As if we needed any more evidence (we don't, really) that WB has no clue what to do with DC or how to handle their IP.
Quote from: VarietyStudio insiders insist the decision to axe ?Batgirl? was not driven by the quality of the film or the commitment of the filmmakers, but by the desire for the studio?s slate of DC features to be at a blockbuster scale.
It was in post-production, due to come out on HBO Max later this year. Maybe we can get Elon Musk interested in buying all DC property, just to keep WB leadership (yes, I used that ironically) from continually lifting their leg on anything that could potentially be done well.
Everything I have read is that its not so much WB as Discovery (The new owners of WB) who are basically gutting HBO Max original content (which Batgirl was going to be) as a way to cut costs. The overly cynical view is that he does not care about HBO's reputation or content, and doesn't want to compete with Netflix/Hulu/Amazon and just wants to merge it into Discovery+ with more reality shows (ie cheap to produce and no long term residual payments) paired with the existing Film library that comes with owning WB. They already cut several shows
Quote?If you say we do 600 hours on Food Network and they like it and we make $400 million, for example, if we did another 400 hours of content, maybe audiences would be a little happier, but we would make no money,? he said. ?Our goal is to compete with the leading streaming services, not to win the spending war.?
HBO was my favorite of the streaming channels, but if this is the direction they are going, They will lose a subscriber really quick.
* WB still doesn;t know how to handle DC properties, but the Batgirl thing is larger than just property mismanagement.
That's definitely more of the picture that's been emerging, so thanks for the viewpoint shift.
I may not completely understand what I read elsewhere (and can't find again), but it looks like they might claim it as some kind of tax write-off, in which case they would not legally be able to release it *anywhere*. Someone needs to seriously Roger Corman that thing.
Saw a quote from Variety reporter Justin Kroll's Twitter feed, he got a call right after the story was posted from an unnamed exec at an unnamed rival studio, "Worked in this town for three decades and this is some unprecedented dren right here."
I wonder how much this will affect anyone from wanting to work on a WB project after this fiasco. I also wonder if there might be any legal action against them for this.
This might be the first time I heard of a nearly-finished movie getting shelved. Weird. I mean,WB is now locked into releasing movies starring Amber Heard and Ezra Miller,just for comparison.
Scoob 2 as well and probably more to come. Though I been watching the markets and I project this happening elsewhere too. Insider must have caught something, I assume that more people will have less spending money/time and enough to not justify budgets (not putting much thought into it here of course, it's early for me). And add you already know WB made some bad moves. Why they attempted it is equal to why CNN attempted to strike out on their own in the streaming market in spite of the market dictating otherwise. At least I don't have to get trolled for saying WB leaving HBMX was a bad move anymore lol. But it was and now they have losses. Here though they'll handily recover those losses. The get a huge tax write-down so long as they do not release to profit these films at all, hence why they cut these near finished productions like the did. It goes without saying in this era it's not difficult for even big production companies to crash and burn quickly. Especially while trying to adapt to a new system when they are otherwise comfortable in their old ways. So in short, it's about money. It's always about money. Forgot the jargon media and politicians spew (and we shouldn't be paying them for that at all anyways). That's only to profit themselves alone.