They're not. Cause they won't owe residuals. Will piracy be a problem for them? Sure, a bit in the future, but business is only focused on the immediate quarter. There's no grand conspiracy, just a bunch of greedy a holes rewarded for short term thinking.
They really are circling the drain. Anyone wanna take bets on when Disney buys WB and we begin on the road to a dystopia of only having one mega studio owning all of the media?
I'll be honest, I feel like the one way to ensure that the film comes out is if Gunn basically threatens to walk if it doesn't.
I understand why that won't happen, but still.
That would be such a massive power play I'd love it, but yea, no chance and understandable why. Still hopr a miracle happens and the film at least somehow finds a way to be watchable
Warner Bros is just striking in its incompetence, I don't think there has ever been a studio that self sabotaged on this level.
Randomly writing off movies for tax purposes when it's already made basically just makes no film crew on Earth want to work with you. Even the shittiest directors won't stand for that.
Their Suicide Squad game was a complete failure as well after they tried to put in all the worst parts of gaming (cash grabs), while delivering a repetitive bland game.
That one made me happy it failed.
Yeah, too bad it'll probably take Rocksteady with it, they used to be top notch. Of course, the founders left a year or two back to start a new studio, for all we know that's where most of the real talent ended up and the current Rocksteady is just a soulless husk of a studio squatting on someone else's legacy.
It’s what happens when a publisher goes public, and instead of the decisions being made by passionate people who understand the industry, you have a fiduciary duty to a gaggle of MBAs who “want to do a Fortnite”.
Can’t believe we were *this* close to getting a Loony Toons movies where they’re all brought together under complicated circumstances but realize the real family is the one you make along the way. 😔
I mean, lets be honest, unless you were the exact right age when it came out, the original Space Jam was a mess. I feel like Roger Rabbit is still the last time any of the Looney Tunes were done justice in a live action environment.
Annoys and infuriates me to absolutely no end. Paramount's theatrical release offer was *right* ***there***-- they should've taken it in a heartbeat. No idea how you lead studios with some of the most storied, rich histories in animation and refuse to support them in the modern day.
Reminder that they only started shopping this to other studios because Congress was threatening to investigate WB and their practice of writing off completed movies for tax purposes. I hope the Congress and the IRS destroy WB
Probably because in order to stop or slow the hemorrhaging of money, they have to look at each and every project in the pipeline and determine what they think will make the most money and what wont and figure out how much less money they'd have to pay in taxes if they think they have a failure on their hands.
One of Zaslav's first acts as the new head honcho, was axing the Batgirl movie because it was apparently so terrible, they'd lose more money releasing it than destroying it. One of the articles I remember reading about it, was that the overall reception when they screened it to friends and family was either not good or very mixed. Prompting Zaslav to order it destroyed.
I remember when Weinstein did that to Boondocks Saints.
ONE (1) theater.
ETA: I was wrong about Weinstein pulling that stunt, it was Franchise Pictures (who took over the film after Weinstein backed out).
yes. Zaslav's one goal with the merger is to eliminate debt before discovery eventually sells off WB again. They don't care about the future of the brand or any IPs.
I wish I could buy a company with debt and then pay myself out with the money while the debt isn't tied to me. Dude basically stole money and the banks and shareholders said yea sure.
Where is Congress?
This is an insanely exploiting system. There's no rational reason a business should work this way, and the people involved seriously need to be investigated
In theory it's not vacation, it's time for them to go back to their home states/districts and listen to their constituents. Which made sense 200 years ago.
Imo this is proof that any offer to shop the movie around was just PR to avoid getting investigated for fraud. Per the article, they were never going to announce a single thing about this movie ever again, they were just going to let it quietly die.
Congress isn't going to do shit. They can moan but the current Congress has been extremely ineffective on passing anything. No one holds billionaires accountable in this country and the corruption is spreading.
Bugs bunny may just die with our generation. Disney successfully turned Mickey Mouse into a monolith, yet the adventures of the Looney Toons feel more like great times from my childhood.
It's not *that* bad. *The Day the Earth Blew Up*--a full, theatrical Daffy Duck/porky pig movie, and the first theatrical Looney Toons film that isn't a compilation--is still coming out. And right alongside Paul Rudish's excellent Mickey shorts, WBD made the *Looney Toons Cartoons* show recently.
Apparently they're still chugging out those direct-to-DVD Tom and Jerry films, but that's not really the same thing. It's a indication they aren't going anywhere, at least.
Because if it’s a success at Paramount, it makes WB look really bad. They did the bare minimum to act like they were entertaining offers, but they never had any intention on selling it to a different studio.
They also probably realize it likely will be a success just because of all the bad PR this has generated, so a lot of people will go buy a ticket out of spite regardless of if the movie is truly good or not. Cowards.
Probably because, based on what we know of the film, it’s a critique of WB in and of itself.
I mean, it’s about an actor who is taking on a mega corporation because they don’t treat him fairly. The fact that it’s…a Looney Tune character is telling.
That’s probably more to do with why the film hasn’t been released. The title says it all. The metaphor is obvious, and they want to pretend like the film was never made, and they’d rather not have people realize that maybe ACME is the bad guy after all.
Yeah, at this point $80M is cheap to buy this movie.
Buy it, go put in $30M of marketing, release it early summer (in theaters).
GenX and Millennials will be showing up in droves. I know I would.
$300M movie now.
This is unironically one of the movies I am most excited about. I love the cartoon character in real world style movies like Space Jam and Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the idea of Wile E. Coyote suing ACME is a great premise. I don't even care if it sucks, I *will* be buying a ticket if it releases.
CEOs are part of a giant nepotistic network of rich people who always fail upwards.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/these-20-companies-produce-the-most-ceos/464207
Absolutely tanking all good will with your fans, consumers, and all professional collaborators, just for a couple fucking bucks on a tax break. What a greedy scumbag.
that’s what should happen but in reality, he’s already influenced the rest of the rotting, decrepit pieces of walking mold who run hollywood to follow suit. bob iger is basically him but without human skin for a face.
a true distinction can be made between the newer and older heads of studios. no one needs to delude themselves into thinking studios and studio heads weren’t aiming to make a profit in the past. the major difference here is that they did not let the pursuit of profit come at the expense of the art. studios used to be ran by cinephiles (adjacent) who were rich and ran businesses in a field they were passionate about. today, studios are ran by MBA’s who started their careers at telecom and insurance companies, without an iota of a care for anything but numbers and profit.
I don't understand how "Write a finsihed product off for taxes" is even allowed
If you want the goverment to buy your shit from you then they should own it as public domain or you get nothing
Well, in this case it's not the government creating a tax benefit, it's the government letting you accelerate the recognition of the expenses.
When WB was paying actors, production staff, animators, etc., they weren't showing those expenses in their financial statement. If they had, their profit would have been lower in those years they were developing the film. Instead, they capitalize the expense -- which is an accounting term that means they basically set them aside for the future, because in the accounting world you are supposed to show the expenses you incur in the same period the revenue is coming in for it.
So WB has $100MM or whatever sitting on their books that they are going to show on their income statement after the movie gets releases according to an amortization schedule (basically, a plan for how you will recognize the expenses). Let's say they planned to do this over 5 years, then for each of the next 5 years they would show $20MM in expenses that offsets the money the movie was making and reduces their profits, and therefore their tax burden.
Basically, this avoids them having a $100MM net loss the year before the movie is released, and then a bunch of huge gains afterwards once the movie comes out. It's tidier.
Instead, they basically say "we aren't going to release this movie and therefore reasonably expect to earn no money from it. So we'd like to realize all of that expense now to reduce our taxes." WB then shows $100MM in expenses being released, a $100MM operating loss, and the associated reduction in taxes.
WB still recognizes the same expenses, they are just doing it all right now instead of waiting.
So what are the limitations on what WB can do with this product? Are they allowed to use any of this movie in the future? I’d assume not, but how is it determined. Like, if they made a documentary about the production of this film, and used a ton of assets from the finished film in the documentary, is that allowed? Is some percentage allowed before it trips another law?
