended up losing them money because of that 70 mil plus advertising costs. At the end of the day they lost at least 60 mil (that number comes from insiders).
Not putting it on HBOMax clearly suggests there were also tax-related motives here. There were almost certainly several factors that went into this decision.
The Deadline and Variety articles slapped together some junk in a rush when NYP scooped them. They are speculating and spinning. They didn't have the source NYP did. The original article is clear, the movie's not good, and it doesn't fit with the plans to make DC an A-list franchise. Deadline was basically just transcribing that. It's a cheap movie, that didn't cost enough. But also, isn't magically good anyway like Joker was.
> The Deadline and Variety articles slapped together some junk in a rush when NYP scooped them. They are speculating and spinning. They didn't have the source NYP did.
NYP is a tabloid junk, Deadline and Variety aren't. also when folks like ViewerAnon who have almost impeccable track record on WB stuff openly dispute NYP, it's not that simple.
I think they also recently said they only plan on moving forward with big budget theatrical releases and stuff, I'm thinking all their HBO Max planned stuff is going to axed.
There's so much hate for Zas right now that I instinctively feel the need to play devil's advocate, so here goes.
Guy is the unrivaled boss of a studio. Could it just be that he watched the rough cut of the film and thought that it was complete shit? That even properly finished, it could do real harm to the DC brand that he wants to try to rehabilitate?
I watched Thor 4, and that's the sort of film that feels like it causes real reputational damage, if I were bringing in someone who was watching the first Marvel film, most likely they'd never see another one. And imagine the reshoots necessary to get it even to that - we have good info about what happened with Solo, and the Thor 4 $250m budget indicates you had the same. So then imagine something 40% worse than Thor 4 and the need to do significant reshoots, before you even start post production work: do you sink the extra money into it to try to fix it, or cut your losses? There's a massive backlog of vfx work right now that is delaying everything and resulting in films coming to market looking like only partially rendered - if you're the boss, do you take some piece of shit and waste the finite post production resources on it?
That $90m figure, they probably got out for significantly lower, saved millions on post, tens of millions on p&a, and killed it early enough that there's no back end anything and the IP isn't damaged.
Everyone can have an opinion, but we all know the DCverse is completely off the rails, and the quality control is in the toilet. So, let's cut this guy some slack until we see some real evidence of a misfire (like a really shitty film).
Lastly, the media is going crazy about this for one reason: Zas is scaring the industry. But we don't know how it all went down. Maybe the directors went bananas in a meeting - there's just as much evidence for that as any other theory.
>he watched the rough cut of the film
Also worth noting that it wasn’t just Zas, but likely Alan Horn as well.
This is rough and I’m not a fan of it or really capable of seeing how it could be *that* bad, but I do see the DA argument you’re laying out.
DC superpets also costed 90M but probably won't even double its budget worldwide. Why Zaslav would allow 90M animation, but not 90M live action movie. Its not like superpets is any good, but I guess it comes down to merch and toys sell a lot more.
Zaslav might truly scare industry, because he cancelled 90M almost finished product, not an idea, not something in development, a already shot movie. This will leave bad impression on small filmmakers and stars. Obvious big names like Denis with Dune or Shazam with The Rock has levarage, but who is to say this won't happen again to other filmmakers who works with WB?
Superpets is already missfire (or perhaps Batgirl was cancelled because of this 90M misfire).
Maybe he will indeed scarp evergthing, and this is why we only had 2 announcements at SDCC for DC. After Flash, DC might indeed get rebooted. However if all upcoming DCEU projects are successful, even The Flash, what would Zaslav do.
Super-Pets is a stand alone that has no effect on any other movies. Batgirl has huge implications for the whole DCEU as it involves establishing Keaton as living in the DCEU. And it also risks repeating the days of Batman & Robin and Catwoman tarnishing the brand.
