Creatives May Be Mad, But Canceling Films Sometimes Makes Financial Sense - Opinion
From Tarek Moustafa
David Zaslav took over Warner Brothers in 2022 after the WB/Discovery merger. Up until then, previous CEO David Killar had prioritized streaming over theatrical whereas Zaslav’s priorities proved to be a complete 180. In the midst of the pandemic, Killar had famously taken all of WB’s theatrical slate and released them day and date on what was then HBO Max (now Max). Upon taking over, Zaslav made it known that theaters would be his top priority, saying "This idea of expensive films going direct to streaming — we can't find an economic case for it, we can’t find an economic value to it, so we're making a strategic shift" (The Week). I wholeheartedly agree with this line of thinking. If a movie isn’t bringing brand new subscribers to the platform, it’s not making the streamer/studio any money. That’s why we see Netflix constantly canceling popular shows. If it isn’t bringing any new eyeballs, they aren’t making any return on investment.
Zaslav soon began assessing WB’s slate after arriving and in, an unprecedented move, he began scrapping completed films from the calendar. This started with Batgirl, but to this point he’s also cut Coyote Vs. Acme and a new Scooby-Doo project. So why cut films that are already finished filming?
In Batgirl’s case, it seems like the film fell into no man's land. The project cost $90M, cheaper than recent superhero movies but still way too expensive to dump onto streaming. It was too small for theaters and too big for streaming. Zaslav elected to take a tax write-off on the project and shelve it all together.
Coyote Vs. Acme ran into a similar issue. At first it was slated just for Max, but since Zaslav is honed in on theatrical, he thought scrapping the movie and taking the nearly $30M write-off was a smarter play financially. Everyone across the industry has a negative opinion on Zaslav’s tactics, but the issue even permeated the United States Congress. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) called the company’s strategy of shelving finished films for tax breaks "predatory and anti-competitive” (Variety). WB had originally decided to sell the rights to the film for distribution after all of the uproar, but it sounds like nobody was biting on the asking price and that WB was not willing to negotiate (The Wrap). The film received ravenous praise by everyone who’s seen it at test screenings and behind the scenes.
In between these two films, a project that was also canceled well into the filmmaking process was a new Scooby Doo animated film. All of the dialogue was recorded, the songs written/performed, and the project was ready for animation. The head of animation at the studio said it would’ve cost WB the same amount to release the movie as it did to shelve it.
Personally it feels like the damage could be irreversible with filmmakers. Christopher Nolan famously ditched WB after the company pivoted to streaming, sending Tenet to the small screen. After WB went back to prioritizing theaters, the damage was already done and the company had lost Nolan to Universal. Can you blame him after seeing what Zaslav has since done to creative’s finished work? A Nolan project would never be canceled, especially now after Oppenheimer, but he has to set the precedent amongst his peers.
Zaslav making such rash decisions in the midst of needing creatives to shepherd their DC relaunch is imperfect timing to say the least. The same creatives that he’s looking in the eye and scrapping six months of hard work to save a billion dollar company a couple of bucks are the very people needed to build a robust film output to set a better course at the company. A contradictory approach, at best.