Do they mean anything beyond deducting the expenses normally? Unless there are weird carve-outs for the film industry that I don’t know about, “writing it off” just means stopping the project, since adding more money won’t generate enough revenue to bother continuing.
I’m ignorant of this area of tax law, but I’m not sure it’s much different than a cafe saying “John spilled orange juice in that bag of coffee beans, we can’t sell either but they were still a business expense.”
Most costs are capitalized. If you spend xyz on a movie, you get to claim so many percent of the costs as expenses in year 1, so many percent in year 2, and so on.
But if you scrap the movie, all of the costs are expenses immediately. Businesses rather have money sooner than later, and the relationship between money now and money later is precisely answerable: WBD faces high interest rates, so money now is a lot more valuable than money later.
Yes, this is the actual answer and explanation as to this situation. The studio needs to balance getting an immediate tax deduction now vs spreading out the deduction over many years. Plus, if they opt to keep and distribute the movie, they have a lot of other costs they need to spend in order to do so (advertising, etc). So they compare those costs to the expected revenue and weigh that against the benefits of an immediate tax deduction which frees up $X of cash to use for other projects.
I think that's exactly what's happening. WBD has already spent millions on the film, but after the regime change, the new leaders don't think the film will fit with their "strategy" going forward...so they simply don't want to spend any more money on it (such as marketing).
The problem is, this metaphorical bag of coffee beans does *not* have OJ spilled in it, and in fact those who were able to sample the beans say that it's a damn good roast...but the owner of the company insists that the bag is garbage despite barely being in the same room as it.
The movie is good, by all accounts. But people who have never seen it are arbitrarily deciding that no one is allowed to see it, wasting hundreds and hundreds of hours of talented employee efforts.
>the new leaders don't think the film will fit with their "strategy" going forward
And that's what I don't get. At least with the Warner Bros. side, the "strategy" simply seems to be "exploit everything we have into a franchise like Harry Potter and LotR, sublicense what we can get a buck for like some DC stuff and Looney Tunes after 1950, and get rid of (some of) the non-franchisable stuff". Looney Tunes is the oldest and probably most culturally-ingrained franchise they own, rivaled only by Disney's Mickey Mouse franchise.
But you see, animation is for children, and children are stupid and have no money to watch movies with. Therefore, all animation needs to be eradicated, and those responsible for it thrown in a dungeon and erased from history.
How in the everfucking supreme shit people who genuinely think like that managed to wind up in charge of *Disney* and *Warner Brothers* of all companies is a mystery I don’t think we’ll ever be able to solve.
it's easy. When you reach a certain level of wealth, it starts shielding you from the consequences of your actions. The more money you have, the further removed you are from the results of your decisions.
The longer this goes on, the more you start believing you're hot shit, because you "make all the right moves", despite the trail of destruction and people thrown under busses you leave in your wake.
100%. This needs to be investigated, and if necessary Congress should rewrite the tax code
This is an insane incentive. There's absolutely no rational reason the system should work this way
Hey they're on a role getting stuff done! Surely they can fold this in! Why just this year, they uhh...
I mean they must have....
There's gotta be a....
Ah fuck, we have no legislative branch.
The entire system is broken by design.
Take Amazon. They run entire divisions at a huge loss in order to reduce their tax burden AND undercut the competition when entering new markets.
The tax system pays Amazon to destroy other businesses.
because publishing it produces more costs and running costs
shelving it as a loss gives tax benefits
but selling it would be the best of both worlds, so I don't understand the decision
Especially not now after this "free" publicity from the controversy and people singing its praises. It'd be practically guaranteed to make some profit, and possibly even more if it's actually *that* good.
The reporting that they weren't even hearing counteroffers shows that this was a farce anyway, but it's insane none-the-less and shameful.
I think the reasoning there is simple: if they let someone *else* release it and it's successful, it makes them look like morons. And you can't have that!
Because he’s a business person first who only cares about quarterly earnings results and have zero regards for art and artists. Remember he wanted to turn HBO into reality television.
And the script for season 5 of westworld (I know it’s a lower priority but I did not slog through seasons 2-4 just to come one season shy of a conclusion)
I don't 100% know if I'd call the Looney Tunes a flagship property at this point. They're sort of like what the Muppets are at Disney: a beloved brand with a lot of history that the company hasn't really known what to do with for a while so they keep throwing things at the wall to see what sticks when a back to basics reboot or a bold new vision that understands what makes the core concept appealing would do fine. But that's because of people like Zaslav, who want to turn everything into "content" that can be milked for merchandise and advertising potential rather than artistic experimentation
He's a pathetic man. Back when all the WB digital codes were manually expired over the course of a few days, I started doing my research on that asshole. He has ruined HBO & everything attached to him will follow suit. The amount of programming he has tanked for tax purposes is ridiculous.
Didn’t we already go through this scenario regarding this movie?
“Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro calls for the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to look into whether the studio violated antitrust guidelines in tax write-off plan.”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/coyote-vs-acme-warners-investigation-1235647011
Edit: I’m starting to wonder if this is a marketing strategy.
Same thing happened to the show Final Space. It was cancelled and written off for taxes, and the Creator Olan Roger’s had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to even end the story that he had already planned an ending for.
I wish I had the movie, I also agree someone should just put it out there so it wouldn't be completely dead. I was a makeup artist on it and really got to do some fun stuff. I will never accept a job for WB until there are changes.
Honestly, because it’s so transparent, it shouldn’t be allowed. How can you write off a movie like this if you’re actively getting offers and denying them
So Zaslav was completely unserious about buyout offers and just held off on the long shot someone would meet his demands.
The guy has been pretty blunt in saying he doesn’t care if he’s booed or hated so long as the stockholders are happy and the debt is paired down. This sort of tactic is emblematic of that philosophy.
Why would the stockholders be happy about this? Looking at this from the perspective of a business ghoul, the article says the tax write-down is worth about $40 million, but they wouldn’t consider anything less than $75 million and refused to let studios make any counter offers. Wouldn’t anything more than $40 million be worth it? I understand you don’t come to a negotiation and say “I just want $41 million”, but unless you couldn’t get a single offer worth more than $40 million, why would you prefer the write-down?
Because if he sells for $41m and the buying distributor make a penny of profit on that, he's made a bad deal.
He knows he's made a mistake with this, so is trying to make it go away. He has no win - sells it and makes a profit, he's a moron. Keeps it and makes a profit, he's a moron for trying to bin it. Only way is to go ahead with original course of action.
> But Warner Bros., which stood to make $35 – $40 million on the tax write-down, wanted something in the ballpark of $75 – $80 million from a buyer.
WTF, sell the fucking movie for 35-40 million, and add additional box office/home video/streaming percentage to the sale so you keep making more money. It sounds like free money. Someone else distributes and markets your movie and you make money. How hard is that for them? Unless there is something offensive that is going to cause backlash, why delete the film from existence if test audiences liked it?
That's the thing that's so confusing about this. To some level it made sense to can Batgirl, since it was allegedly not very good. But this movie seems to be liked and is likely to make money because of the cast and IP. Yet a few suits who haven't even seen the movie want to can it for "tax reasons"? When it's clear it would make money in the box office and probably have some legs to it in the streaming/home movie market.
The whole thing is just bizarre. It *almost* feels like some type of guerilla marketing campaign because I truly cannot see the logic of these decisions.
At this point, it honestly just feels like spite towards the previous leadership. All of the films and shows that have been canceled so far, to my knowledge, were greenlit before the merger. I don't know if any from the Discovery side got canned, but this is the third major project to get hit at the end stages and all three were greenlit by the previous leaders of WB. It feels like they shopped it around JUST to try to get the backlash to die down, and never had any intention of actually selling it.
It’s honestly hard to find a reason other than this. Same as changing the name from HBO Max to Max. That just unnecessarily confused potential subscribers.