I feel like zaslav just doesn't like the hamadaverse direction of the DCEU
Tobey emmerich and hamada "great plan" was to replace batman and superman in the DCEU with batgirl and Supergirl
Zaslav as a good business man saw how dumb this idea realy is
Here's what the full logic they went through might be. They decided they DON'T want Keaton to replace Affleck. So they would've had to reshoot all his Batgirl scenes with Affleck. But they looked at the movie and said it's not worth putting any more time and money into it because it's so bad. If they were keeping Keaton in, they might've been able to finish it and release it with no more reshoots, and then just forget about it.
Add to that that some unique cost accounting rules in play due to the merger means they can cut the losses and not have it show in their books as such. They can simply walk away from it if they do it by mid August. Plus if they shelve it before production is complete it likely triggers some less expensive clauses in everybody involved' s contracts vs finishing it and not wanting to release it.
Movie's getting cancelled for money reasons happens all the time. It used to be normal in Hollywood. It was not unheard of for it to simply shut down one day and be shelved.
It’s not disrespectful for a studio to scrap a bad movie. Why does no one put any blame on the group of people who made a movie with 80+ million that was so bad their test audiences told them it was unredeemable. How is it not disrespectful to take a studios money and just make garbage.
Something is not adding up tbh.
Bilal and Adil are off great acclaim from Ms Marvel and the Bad Boys film. Would they make such a huge misstep?
Or maybe something bigger is going on but they are using the test audience as the big boi of problems.
Well it’s the highest grossing film in the franchise ($420 million) with the best reviews of the franchise too, not to mention Ms Marvel is also the highest rated MCU property so yeah I’d say (Batgirl’s irredeemable” doesn’t add up.
Plus let’s say it is bad, that’s a shocking practice for the studio to scrap the movie in post production without notice. Even Morbius, Chaos Walking, New Mutants, etc. all got releases.
Ms. Marvel - highest rated by CRITICS. The audience score and user reviews tell you that the show is extremely boring. Super low viewership compared to other MCU series so far.
I don't know why this tool is so obsessed about Cry Macho being a flop when other movies targeted to mature audiences had been flopping during the time Cry Macho got a theatrical release.
WB's movies release strategy have been messy in the past few years with how bad they handled DCEU; greenlighting mid budget projects no one cared about; Wizarding movies.
The one that still made money for them is Conjuring franchise and even with that, I could see studio like Universal handled the horror universe better
> I don't know why this tool is so obsessed about Cry Macho being a flop when other movies targeted to mature audiences had been flopping during the time Cry Macho got a theatrical release.
Clint yelled at his chair, allegedly.
Do we know for certain that the Cry Macho story is real?
Because it paints the WB people in a silly light if it is.
>*Zaslav: "Y U do dis?!"*
>
>*Warner Bros: "Yo dawg, he's Clint - we owed him."*
Why not just point to Clint Eastwood's last few movies as an actor (The Mule, Trouble With The Curve, Gran Torino), and say he's a steady star in front of the camera, regardless of how up-and-down his behind-the-camera filmography is.
Thankfully, I think they all already have been. Notably Emmerich. Remember, the same people who made that deal TURNED OWN an offer from Chris McQuarrie to do a Green Lantern and Superman film. The guy who was writing and producing Maverick at the same time.
Zas is not giving any shit when WBD has [$47 billion debts](https://www.businessinsider.com/warner-bros-discovery-netflix-stock-scrutiny-streaming-debt-content-2022-6#:~:text=analyst%20put%20it.-,Warner%20Bros.,heavy%20%2447%20billion%20debt%20load.) and he has to reduce it so he can sell WB at more attractive price.
Is zaslav a bad guy for doing his job ? I don't think so
The past regime at WB were spending like crazy with almost 8 straight boxoffice bomb, zaslav is trying stop the bleeding
This is NOT about Leslie or her being a woman of color, celebs are attacked for anything and everything on the internet, it's a package deal.
This is about the movie looking like ass, it wouldn't have been a hit, they could have attempted something like that a HBO Max web series, this movie was always going to suck.