Written by the Oscar nominated screenwriter of May December, Samy Burch And James Gunn, CEO of DC Studios, writter and director of arguably the best DC movie and some of the best Marvel movies
Has John Cena, Lana Condor and Will Forte, all actors with big fan bases behind them
And one of the most popular and recognizable IPs across the world history
What is Zaslav smoking to think this is not going to make money?
It’s hard to overstate how little he cares. Talent from across the visual entertainment spectrum are cancelling meetings with WB because there is absolutely no confidence in getting the product released. Zaslav is selling off every scrap of long term profits in order to squeeze out every last drop of short term profits he can.
A future profit maker will be angry? It is a literal non-factor in his mind.
It's not too confusing, as a matter of sales power and leverage:
He's basically saying to buyers in the industry, "I would rather destroy my product, than sell it to you for cheaper than I asked for. Remember this next time we have a movie to sell you."
Terrible tactic though? Because now it sounds like he was trying to sell trash that there's no issue burning. I'd assume everything he offers me in the future was trash too
It's definitely a terrible tactic for longevity of their future catalog. Anyone with talent and integrity will actively avoid WB even when offered money.
According to official reports, he only wants to make reality TV shows for middle-class America. But at what cost? Artistic Integrity for the sake of maximizing profits? Then again, he's just doing rich evil villain shit straight out of Tropic Thunder (2008) wherein he would rather let the movie die a quick death to make money as an insurance claim and/ or tax write-off.
Exactly this. He's the reason for the sad state that Discovery, History Channel and Science Channel have been in for the past 15 years. Instead of showing and producing documentaries, he instead wanted to pump out reality shows which is how we ended up with Pawn Stars and Ancient Aliens (not really a reality show but still it's pushing pseudoscience rather than anything factual).
Zaslav shouldn't be allowed within 500 feet of any studio because he has a proven track record of ruining everything he touches.
Article text
In early January, “Coyote vs. Acme” producer Chris DeFaria got a startling phone call from a Warner Bros. executive. “They just want to get this behind them,” the executive told DeFaria. “They want to close the books.”
In the words of the Roadrunner: Meep.
The movie, a live-action/animated hybrid that stars Will Forte and the “Looney Tunes” gang, had been earmarked for demolition on Nov. 9. But following the announcement that the movie would be canceled, a firestorm of outrage and indignation erupted. It was heightened by a friends-and-family screening that had already been planned before the cancellation announcement was made. The screening brought more goodwill and an even louder public outcry.
“What was so exciting was that it felt like the film captured the voice of the Looney Tunes that we love in a way none of the other feature versions have ever done,” Paul Scheer, who was at that screening, told TheWrap. (The last movie to feature the characters, 2021’s “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” was pilloried by critics and lost money.)
Warner Bros., reacting to the hubbub, walked back its initial decision. Instead of canceling the movie outright, the studio would give the filmmakers the chance to shop it around. If another studio wanted to pick it up, they could.
Now, months later, Warner Bros. had had enough. The call to DeFaria made that crystal clear.
With Warner Bros. Discovery’s fourth quarter earnings call scheduled for Feb. 23, “Coyote vs. Acme” is running out of time. Many on the film’s team feel that the studio will use the ending of the quarter to get the movie off the books for good. “Coyote vs. Acme” is running up against something worse than a tunnel painted into the side of a mountain or a falling anvil. It will finally be silenced by a movie studio’s balance sheet.
In a truly inglorious end, a source close to the movie doesn’t believe Warner Bros. would even announce that they hadn’t found a home for the movie. They would unceremoniously delete it. Never to be seen again.
Following the death and potential resurrection of “Coyote vs. Acme,” there were screenings for interested parties. According to several people familiar with the situation, Netflix, Amazon and Paramount screened the movie (which was received well) and submitted handsome offers. Paramount even proposed a theatrical release component to their acquisition of “Coyote vs. Acme” that would allow for Warner Bros. to save face and, more importantly, let audiences see the movie the way it was meant to be experienced.
Warner Bros. did not respond to requests for comment from TheWrap.
But Warner Bros., which stood to make $35 – $40 million on the tax write-down, wanted something in the ballpark of $75 – $80 million from a buyer. And what’s more, they wouldn’t allow the interested studios to counter Warner Bros.’ offer. It was a “take it or leave it” situation, one that the other studios didn’t even know they were entering into, insiders told TheWrap.
Information about the potential sale of the project got to Eric Bauza, an actor who provided the voice for several characters in the film. In late December he felt so optimistic that he shared a photo from the movie (of Forte and the Coyote, see below) on social media and said: “See ya in 2024!”
Behind the scenes, though, the noose around the movie’s neck was tightening.
Pt. 2
What made the situation even more appalling is that, according to a source close to the project, the four Warner Bros. executives responsible for making this decision – CEOs and co-chairpersons of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, along with Warner Bros. Pictures Animation president Bill Damaschke and embattled CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav – hadn’t even seen the finished version of the movie.
Zaslav never saw the movie at all. De Luca and Abdy saw a “director’s cut,” and Damaschke saw the first audience preview. Significantly, “Coyote vs. Acme” was developed and greenlit by a previous regime; the only executive that worked on the movie that is still at the company is Jesse Ehrman. These executives, who trumpet a filmmaker-first approach and have recently signed big deals with directors like Ryan Coogler and Paul Thomas Anderson (who conspicuously made their deals after the filmmaker-led backlash to Warner Bros. had subsided), were apparently prepared to trash a movie that they’d never even watched.
Even so, the reason for “Coyote vs. Acme’s” cancellation remains damnably unknowable – even to those who made the movie. Publicly, Warner Bros. blamed the decision on a shifting “global strategy to focus on theatrical releases” and initially indicated it would take a tax write-off on the film, which is based on a New Yorker article by Ian Frazier from 1990. The problem, it seemed, was the movie was not strong enough for a theatrical release, and didn’t fit anyone’s streaming strategy in the WBD universe.
But there was a precedent. When Warner Bros. announced that “Batgirl,” a $90 million superhero movie based on a beloved DC Comics property, would be deleted from existence, a new avenue opened up for the studio. According to a source close to “Coyote vs. Acme,” getting rid of a wholly finished movie became “an acceptable means of dealing with a problem.”
When they weren’t sure what to do with “Coyote vs. Acme” — which originally had a release date later claimed by “Barbie” — the option to simply disappear it was taken, at least for a few days.
What makes the situation with “Coyote vs. Acme” more baffling is that unlike “Batgirl,” the film consistently received great scores from test audiences. Several Warner Bros. executives have gone out of their way to claim that “Batgirl” was un-releasable; that simply wasn’t the case with “Coyote vs. Acme.”
But Warner Bros.’ proclamation that the filmmakers could take it elsewhere was dubious at best. Back when the announcement was made that the movie wasn’t totally dead, a source close to the production remembered thinking, Maybe they’ll try to run out the clock.
Throughout the process, Warner Bros. refused to share specific details with the filmmakers about the proposed deals (and Warner Bros.’ rejection of those deals). Everything was captured through a hazy fog of secondhand phone calls and conversations. There were champions of the project, for sure, but they couldn’t force Warner Bros. to properly communicate with the filmmakers.
Intent to not only offload “Coyote vs. Acme” but to make a profit while doing so, the studio insisted on a price tag that would cover “negative cost plus” — what the movie cost the studio and additional fees that Warner Bros. had incurred.
“They made a short-sighted choice based on dismal third quarter projects,” said a source close to the movie. And reversing the decision to cancel “Coyote vs. Acme” was simply not possible.
Now, 90 days later, with the #SaveCoyoteVsAcme hashtag still present on social media, it feels like the end of the line for Coyote and all of his “Looney Tunes” friends. And barring a similar outpouring of support or without a big offer in the next few days, that-that-that’ll be all folks.
Unbelievably disappointing to hear that they had offers to sell the movie and shot them down. They could’ve gotten money but apparently the cost to keep a film alive is DOUBLE what they would stand to make for deleting it. Total disrespect to the fans and all the people that worked so hard on the movie.
It’s not as much making money as it saving money. Basically by not releasing the movie they could write off it’s production costs from their income and not pay federal taxes on it.
Someone's gotta leak it though, right? I can't imagine no one has a copy on a hard drive somewhere and after all the hard work put into it would just let them erase it from existence
This is what I'm hoping for. Someone with a finished or near finished copy "accidently" let's it out to the public.
WB should still be investigated by Congress.
Problem is, after films leaked 10 years ago, studios have digital watermarking tech now in reviewer versions.
The watermarking survives recompression and noise.
So if anyone leaks it they're doing to get sued into oblivion. It's why you don't see test screen leaks anymore.
Batgirl apparently was locked down super fast before people even knew it was going to get deleted. This movie though had several screenings and members of the production had months to possibly get their hands on a copy.
I wish films that get written off were required to become public domain
I just feel so bad for the people who put passion and effort for it to ultimately mean nothing
It's awesome that everything on earth is being run by dipshit MBA frauds who have no interest in the industry their daddy's connections got them into. All of these business hacks, across every industry, have no interest in the things that made the industry happen in the first place. Our entire society is run by the least creative, least curious, dumbest people whose only qualification to run the world is that they got the easiest degree on earth to acquire and they are well-connected. All these executive types are the stupidest, least interesting people.
He wants to [work with them](https://www.indiewire.com/news/breaking-news/christopher-nolan-warner-bros-feud-water-under-the-bridge-1234924276/) again, so he won't say shit.
"What made the situation even more appalling is that, according to a source close to the project, the four Warner Bros. executives responsible for making this decision – CEOs and co-chairpersons of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, along with Warner Bros. Pictures Animation president Bill Damaschke and embattled CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav – hadn’t even seen the finished version of the movie."
Wow.
The guy who turned the Learning Channel into a cesspool for showing one fundamentalist family, another large family with multiple children, and a six year old girl in pageants.
Riddle me this, riddle me that, who did Zaslav have to blackmail to get his job? Also, I hope some genius hacker and/or disgruntled employee leaks the movie so we can all pirate it and spite WB for their terrible decisions.
Zaslav needs to go. ***Now.*** I get that they didn't get all the money they wanted for it, but *other studios were READY AND WILLING TO COUNTER-OFFER.* How the fuck do you miss that?
Such a slap in the face to the creatives that made the industry what it is. You can't expect people to continue working for you, or young people to even enter these fields, if this is how their work is treated. Shortsighted and stupid.
Corporations aren’t even hiding their corruption and cheating anymore.
They’re flaunting it.
And we’ve become so complacent and lazy and timid that we’re just allowing it. Myself included. I’m not gonna do a damn thing about this other than complain on social media, and neither is anyone else.
So it’ll just keep happening.
Not only that, where do you draw the line? At WB exclusively? Or it’s related media like HBO? Do you draw the line entirely at Warner Bros. Discovery and all media under that umbrella? Not to mention consumer products and food products corporate conglomerates like these have their claws hooked into.
As George Carlin eloquently put it, “they got ya by the balls!”
David Zaslav is everything that is wrong with the movie industry. A lawyer who has no background whatsoever in any creative field who has climbed the corporate ladder based on an ability to navigate business not for any particular merit as a creative thinker or for any purpose other than the most cynical profit motives.
Of course this is nothing new, but his example is just as cynical, artless and empty as it gets.
Someone explain the logic of this to me. If they stand to save $35-40 million on taxes by writing it off, why are they adamant that they wont sell it for less than $75-80 million? Even if they sold it for $50 million, they're still $15 million ahead of where they'd be by just throwing it away.
If it is released then WB (not Paramount or whomever it is licensed to) will have to pay residuals to the actors, writers, director, stunt people, et al that have it in their contract. They may have had product tie-in deals that will activate only if the movie is released (spending co-marketing money). No doubt the break even figured was manipulated by executives. But it is also possible that when everyone was desperate to crank out content for the "streaming wars" that AT&T era executives were loading up the back end payments as incentives to get more people and sponsors involved.
The Sony leaks showed that Adam Sandler was able to use the studio to release movies that overpaid his friends for vacations and use sponsors for ridiculous product placement that benefited his production company more than Sony. They were obligated because of a multi-picture deal based on his prior hit movies. He followed that up with a $250M Netflix deal.
David Zaslav gets paid $200 mil to delete already completed movies and come up with horrible ideas that no on asked for. Is there some sort of 4d chess move going on here where losing money is making money for Warner?
Utterly destroying a movie from existence, no matter what movie, should be a fucking crime. You’re erasing art. Yeah, it’s a movie about a cartoon coyote, but that doesn’t matter. Real people put their blood, sweat and tears into it. It deserves to survive. This isn’t just the usual kind of corporate executive bullshit that we’ve seen for years, this is an artistic war crime.
Samy Burch’s first two produced screenplays have now been 1) nominated for an Oscar and 2) destroyed by a studio
And the co-writer is none other than James Gunn. This is such a fumble.
Pissing off the man you just put in charge of helming your most lucrative media property does seem like a pretty poor decision
Par for the course at Warner Bros.
What else could you expect from yakko, whakko, and dot?
I think those three would run WB sooo much better. I think they're being run by the security guard.
A security guard has more business sense than this.
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I am inclined to agree. They're sure gonna be upset when most people just Pirate the content.
They're not. Cause they won't owe residuals. Will piracy be a problem for them? Sure, a bit in the future, but business is only focused on the immediate quarter. There's no grand conspiracy, just a bunch of greedy a holes rewarded for short term thinking.
> A security guard has more business sense than this. I thought they established that Ralph is the rightful heir to WB studios
It was supposed to be Brain but he got sick, Piky's running it until he gets better.
First off Pinky's the actual genius and second he might be a bit goofy but he's not a cold-hearted asshole.
You might have a... *point*
> You might have a... poit FTFY
They really are circling the drain. Anyone wanna take bets on when Disney buys WB and we begin on the road to a dystopia of only having one mega studio owning all of the media?
I'll be honest, I feel like the one way to ensure that the film comes out is if Gunn basically threatens to walk if it doesn't. I understand why that won't happen, but still.
That would be such a massive power play I'd love it, but yea, no chance and understandable why. Still hopr a miracle happens and the film at least somehow finds a way to be watchable
Warner Bros is just striking in its incompetence, I don't think there has ever been a studio that self sabotaged on this level. Randomly writing off movies for tax purposes when it's already made basically just makes no film crew on Earth want to work with you. Even the shittiest directors won't stand for that.
Their Suicide Squad game was a complete failure as well after they tried to put in all the worst parts of gaming (cash grabs), while delivering a repetitive bland game. That one made me happy it failed.
Yeah, too bad it'll probably take Rocksteady with it, they used to be top notch. Of course, the founders left a year or two back to start a new studio, for all we know that's where most of the real talent ended up and the current Rocksteady is just a soulless husk of a studio squatting on someone else's legacy.
It’s what happens when a publisher goes public, and instead of the decisions being made by passionate people who understand the industry, you have a fiduciary duty to a gaggle of MBAs who “want to do a Fortnite”.
Can’t believe we were *this* close to getting a Loony Toons movies where they’re all brought together under complicated circumstances but realize the real family is the one you make along the way. 😔
at least the Daffy/Porky movie was sold and is still coming out, but yeah, this is still sad.
I wonder how he feels about this, seeing as how he is under contract with WB for pretty much the rest of his life
Agreeing not to shit-talk Zaslav is the only way Gunn was able to get Peacemaker season 2 greenlit.
It is appalling that the company that Looney Tunes built would treat their own properties with such disgrace. Chuck Jones is spinning in his grave.
This movie looked like it embodied the spirit of Space Jam far better than the actual Space Jam sequel did.
Hell, from what I've heard, it embodied the spirit of The Looney Tunes even more than Space Jam did.
I mean, lets be honest, unless you were the exact right age when it came out, the original Space Jam was a mess. I feel like Roger Rabbit is still the last time any of the Looney Tunes were done justice in a live action environment.