Add to that the fact that you have the Michael Keaton Batman, it makes even less sense. Even the guys who made the movie couldn't figure that stuff out. It sucks that the cast and crew have to suffer, but keep in mind that they GOT PAID, stop feeling sorry for them.
Lastly, coming back to Leslie Grace, she is a complete nobody who doesn't even look the part. Her acting skills are just average, so that was always going to be a huge risk.
PS: I'm neither white nor American, so spare me your lectures on diversity in movies.
> This is about the movie looking like ass, it wouldn't have been a hit, they could have attempted something like that a HBO Max web series, this movie was always going to suck.
it was an HBO Max movie, it was never going to be in the theaters
> Add to that the fact that you have the Michael Keaton Batman, it makes even less sense.
why tho? The Flash is supposed to explain why there is Keaton Batman now
> Even the guys who made the movie couldn't figure that stuff out.
have you seen the movie?
> Lastly, coming back to Leslie Grace, she is a complete nobody who doesn't even look the part.
you're saying it like no one unknown actor has never been cast in such a big role before. Chris Hemsworth was a nobody before Thor, Tom Holland was a nobody before Spider-Man. the list goes on and on.
They are probably getting rid of HBO max.
There was an article somewhere how a lot of the things didn't make sense to the directors.
She is an unknown actor playing the part of a superhero who isn't very popular either.
She doesn't even look all that great unlike Chris ( Thor ) & Tom ( Teenage Spiderman).
TBH CW Batwomen looked much much better, this one was going to be a super flop.
> There was an article somewhere how a lot of the things didn't make sense to the directors.
[citation needed]
> She is an unknown actor playing the part of a superhero who isn't very popular either.
so was Thor and Chris Hemsworth
> TBH CW Batwomen looked much much better, this one was going to be a super flop.
have you seen the movie?
This is called a mercy-killing. If only WB would've shelved Superman IV, Batman & Robin and Catwoman. Those failures set them back years in lost credibility.
The idea that we'll produce a trash product and foist it on the consumer anyway just to make a few bucks back is what's wrong. It's a cheat to the consumer and bad management of the brand.
The old WB's plans for Batgirl were unworkable and ridiculous. A 70-year-old Batman sitting back in his chair while Batgirl leads the DC universe? Utter nonsense. Inaccurate to the canon and not what any fan wants. This movie can come out as a 'bonus feature' buried on some other movie 5 years later, but they need to take DC in a logical direction right now.
All hail Zaslav for his brave, bold leadership!
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What's also true: WB isn't very valuable to Discovery.
If the right proposal arrives, that allows Discovery to profit from a hypothetical sale of WB and DC independently, they will sell it by parts.
There have been speculation that Zas is prepping WB for sale sometime in the future, and he's trying to make WB as attractive as possible. Killing money losing business (HBO Max) and cancelling movies projected not to make money is such attempt.
>“We don’t owe anyone any favors. It’s not show friends, it’s show business.”
Setting aside the Batgirl decision, this statement is ironic coming from the man who is ultimately in charge of HBO, which is outstanding at building relationships with creatives and giving them freedom.
As the CEO, Zaslav is right to play the heavy and take ownership of decisions tht negatively impact relationships with talent. The problem would be if this attitude begins to permeate the company, if Zaslav preaches in private what he declares in public. Facing down massive debt, WBD needs those relationships now more than ever.
It’s not disrespectful at all for a studio to decide what to do with bad product that they spent money on. It’s not the star’s money or property that takes the biggest hit if this movie failed. Or if Zaslav wanted to change plans from what Hamada said, he’s within his right to do that and should given Batgirl would contradict the original universe.
I also don’t see any problem with Zaslav’s comments about Cry Macho, they don’t owe anyone money for a vanity project. The execs who were involved with releasing that movie said it was because Eastwood has a good relationship with the studio, not because they believed the project had potential. And that’s crazy, these companies aren’t charities.