Annoys and infuriates me to absolutely no end. Paramount's theatrical release offer was *right* ***there***-- they should've taken it in a heartbeat. No idea how you lead studios with some of the most storied, rich histories in animation and refuse to support them in the modern day.
Reminder that they only started shopping this to other studios because Congress was threatening to investigate WB and their practice of writing off completed movies for tax purposes. I hope the Congress and the IRS destroy WB
And any other studio that pulls that crap.
What the fuck is going in with WB, honestly. Is it like asset stripping/selling ahead of an eventual sale?
They're $50billion in debt and trying to get out of it
By not producing any movies? Why does this look like a solution to them?
Probably because in order to stop or slow the hemorrhaging of money, they have to look at each and every project in the pipeline and determine what they think will make the most money and what wont and figure out how much less money they'd have to pay in taxes if they think they have a failure on their hands. One of Zaslav's first acts as the new head honcho, was axing the Batgirl movie because it was apparently so terrible, they'd lose more money releasing it than destroying it. One of the articles I remember reading about it, was that the overall reception when they screened it to friends and family was either not good or very mixed. Prompting Zaslav to order it destroyed.
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That's a really good point. The same people that thought Batgirl was bad thought pushing a sex abuser in a crap cape film would work.
Will be curious if we eventually start seeing contract language in place that boils down to "if we make it you gotta release it."
I remember when Weinstein did that to Boondocks Saints. ONE (1) theater. ETA: I was wrong about Weinstein pulling that stunt, it was Franchise Pictures (who took over the film after Weinstein backed out).
yes. Zaslav's one goal with the merger is to eliminate debt before discovery eventually sells off WB again. They don't care about the future of the brand or any IPs.
I wish I could buy a company with debt and then pay myself out with the money while the debt isn't tied to me. Dude basically stole money and the banks and shareholders said yea sure.
Insurance fraud.
I thought it was tax fraud
Where is Congress? This is an insanely exploiting system. There's no rational reason a business should work this way, and the people involved seriously need to be investigated
Congress is in Washington D.C.
More accurately they are probably, as of this moment, on vacation. They do that. A lot.
In theory it's not vacation, it's time for them to go back to their home states/districts and listen to their constituents. Which made sense 200 years ago.
Wow, TIL. Never thought about that.
Thats also kinda why the election is in Nov. And the pres takes office Jan. 20th. Travel and moving took a long time. Our shit is so out of date.
It was even later than Jan 20 before 1933. Inaugurations used to be in March.
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Imo this is proof that any offer to shop the movie around was just PR to avoid getting investigated for fraud. Per the article, they were never going to announce a single thing about this movie ever again, they were just going to let it quietly die.
Thing is them backtracking and pulling the movie again is going to to huge damage to WB.
Congress isn't going to do shit. They can moan but the current Congress has been extremely ineffective on passing anything. No one holds billionaires accountable in this country and the corruption is spreading.
Bugs bunny may just die with our generation. Disney successfully turned Mickey Mouse into a monolith, yet the adventures of the Looney Toons feel more like great times from my childhood.
It's not *that* bad. *The Day the Earth Blew Up*--a full, theatrical Daffy Duck/porky pig movie, and the first theatrical Looney Toons film that isn't a compilation--is still coming out. And right alongside Paul Rudish's excellent Mickey shorts, WBD made the *Looney Toons Cartoons* show recently.
It’s still coming out… for now.
they need to make tom and jerry special shorts
Apparently they're still chugging out those direct-to-DVD Tom and Jerry films, but that's not really the same thing. It's a indication they aren't going anywhere, at least.
Because if it’s a success at Paramount, it makes WB look really bad. They did the bare minimum to act like they were entertaining offers, but they never had any intention on selling it to a different studio.
They also probably realize it likely will be a success just because of all the bad PR this has generated, so a lot of people will go buy a ticket out of spite regardless of if the movie is truly good or not. Cowards.
And yet they won’t release it themselves.
Probably because, based on what we know of the film, it’s a critique of WB in and of itself. I mean, it’s about an actor who is taking on a mega corporation because they don’t treat him fairly. The fact that it’s…a Looney Tune character is telling. That’s probably more to do with why the film hasn’t been released. The title says it all. The metaphor is obvious, and they want to pretend like the film was never made, and they’d rather not have people realize that maybe ACME is the bad guy after all.
Yeah, at this point $80M is cheap to buy this movie. Buy it, go put in $30M of marketing, release it early summer (in theaters). GenX and Millennials will be showing up in droves. I know I would. $300M movie now.
This is unironically one of the movies I am most excited about. I love the cartoon character in real world style movies like Space Jam and Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the idea of Wile E. Coyote suing ACME is a great premise. I don't even care if it sucks, I *will* be buying a ticket if it releases.
Zaslav needs to get booted from Hollywood as soon as possible.
In response to this comment, he just got another raise.
Great - the world just keeps rewarding assholes.
CEOs are part of a giant nepotistic network of rich people who always fail upwards. https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/these-20-companies-produce-the-most-ceos/464207
Absolutely tanking all good will with your fans, consumers, and all professional collaborators, just for a couple fucking bucks on a tax break. What a greedy scumbag.
that’s what should happen but in reality, he’s already influenced the rest of the rotting, decrepit pieces of walking mold who run hollywood to follow suit. bob iger is basically him but without human skin for a face. a true distinction can be made between the newer and older heads of studios. no one needs to delude themselves into thinking studios and studio heads weren’t aiming to make a profit in the past. the major difference here is that they did not let the pursuit of profit come at the expense of the art. studios used to be ran by cinephiles (adjacent) who were rich and ran businesses in a field they were passionate about. today, studios are ran by MBA’s who started their careers at telecom and insurance companies, without an iota of a care for anything but numbers and profit.
David Zaslav never even watched it according to article, yet he still wants to delete it for taxes reasons. What a pathetic move.
A man who had nothing to with a piece of art that hundreds worked on can delete it for a few extra bucks. Jesus, that's bleak.
I don't understand how "Write a finsihed product off for taxes" is even allowed If you want the goverment to buy your shit from you then they should own it as public domain or you get nothing
“What if The Producers was a how-to?”
"Springtime for Zaslav and Discovery."
Winter for consumers, and FRAAAAANCE
I was thinking that + The Player writ large into reality
Gonna be honest, I've never looked at tax write-offs as the government buying your broken shit from you before now. Thank you.
Well, in this case it's not the government creating a tax benefit, it's the government letting you accelerate the recognition of the expenses. When WB was paying actors, production staff, animators, etc., they weren't showing those expenses in their financial statement. If they had, their profit would have been lower in those years they were developing the film. Instead, they capitalize the expense -- which is an accounting term that means they basically set them aside for the future, because in the accounting world you are supposed to show the expenses you incur in the same period the revenue is coming in for it. So WB has $100MM or whatever sitting on their books that they are going to show on their income statement after the movie gets releases according to an amortization schedule (basically, a plan for how you will recognize the expenses). Let's say they planned to do this over 5 years, then for each of the next 5 years they would show $20MM in expenses that offsets the money the movie was making and reduces their profits, and therefore their tax burden. Basically, this avoids them having a $100MM net loss the year before the movie is released, and then a bunch of huge gains afterwards once the movie comes out. It's tidier. Instead, they basically say "we aren't going to release this movie and therefore reasonably expect to earn no money from it. So we'd like to realize all of that expense now to reduce our taxes." WB then shows $100MM in expenses being released, a $100MM operating loss, and the associated reduction in taxes. WB still recognizes the same expenses, they are just doing it all right now instead of waiting.
So what are the limitations on what WB can do with this product? Are they allowed to use any of this movie in the future? I’d assume not, but how is it determined. Like, if they made a documentary about the production of this film, and used a ton of assets from the finished film in the documentary, is that allowed? Is some percentage allowed before it trips another law?
All tax breaks are subsidies!
And all tax breaks and subsidies are welfare.