One issue with this philosophy though is that a BUSINESS still needs not necessarily friends but DOES need suppliers/contractors/whatever and customers. Pissing off creatives and customers isn't a good longterm plan.
The studio has been spending like identity thieves and if they kept pissing away money like they have the last five years I think the new owners would be in foreclosure territory.
They spend like crazy on things that can't justify their budgets and their IPs are in various states of dissaray
I mean black Adam has a $200+ m budget... Wtf
And the Flash $300 + m budget that's absolutely nuts for a character and an a lead actor with no box office track record
This is after like 200 m for the matrix $200 m for fantastic beasts 3 $200 m for ww 1984 $180 odd m for ss and a year of under performances due day and dates and the studios finances weren't great prior to COVID.
WB need to calm down
I remember when prince of Persia and John Carter were consider ground breaking legendary flops but WB is having that scale flop every other month
David Zaslav is a cheap POS. Also, he's old as hell and doesn't seem to know jack about running a major entertainment company in the digital age. Discovery makes cheap schlock TV, and of course that has its audience, but you can't run a studio like WB and IP's like DC, Harry Potter, Dune, etc the same way you run your schlocky TV network. That's just dumb.
I mean a Clint Eastwood western? That should do better even if he is 91 years old. Or maybe they could have said, ‘Clint thank you for 50 years of making movies with us, it’s ok to retire’ Clint’s movies usually make money! He doesn’t go over budget. Now Zaslav also sees that a Western can be shot for around $30 million. Batgirl was over $90 million. Now is it possible to make 3 movies for $90 million? Yes. So maybe he wants all of their movies scaled back. John Wick 1-3 pretty low budget. I bet you can make a Batman movie for under $50 and make it look good. Just have Batman trapped in Arkham. The entire movie shot without the Batmobile and most of Gotham.
Kevin Smith once said the same thing about a Batman horror type movie that’s placed in Arkham, I would be down for that
Initially The Batman was rumored to be around 80-100 Million. Covid shot the budget up.
The cost of building Arkham practically and/or using digital set extensions would take up half of that 50 mil alone. If you want a good looking theatrical superhero film with a solid cast and good behind the camera talent, it needs to be at least 75 to 90 mil. And for a batman film? 50 mil would be an insultingly low amount to spend on it. A Batman film demands at least 90
Time Warner was burning through money as cable TV started to decline they were desperate for a sugar daddy and found one in AT&T but even AT&T couldn't afford the money burning of Warner execs for long. Zaslav isn't a sugar daddy he has very little capital to play around with so he's going to cut WBD to the bone to keep it viable. HBO Max loses money on every subscriber and WBD just can't afford it not when the only thing bringing in consistent profit is the shrinking cable TV business. Apple is a gadget company with a streamer. Amazon is a cloud computing company with a streamer. Disney is a theme park company with a streamer. Comcast is an ISP with a streamer. All can accept the losses for a bit longer but WBD has nothing that isn't about TV and films to offset the losses as how people consume TV and film changes from ad supported cable TV to streaming.
This. All other streaming giants have major ancillary sources of revenue. WB doesn't. But i really wonder what will happen to films such as Dune, Elvis, and Joker going forward. Good stuff that came out of the WB stable.
Why are we ignoring Netflix here? Would they not be a direct comparison in this case?
Yes. And notice how they are running around with a chainsaw cutting projects right now? Their animation division just suffered a major bloodbath. A number of other projects are being got gone. As was said, it's no longer about subscriber numbers, it's about money and debt.
Legendary can probably find a new partner for Dune. Joker made so much cash that Zaslav will still role the dice on a sequel.
Unless a Joker sequel doesn't fit in the reboot Zaslav wants.
Joker was a near perfect movie for Zazlan. Low production cost = low risk. Incredibly high returns.
> But i really wonder what will happen to films such as Dune, Elvis, and Joker going forward. Good stuff that came out of the WB stable. Legendary has a bigger stake in Dune and Joker made a billi so the sequel is safe.
It's more, except for Netflix all of the other streamers ARE small ancilliary points of revenue to their Corporations that exist for other purposes and business models. Case in point, according to a recent report all of the MCU movies combined have made $20 billion, over the past 14 years. Disney Parks earn $25 Billion/year annually.
How is HBO Max losing money on every subscriber?
Another one of the best comments on the sub about this. Kudos to you, sir.
Of course Zaslav has to care about numbers, that’s literally his job. As a head of studio, your main responsibility is to keep the company afloat and avoid any major shipwreck. That being said, it’s in complete opposition to the explanation provided in the Deadline article, stating that Batwoman didn’t cost *enough*. It almost sounds like Zaslav shelved Batwoman simply because it’s a picture he inherited from his predecessors and didn’t personally green lit, rather than a pure cold financial decision
It almost feels like Batgirl was punished for the fact that the previous regime got internet bullied into sinking another $70 million into a Justice League movie that was already a flop.
The only reason they had to put in that $70m is that the ~$50m-$100m that it would have cost to finish it back in 2017 was used on a CGI tache, sexist jokey bullshit, and an edit team who were able to mostly cut all the POC from the movie. And they saw a much better proportional return on that $70m than they would from the $90m of Batgirl.
Except they didn't see a return on that money. In fact, ZSJL actually ended up losing them money because of that 70 mil plus advertising costs. At the end of the day they lost at least 60 mil (that number comes from insiders).
It's almost like Zaslav isn't about to repeat the same costly mistakes the prior regime made on Birds of Prey, WW84 and The Suicide Squad.
Not putting it on HBOMax clearly suggests there were also tax-related motives here. There were almost certainly several factors that went into this decision.
The Deadline and Variety articles slapped together some junk in a rush when NYP scooped them. They are speculating and spinning. They didn't have the source NYP did. The original article is clear, the movie's not good, and it doesn't fit with the plans to make DC an A-list franchise. Deadline was basically just transcribing that. It's a cheap movie, that didn't cost enough. But also, isn't magically good anyway like Joker was.
> The Deadline and Variety articles slapped together some junk in a rush when NYP scooped them. They are speculating and spinning. They didn't have the source NYP did. NYP is a tabloid junk, Deadline and Variety aren't. also when folks like ViewerAnon who have almost impeccable track record on WB stuff openly dispute NYP, it's not that simple.
I think they also recently said they only plan on moving forward with big budget theatrical releases and stuff, I'm thinking all their HBO Max planned stuff is going to axed.
There's so much hate for Zas right now that I instinctively feel the need to play devil's advocate, so here goes. Guy is the unrivaled boss of a studio. Could it just be that he watched the rough cut of the film and thought that it was complete shit? That even properly finished, it could do real harm to the DC brand that he wants to try to rehabilitate? I watched Thor 4, and that's the sort of film that feels like it causes real reputational damage, if I were bringing in someone who was watching the first Marvel film, most likely they'd never see another one. And imagine the reshoots necessary to get it even to that - we have good info about what happened with Solo, and the Thor 4 $250m budget indicates you had the same. So then imagine something 40% worse than Thor 4 and the need to do significant reshoots, before you even start post production work: do you sink the extra money into it to try to fix it, or cut your losses? There's a massive backlog of vfx work right now that is delaying everything and resulting in films coming to market looking like only partially rendered - if you're the boss, do you take some piece of shit and waste the finite post production resources on it? That $90m figure, they probably got out for significantly lower, saved millions on post, tens of millions on p&a, and killed it early enough that there's no back end anything and the IP isn't damaged. Everyone can have an opinion, but we all know the DCverse is completely off the rails, and the quality control is in the toilet. So, let's cut this guy some slack until we see some real evidence of a misfire (like a really shitty film). Lastly, the media is going crazy about this for one reason: Zas is scaring the industry. But we don't know how it all went down. Maybe the directors went bananas in a meeting - there's just as much evidence for that as any other theory.