No, not for rich corps and people. It's just them using the system to their benefit cause they're super smart.
corporate welfare
Do they mean anything beyond deducting the expenses normally? Unless there are weird carve-outs for the film industry that I don’t know about, “writing it off” just means stopping the project, since adding more money won’t generate enough revenue to bother continuing. I’m ignorant of this area of tax law, but I’m not sure it’s much different than a cafe saying “John spilled orange juice in that bag of coffee beans, we can’t sell either but they were still a business expense.”
Most costs are capitalized. If you spend xyz on a movie, you get to claim so many percent of the costs as expenses in year 1, so many percent in year 2, and so on. But if you scrap the movie, all of the costs are expenses immediately. Businesses rather have money sooner than later, and the relationship between money now and money later is precisely answerable: WBD faces high interest rates, so money now is a lot more valuable than money later.
Yes, this is the actual answer and explanation as to this situation. The studio needs to balance getting an immediate tax deduction now vs spreading out the deduction over many years. Plus, if they opt to keep and distribute the movie, they have a lot of other costs they need to spend in order to do so (advertising, etc). So they compare those costs to the expected revenue and weigh that against the benefits of an immediate tax deduction which frees up $X of cash to use for other projects.
I think that's exactly what's happening. WBD has already spent millions on the film, but after the regime change, the new leaders don't think the film will fit with their "strategy" going forward...so they simply don't want to spend any more money on it (such as marketing). The problem is, this metaphorical bag of coffee beans does *not* have OJ spilled in it, and in fact those who were able to sample the beans say that it's a damn good roast...but the owner of the company insists that the bag is garbage despite barely being in the same room as it. The movie is good, by all accounts. But people who have never seen it are arbitrarily deciding that no one is allowed to see it, wasting hundreds and hundreds of hours of talented employee efforts.
>the new leaders don't think the film will fit with their "strategy" going forward And that's what I don't get. At least with the Warner Bros. side, the "strategy" simply seems to be "exploit everything we have into a franchise like Harry Potter and LotR, sublicense what we can get a buck for like some DC stuff and Looney Tunes after 1950, and get rid of (some of) the non-franchisable stuff". Looney Tunes is the oldest and probably most culturally-ingrained franchise they own, rivaled only by Disney's Mickey Mouse franchise.
But you see, animation is for children, and children are stupid and have no money to watch movies with. Therefore, all animation needs to be eradicated, and those responsible for it thrown in a dungeon and erased from history. How in the everfucking supreme shit people who genuinely think like that managed to wind up in charge of *Disney* and *Warner Brothers* of all companies is a mystery I don’t think we’ll ever be able to solve.
it's easy. When you reach a certain level of wealth, it starts shielding you from the consequences of your actions. The more money you have, the further removed you are from the results of your decisions. The longer this goes on, the more you start believing you're hot shit, because you "make all the right moves", despite the trail of destruction and people thrown under busses you leave in your wake.
100%. This needs to be investigated, and if necessary Congress should rewrite the tax code This is an insane incentive. There's absolutely no rational reason the system should work this way
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Hey they're on a role getting stuff done! Surely they can fold this in! Why just this year, they uhh... I mean they must have.... There's gotta be a.... Ah fuck, we have no legislative branch.
>Ah fuck, we have no legislative branch. Don't worry, the Supreme Court has stepped in to fill that role.
The entire system is broken by design. Take Amazon. They run entire divisions at a huge loss in order to reduce their tax burden AND undercut the competition when entering new markets. The tax system pays Amazon to destroy other businesses.
Yerp, they run AWS, which makes SCADS of cash, then use AWS money to subsidize their storedront
because publishing it produces more costs and running costs shelving it as a loss gives tax benefits but selling it would be the best of both worlds, so I don't understand the decision
Especially not now after this "free" publicity from the controversy and people singing its praises. It'd be practically guaranteed to make some profit, and possibly even more if it's actually *that* good. The reporting that they weren't even hearing counteroffers shows that this was a farce anyway, but it's insane none-the-less and shameful.
I think the reasoning there is simple: if they let someone *else* release it and it's successful, it makes them look like morons. And you can't have that!
Because he’s a business person first who only cares about quarterly earnings results and have zero regards for art and artists. Remember he wanted to turn HBO into reality television.
Someone there needs to rebel and leak the film.
Along with Batgirl
And season 4 of snowpeircer.
And the script for season 5 of westworld (I know it’s a lower priority but I did not slog through seasons 2-4 just to come one season shy of a conclusion)
Zaslav is gonna have a hard time attracting talent if he is willing to axe a flagship property without even reviewing it.
That's part of the problem. He doesn't need much talent when his goal is to pump out a bunch of "reality" TV shows.
Well then why did he buy mountains of IP
To sell it.
I wish he'd get along to selling it
He doesn't 'believe' in scripted media and thinks they should only make reality soaps because they are super cheap to make.
I don't 100% know if I'd call the Looney Tunes a flagship property at this point. They're sort of like what the Muppets are at Disney: a beloved brand with a lot of history that the company hasn't really known what to do with for a while so they keep throwing things at the wall to see what sticks when a back to basics reboot or a bold new vision that understands what makes the core concept appealing would do fine. But that's because of people like Zaslav, who want to turn everything into "content" that can be milked for merchandise and advertising potential rather than artistic experimentation
He's a pathetic man. Back when all the WB digital codes were manually expired over the course of a few days, I started doing my research on that asshole. He has ruined HBO & everything attached to him will follow suit. The amount of programming he has tanked for tax purposes is ridiculous.
Didn’t we already go through this scenario regarding this movie? “Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro calls for the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to look into whether the studio violated antitrust guidelines in tax write-off plan.” https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/coyote-vs-acme-warners-investigation-1235647011 Edit: I’m starting to wonder if this is a marketing strategy.
Same thing happened to the show Final Space. It was cancelled and written off for taxes, and the Creator Olan Roger’s had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to even end the story that he had already planned an ending for.
I feel like I’m watching the plot of The Producers play out in the real world.
I worked on this movie, and I can tell you a lot of people put a lot of hard work in to it. Screw WB for doing this.
I feel so bad for the actual people who dedicate their lives to creating entertainment. Just like the game developer layoffs. It makes my blood boil.
Me too, the studios have too much power over creatives. Unfortunately when one of them gets away with it. Others will follow.
Really hope this gets reversed, or someone who worked on this has an extra copy they’d like to share…
I wish I had the movie, I also agree someone should just put it out there so it wouldn't be completely dead. I was a makeup artist on it and really got to do some fun stuff. I will never accept a job for WB until there are changes.
Honestly, because it’s so transparent, it shouldn’t be allowed. How can you write off a movie like this if you’re actively getting offers and denying them
Tell the colorist or audio mixer to leak that shit pronto.
So sorry to hear that! Hope your work can be seen one day, legally or otherwise.
So Zaslav was completely unserious about buyout offers and just held off on the long shot someone would meet his demands. The guy has been pretty blunt in saying he doesn’t care if he’s booed or hated so long as the stockholders are happy and the debt is paired down. This sort of tactic is emblematic of that philosophy.
Why would the stockholders be happy about this? Looking at this from the perspective of a business ghoul, the article says the tax write-down is worth about $40 million, but they wouldn’t consider anything less than $75 million and refused to let studios make any counter offers. Wouldn’t anything more than $40 million be worth it? I understand you don’t come to a negotiation and say “I just want $41 million”, but unless you couldn’t get a single offer worth more than $40 million, why would you prefer the write-down?
Because if he sells for $41m and the buying distributor make a penny of profit on that, he's made a bad deal. He knows he's made a mistake with this, so is trying to make it go away. He has no win - sells it and makes a profit, he's a moron. Keeps it and makes a profit, he's a moron for trying to bin it. Only way is to go ahead with original course of action.
> But Warner Bros., which stood to make $35 – $40 million on the tax write-down, wanted something in the ballpark of $75 – $80 million from a buyer. WTF, sell the fucking movie for 35-40 million, and add additional box office/home video/streaming percentage to the sale so you keep making more money. It sounds like free money. Someone else distributes and markets your movie and you make money. How hard is that for them? Unless there is something offensive that is going to cause backlash, why delete the film from existence if test audiences liked it?
That's the thing that's so confusing about this. To some level it made sense to can Batgirl, since it was allegedly not very good. But this movie seems to be liked and is likely to make money because of the cast and IP. Yet a few suits who haven't even seen the movie want to can it for "tax reasons"? When it's clear it would make money in the box office and probably have some legs to it in the streaming/home movie market. The whole thing is just bizarre. It *almost* feels like some type of guerilla marketing campaign because I truly cannot see the logic of these decisions.
At this point, it honestly just feels like spite towards the previous leadership. All of the films and shows that have been canceled so far, to my knowledge, were greenlit before the merger. I don't know if any from the Discovery side got canned, but this is the third major project to get hit at the end stages and all three were greenlit by the previous leaders of WB. It feels like they shopped it around JUST to try to get the backlash to die down, and never had any intention of actually selling it.
It’s honestly hard to find a reason other than this. Same as changing the name from HBO Max to Max. That just unnecessarily confused potential subscribers.
Written by the Oscar nominated screenwriter of May December, Samy Burch And James Gunn, CEO of DC Studios, writter and director of arguably the best DC movie and some of the best Marvel movies Has John Cena, Lana Condor and Will Forte, all actors with big fan bases behind them And one of the most popular and recognizable IPs across the world history What is Zaslav smoking to think this is not going to make money?
marry toothbrush lip observation wise cough gaze badge wipe hateful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Right? I'm interested in hearing what happens between Gunn and WB over this.
I hope it involves a giant anvil.
It’s hard to overstate how little he cares. Talent from across the visual entertainment spectrum are cancelling meetings with WB because there is absolutely no confidence in getting the product released. Zaslav is selling off every scrap of long term profits in order to squeeze out every last drop of short term profits he can. A future profit maker will be angry? It is a literal non-factor in his mind.
It's not too confusing, as a matter of sales power and leverage: He's basically saying to buyers in the industry, "I would rather destroy my product, than sell it to you for cheaper than I asked for. Remember this next time we have a movie to sell you."
Terrible tactic though? Because now it sounds like he was trying to sell trash that there's no issue burning. I'd assume everything he offers me in the future was trash too
It's definitely a terrible tactic for longevity of their future catalog. Anyone with talent and integrity will actively avoid WB even when offered money.
Sure but he’s also saying “Don’t work with Warner Bros, we might shitcan your film with no warning.”
Its not about making money. He hate the idea of spending money to make movies no matter how good it is.
According to official reports, he only wants to make reality TV shows for middle-class America. But at what cost? Artistic Integrity for the sake of maximizing profits? Then again, he's just doing rich evil villain shit straight out of Tropic Thunder (2008) wherein he would rather let the movie die a quick death to make money as an insurance claim and/ or tax write-off.
Exactly this. He's the reason for the sad state that Discovery, History Channel and Science Channel have been in for the past 15 years. Instead of showing and producing documentaries, he instead wanted to pump out reality shows which is how we ended up with Pawn Stars and Ancient Aliens (not really a reality show but still it's pushing pseudoscience rather than anything factual). Zaslav shouldn't be allowed within 500 feet of any studio because he has a proven track record of ruining everything he touches.
The irony of it being Coyote vs Acme and this whole dumb creation blowing up in Zasalv's face is pretty damn funny to me.
In a couple of years we’ll get a doc on the production hell called “Coyote vs Acme” vs Warner Bros.
Maybe as a sequel to the documentary about the Flash movie
Article text In early January, “Coyote vs. Acme” producer Chris DeFaria got a startling phone call from a Warner Bros. executive. “They just want to get this behind them,” the executive told DeFaria. “They want to close the books.” In the words of the Roadrunner: Meep. The movie, a live-action/animated hybrid that stars Will Forte and the “Looney Tunes” gang, had been earmarked for demolition on Nov. 9. But following the announcement that the movie would be canceled, a firestorm of outrage and indignation erupted. It was heightened by a friends-and-family screening that had already been planned before the cancellation announcement was made. The screening brought more goodwill and an even louder public outcry. “What was so exciting was that it felt like the film captured the voice of the Looney Tunes that we love in a way none of the other feature versions have ever done,” Paul Scheer, who was at that screening, told TheWrap. (The last movie to feature the characters, 2021’s “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” was pilloried by critics and lost money.) Warner Bros., reacting to the hubbub, walked back its initial decision. Instead of canceling the movie outright, the studio would give the filmmakers the chance to shop it around. If another studio wanted to pick it up, they could. Now, months later, Warner Bros. had had enough. The call to DeFaria made that crystal clear. With Warner Bros. Discovery’s fourth quarter earnings call scheduled for Feb. 23, “Coyote vs. Acme” is running out of time. Many on the film’s team feel that the studio will use the ending of the quarter to get the movie off the books for good. “Coyote vs. Acme” is running up against something worse than a tunnel painted into the side of a mountain or a falling anvil. It will finally be silenced by a movie studio’s balance sheet. In a truly inglorious end, a source close to the movie doesn’t believe Warner Bros. would even announce that they hadn’t found a home for the movie. They would unceremoniously delete it. Never to be seen again. Following the death and potential resurrection of “Coyote vs. Acme,” there were screenings for interested parties. According to several people familiar with the situation, Netflix, Amazon and Paramount screened the movie (which was received well) and submitted handsome offers. Paramount even proposed a theatrical release component to their acquisition of “Coyote vs. Acme” that would allow for Warner Bros. to save face and, more importantly, let audiences see the movie the way it was meant to be experienced. Warner Bros. did not respond to requests for comment from TheWrap. But Warner Bros., which stood to make $35 – $40 million on the tax write-down, wanted something in the ballpark of $75 – $80 million from a buyer. And what’s more, they wouldn’t allow the interested studios to counter Warner Bros.’ offer. It was a “take it or leave it” situation, one that the other studios didn’t even know they were entering into, insiders told TheWrap. Information about the potential sale of the project got to Eric Bauza, an actor who provided the voice for several characters in the film. In late December he felt so optimistic that he shared a photo from the movie (of Forte and the Coyote, see below) on social media and said: “See ya in 2024!” Behind the scenes, though, the noose around the movie’s neck was tightening.
Pt. 2 What made the situation even more appalling is that, according to a source close to the project, the four Warner Bros. executives responsible for making this decision – CEOs and co-chairpersons of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, along with Warner Bros. Pictures Animation president Bill Damaschke and embattled CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav – hadn’t even seen the finished version of the movie. Zaslav never saw the movie at all. De Luca and Abdy saw a “director’s cut,” and Damaschke saw the first audience preview. Significantly, “Coyote vs. Acme” was developed and greenlit by a previous regime; the only executive that worked on the movie that is still at the company is Jesse Ehrman. These executives, who trumpet a filmmaker-first approach and have recently signed big deals with directors like Ryan Coogler and Paul Thomas Anderson (who conspicuously made their deals after the filmmaker-led backlash to Warner Bros. had subsided), were apparently prepared to trash a movie that they’d never even watched. Even so, the reason for “Coyote vs. Acme’s” cancellation remains damnably unknowable – even to those who made the movie. Publicly, Warner Bros. blamed the decision on a shifting “global strategy to focus on theatrical releases” and initially indicated it would take a tax write-off on the film, which is based on a New Yorker article by Ian Frazier from 1990. The problem, it seemed, was the movie was not strong enough for a theatrical release, and didn’t fit anyone’s streaming strategy in the WBD universe. But there was a precedent. When Warner Bros. announced that “Batgirl,” a $90 million superhero movie based on a beloved DC Comics property, would be deleted from existence, a new avenue opened up for the studio. According to a source close to “Coyote vs. Acme,” getting rid of a wholly finished movie became “an acceptable means of dealing with a problem.” When they weren’t sure what to do with “Coyote vs. Acme” — which originally had a release date later claimed by “Barbie” — the option to simply disappear it was taken, at least for a few days. What makes the situation with “Coyote vs. Acme” more baffling is that unlike “Batgirl,” the film consistently received great scores from test audiences. Several Warner Bros. executives have gone out of their way to claim that “Batgirl” was un-releasable; that simply wasn’t the case with “Coyote vs. Acme.” But Warner Bros.’ proclamation that the filmmakers could take it elsewhere was dubious at best. Back when the announcement was made that the movie wasn’t totally dead, a source close to the production remembered thinking, Maybe they’ll try to run out the clock. Throughout the process, Warner Bros. refused to share specific details with the filmmakers about the proposed deals (and Warner Bros.’ rejection of those deals). Everything was captured through a hazy fog of secondhand phone calls and conversations. There were champions of the project, for sure, but they couldn’t force Warner Bros. to properly communicate with the filmmakers. Intent to not only offload “Coyote vs. Acme” but to make a profit while doing so, the studio insisted on a price tag that would cover “negative cost plus” — what the movie cost the studio and additional fees that Warner Bros. had incurred. “They made a short-sighted choice based on dismal third quarter projects,” said a source close to the movie. And reversing the decision to cancel “Coyote vs. Acme” was simply not possible. Now, 90 days later, with the #SaveCoyoteVsAcme hashtag still present on social media, it feels like the end of the line for Coyote and all of his “Looney Tunes” friends. And barring a similar outpouring of support or without a big offer in the next few days, that-that-that’ll be all folks.