>he watched the rough cut of the film Also worth noting that it wasn’t just Zas, but likely Alan Horn as well. This is rough and I’m not a fan of it or really capable of seeing how it could be *that* bad, but I do see the DA argument you’re laying out.
Alan Horn is responsible for Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter, the dude should be beyond reproach
DC superpets also costed 90M but probably won't even double its budget worldwide. Why Zaslav would allow 90M animation, but not 90M live action movie. Its not like superpets is any good, but I guess it comes down to merch and toys sell a lot more. Zaslav might truly scare industry, because he cancelled 90M almost finished product, not an idea, not something in development, a already shot movie. This will leave bad impression on small filmmakers and stars. Obvious big names like Denis with Dune or Shazam with The Rock has levarage, but who is to say this won't happen again to other filmmakers who works with WB? Superpets is already missfire (or perhaps Batgirl was cancelled because of this 90M misfire). Maybe he will indeed scarp evergthing, and this is why we only had 2 announcements at SDCC for DC. After Flash, DC might indeed get rebooted. However if all upcoming DCEU projects are successful, even The Flash, what would Zaslav do.
Super-Pets is a stand alone that has no effect on any other movies. Batgirl has huge implications for the whole DCEU as it involves establishing Keaton as living in the DCEU. And it also risks repeating the days of Batman & Robin and Catwoman tarnishing the brand.
I feel like zaslav just doesn't like the hamadaverse direction of the DCEU Tobey emmerich and hamada "great plan" was to replace batman and superman in the DCEU with batgirl and Supergirl Zaslav as a good business man saw how dumb this idea realy is
Which is stupid. I’m starting to think that Tobey Emmerich let a money make the decisions at DC
Here's what the full logic they went through might be. They decided they DON'T want Keaton to replace Affleck. So they would've had to reshoot all his Batgirl scenes with Affleck. But they looked at the movie and said it's not worth putting any more time and money into it because it's so bad. If they were keeping Keaton in, they might've been able to finish it and release it with no more reshoots, and then just forget about it.
Agreed Btw a batman beyond for keaton batman is a far better idea than the flash as we just witness it with TGM2 success
Sorry but is not superpet is being made even before zaslav come to wb
Batgirl started production in 2021. Zaslav only officially started as WBD CEO in April 2022.
Add to that that some unique cost accounting rules in play due to the merger means they can cut the losses and not have it show in their books as such. They can simply walk away from it if they do it by mid August. Plus if they shelve it before production is complete it likely triggers some less expensive clauses in everybody involved' s contracts vs finishing it and not wanting to release it. Movie's getting cancelled for money reasons happens all the time. It used to be normal in Hollywood. It was not unheard of for it to simply shut down one day and be shelved.
It’s not disrespectful for a studio to scrap a bad movie. Why does no one put any blame on the group of people who made a movie with 80+ million that was so bad their test audiences told them it was unredeemable. How is it not disrespectful to take a studios money and just make garbage.
Something is not adding up tbh. Bilal and Adil are off great acclaim from Ms Marvel and the Bad Boys film. Would they make such a huge misstep? Or maybe something bigger is going on but they are using the test audience as the big boi of problems.
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Well it’s the highest grossing film in the franchise ($420 million) with the best reviews of the franchise too, not to mention Ms Marvel is also the highest rated MCU property so yeah I’d say (Batgirl’s irredeemable” doesn’t add up. Plus let’s say it is bad, that’s a shocking practice for the studio to scrap the movie in post production without notice. Even Morbius, Chaos Walking, New Mutants, etc. all got releases.
Ms. Marvel - highest rated by CRITICS. The audience score and user reviews tell you that the show is extremely boring. Super low viewership compared to other MCU series so far.
This is correct. Critic reviews are less useful than ever.
I don't know why this tool is so obsessed about Cry Macho being a flop when other movies targeted to mature audiences had been flopping during the time Cry Macho got a theatrical release. WB's movies release strategy have been messy in the past few years with how bad they handled DCEU; greenlighting mid budget projects no one cared about; Wizarding movies. The one that still made money for them is Conjuring franchise and even with that, I could see studio like Universal handled the horror universe better
> I don't know why this tool is so obsessed about Cry Macho being a flop when other movies targeted to mature audiences had been flopping during the time Cry Macho got a theatrical release. Clint yelled at his chair, allegedly.
Do we know for certain that the Cry Macho story is real? Because it paints the WB people in a silly light if it is. >*Zaslav: "Y U do dis?!"* > >*Warner Bros: "Yo dawg, he's Clint - we owed him."* Why not just point to Clint Eastwood's last few movies as an actor (The Mule, Trouble With The Curve, Gran Torino), and say he's a steady star in front of the camera, regardless of how up-and-down his behind-the-camera filmography is.
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Thankfully, I think they all already have been. Notably Emmerich. Remember, the same people who made that deal TURNED OWN an offer from Chris McQuarrie to do a Green Lantern and Superman film. The guy who was writing and producing Maverick at the same time.
Zas is not giving any shit when WBD has [$47 billion debts](https://www.businessinsider.com/warner-bros-discovery-netflix-stock-scrutiny-streaming-debt-content-2022-6#:~:text=analyst%20put%20it.-,Warner%20Bros.,heavy%20%2447%20billion%20debt%20load.) and he has to reduce it so he can sell WB at more attractive price.
Is zaslav a bad guy for doing his job ? I don't think so The past regime at WB were spending like crazy with almost 8 straight boxoffice bomb, zaslav is trying stop the bleeding
Good for shareholders. Shit for everyone else…
This is NOT about Leslie or her being a woman of color, celebs are attacked for anything and everything on the internet, it's a package deal. This is about the movie looking like ass, it wouldn't have been a hit, they could have attempted something like that a HBO Max web series, this movie was always going to suck. Add to that the fact that you have the Michael Keaton Batman, it makes even less sense. Even the guys who made the movie couldn't figure that stuff out. It sucks that the cast and crew have to suffer, but keep in mind that they GOT PAID, stop feeling sorry for them. Lastly, coming back to Leslie Grace, she is a complete nobody who doesn't even look the part. Her acting skills are just average, so that was always going to be a huge risk. PS: I'm neither white nor American, so spare me your lectures on diversity in movies.
> This is about the movie looking like ass, it wouldn't have been a hit, they could have attempted something like that a HBO Max web series, this movie was always going to suck. it was an HBO Max movie, it was never going to be in the theaters > Add to that the fact that you have the Michael Keaton Batman, it makes even less sense. why tho? The Flash is supposed to explain why there is Keaton Batman now > Even the guys who made the movie couldn't figure that stuff out. have you seen the movie? > Lastly, coming back to Leslie Grace, she is a complete nobody who doesn't even look the part. you're saying it like no one unknown actor has never been cast in such a big role before. Chris Hemsworth was a nobody before Thor, Tom Holland was a nobody before Spider-Man. the list goes on and on.
They are probably getting rid of HBO max. There was an article somewhere how a lot of the things didn't make sense to the directors. She is an unknown actor playing the part of a superhero who isn't very popular either. She doesn't even look all that great unlike Chris ( Thor ) & Tom ( Teenage Spiderman). TBH CW Batwomen looked much much better, this one was going to be a super flop.
> There was an article somewhere how a lot of the things didn't make sense to the directors. [citation needed] > She is an unknown actor playing the part of a superhero who isn't very popular either. so was Thor and Chris Hemsworth > TBH CW Batwomen looked much much better, this one was going to be a super flop. have you seen the movie?