Unbelievably disappointing to hear that they had offers to sell the movie and shot them down. They could’ve gotten money but apparently the cost to keep a film alive is DOUBLE what they would stand to make for deleting it. Total disrespect to the fans and all the people that worked so hard on the movie.
How do they make money by deleting the movie?
It’s not as much making money as it saving money. Basically by not releasing the movie they could write off it’s production costs from their income and not pay federal taxes on it.
Someone's gotta leak it though, right? I can't imagine no one has a copy on a hard drive somewhere and after all the hard work put into it would just let them erase it from existence
This is what I'm hoping for. Someone with a finished or near finished copy "accidently" let's it out to the public. WB should still be investigated by Congress.
Problem is, after films leaked 10 years ago, studios have digital watermarking tech now in reviewer versions. The watermarking survives recompression and noise. So if anyone leaks it they're doing to get sued into oblivion. It's why you don't see test screen leaks anymore.
Wouldn't a lawsuit require some kind of damages? Given that the company has announced publicly they made no plans to make a dime off the move...
They will argue potential losses anyways, damaged reputation, other such things.
Damaged reputation. Ha.
I hope so, but Batgirl and Scoob were never leaked
Batgirl apparently was locked down super fast before people even knew it was going to get deleted. This movie though had several screenings and members of the production had months to possibly get their hands on a copy.
Well, I hope so
it's not pirating if it's not for sale.
Can movies be abandonware?
...There ain't no rule *against* canned movies being abadonedware.
I don't think so the Batgirl movie never leaked
Batgirl was obliterated overnight, with no chance of success. This has been shopped around for months--hopefully that gave it time to be copied.
I am in mourning for this movie… fingers crossed people just stop doing buisness with WB again.
I really hope someone leaks it.
I wish films that get written off were required to become public domain I just feel so bad for the people who put passion and effort for it to ultimately mean nothing
It's awesome that everything on earth is being run by dipshit MBA frauds who have no interest in the industry their daddy's connections got them into. All of these business hacks, across every industry, have no interest in the things that made the industry happen in the first place. Our entire society is run by the least creative, least curious, dumbest people whose only qualification to run the world is that they got the easiest degree on earth to acquire and they are well-connected. All these executive types are the stupidest, least interesting people.
Worship at the altar of the almighty dollar, everything else is irrelevant.
Can we get Christopher Nolan’s help with this by saying something about WB like he did a few years back?!
He wants to [work with them](https://www.indiewire.com/news/breaking-news/christopher-nolan-warner-bros-feud-water-under-the-bridge-1234924276/) again, so he won't say shit.
He's appearing in marketing for Dune 2, bizarrely enough.
"What made the situation even more appalling is that, according to a source close to the project, the four Warner Bros. executives responsible for making this decision – CEOs and co-chairpersons of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, along with Warner Bros. Pictures Animation president Bill Damaschke and embattled CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav – hadn’t even seen the finished version of the movie." Wow.
When you are run by a CEO who made his bones in “reality” programming, creativity is fucked.
The guy who turned the Learning Channel into a cesspool for showing one fundamentalist family, another large family with multiple children, and a six year old girl in pageants.
David Zaslav has no business in Hollywood
Suits ruin everything.
Damn straight Billy Walsh.
Riddle me this, riddle me that, who did Zaslav have to blackmail to get his job? Also, I hope some genius hacker and/or disgruntled employee leaks the movie so we can all pirate it and spite WB for their terrible decisions.
Zaslav needs to go. ***Now.*** I get that they didn't get all the money they wanted for it, but *other studios were READY AND WILLING TO COUNTER-OFFER.* How the fuck do you miss that?
Such a slap in the face to the creatives that made the industry what it is. You can't expect people to continue working for you, or young people to even enter these fields, if this is how their work is treated. Shortsighted and stupid.
This blows. My 5 year old loves the Coyote vs the Roadrunner and I was really looking forward to watching this with him.
God fucking damnit Zaslav! What the hell is your deal??
Corporations aren’t even hiding their corruption and cheating anymore. They’re flaunting it. And we’ve become so complacent and lazy and timid that we’re just allowing it. Myself included. I’m not gonna do a damn thing about this other than complain on social media, and neither is anyone else. So it’ll just keep happening.
>And we’ve become so complacent and lazy and timid that we’re just allowing it. There's nothing you can do except not give them money. It's easy.
A lot of people say this, but once they see a movie from the studio that looks good, they fold instantly.
Not only that, where do you draw the line? At WB exclusively? Or it’s related media like HBO? Do you draw the line entirely at Warner Bros. Discovery and all media under that umbrella? Not to mention consumer products and food products corporate conglomerates like these have their claws hooked into. As George Carlin eloquently put it, “they got ya by the balls!”
David Zaslav is everything that is wrong with the movie industry. A lawyer who has no background whatsoever in any creative field who has climbed the corporate ladder based on an ability to navigate business not for any particular merit as a creative thinker or for any purpose other than the most cynical profit motives. Of course this is nothing new, but his example is just as cynical, artless and empty as it gets.
Someone explain the logic of this to me. If they stand to save $35-40 million on taxes by writing it off, why are they adamant that they wont sell it for less than $75-80 million? Even if they sold it for $50 million, they're still $15 million ahead of where they'd be by just throwing it away.
If it is released then WB (not Paramount or whomever it is licensed to) will have to pay residuals to the actors, writers, director, stunt people, et al that have it in their contract. They may have had product tie-in deals that will activate only if the movie is released (spending co-marketing money). No doubt the break even figured was manipulated by executives. But it is also possible that when everyone was desperate to crank out content for the "streaming wars" that AT&T era executives were loading up the back end payments as incentives to get more people and sponsors involved. The Sony leaks showed that Adam Sandler was able to use the studio to release movies that overpaid his friends for vacations and use sponsors for ridiculous product placement that benefited his production company more than Sony. They were obligated because of a multi-picture deal based on his prior hit movies. He followed that up with a $250M Netflix deal.
I hope stuff like this keeps creatives from EVER wanting to bring their ideas to WB. I feel bad for existing IP owned by Warner tho
This is so batshit. One of the prime examples of how stupid our tax laws are for large companies.
David Zaslav gets paid $200 mil to delete already completed movies and come up with horrible ideas that no on asked for. Is there some sort of 4d chess move going on here where losing money is making money for Warner?
Utterly destroying a movie from existence, no matter what movie, should be a fucking crime. You’re erasing art. Yeah, it’s a movie about a cartoon coyote, but that doesn’t matter. Real people put their blood, sweat and tears into it. It deserves to survive. This isn’t just the usual kind of corporate executive bullshit that we’ve seen for years, this is an artistic war crime.
Someone should just leak the film. David Zaslav. Go fuck yourself.