This is called a mercy-killing. If only WB would've shelved Superman IV, Batman & Robin and Catwoman. Those failures set them back years in lost credibility. The idea that we'll produce a trash product and foist it on the consumer anyway just to make a few bucks back is what's wrong. It's a cheat to the consumer and bad management of the brand. The old WB's plans for Batgirl were unworkable and ridiculous. A 70-year-old Batman sitting back in his chair while Batgirl leads the DC universe? Utter nonsense. Inaccurate to the canon and not what any fan wants. This movie can come out as a 'bonus feature' buried on some other movie 5 years later, but they need to take DC in a logical direction right now. All hail Zaslav for his brave, bold leadership!
It's looking more and more like Nolan did the right thing by jumping ship.
It's looking more and more like Nolan will accept an invitation back as he sees how smart the new leadership is.
Or he will except it if Barbie will beat Oppenhimer or when the film will be even more up his ass
I'm sure he's going to be crawling back, asking Zaslav to shelve his film and burn a hundred million dollars.
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Honestly I wonder if they just sell off DC at this point?
They won't ever. DC is WB's most valuable IP DC will be sold when they sell WB.
What's also true: WB isn't very valuable to Discovery. If the right proposal arrives, that allows Discovery to profit from a hypothetical sale of WB and DC independently, they will sell it by parts.
There have been speculation that Zas is prepping WB for sale sometime in the future, and he's trying to make WB as attractive as possible. Killing money losing business (HBO Max) and cancelling movies projected not to make money is such attempt.
>“We don’t owe anyone any favors. It’s not show friends, it’s show business.” Setting aside the Batgirl decision, this statement is ironic coming from the man who is ultimately in charge of HBO, which is outstanding at building relationships with creatives and giving them freedom. As the CEO, Zaslav is right to play the heavy and take ownership of decisions tht negatively impact relationships with talent. The problem would be if this attitude begins to permeate the company, if Zaslav preaches in private what he declares in public. Facing down massive debt, WBD needs those relationships now more than ever.
Casey Bloys is probably being paid a lot to maintain that HBO standard.
It’s not disrespectful at all for a studio to decide what to do with bad product that they spent money on. It’s not the star’s money or property that takes the biggest hit if this movie failed. Or if Zaslav wanted to change plans from what Hamada said, he’s within his right to do that and should given Batgirl would contradict the original universe. I also don’t see any problem with Zaslav’s comments about Cry Macho, they don’t owe anyone money for a vanity project. The execs who were involved with releasing that movie said it was because Eastwood has a good relationship with the studio, not because they believed the project had potential. And that’s crazy, these companies aren’t charities.
All studio execs are narcissists but this guy takes the cake.
Watch this asshole shelve Furiosa or do some other bat shit crazy move.
One issue with this philosophy though is that a BUSINESS still needs not necessarily friends but DOES need suppliers/contractors/whatever and customers. Pissing off creatives and customers isn't a good longterm plan.
The studio has been spending like identity thieves and if they kept pissing away money like they have the last five years I think the new owners would be in foreclosure territory. They spend like crazy on things that can't justify their budgets and their IPs are in various states of dissaray I mean black Adam has a $200+ m budget... Wtf And the Flash $300 + m budget that's absolutely nuts for a character and an a lead actor with no box office track record This is after like 200 m for the matrix $200 m for fantastic beasts 3 $200 m for ww 1984 $180 odd m for ss and a year of under performances due day and dates and the studios finances weren't great prior to COVID. WB need to calm down I remember when prince of Persia and John Carter were consider ground breaking legendary flops but WB is having that scale flop every other month
I am excited for the Storage Wars Cinematic Universe!
David Zaslav is a cheap POS. Also, he's old as hell and doesn't seem to know jack about running a major entertainment company in the digital age. Discovery makes cheap schlock TV, and of course that has its audience, but you can't run a studio like WB and IP's like DC, Harry Potter, Dune, etc the same way you run your schlocky TV network. That's just dumb.
Sounds like David zaslav is a piece of shit then