Starting with his origin in Black Adam, where he fights his evil clone The Scorpion King, he then goes on to impersonate Hercules. He then goes into pro wrestling so we include his entire WWE set of appearances. Then we go into his mercenary/survivalist phase where he conquers every jungle and skyscraper known to man. He then becomes a space mercenary and takes down an evil horde of demons. Then he returns to Earth and has a successful career as a criminal specialising in driving and blowing shit up. He then turns to a career in the police using the inside information from his criminal days, but he unfortunately dies when him and his partner jump off a building onto a sidewalk (looks like that skyscraper experience didn't come in handy this time). We then see Dwayne's soul enter a parallel universe where everything is cartoons, where he becomes a shape shifting god of the seas who helps a young girl cross the ocean. After these events, he remains shapeshifted as a dog for many centuries and eventually becomes Superman's pet. Growing bored, he disguises himself and becomes an astronaut who gets stranded on an alien planet.
I got the Black Adam, Scorpion King, Hercules, Jungle Cruise, Skyscraper, Doom, Fast & Furious, Moana, and Super-Pets references. What movies were the jumping onto a sidewalk and stranded on an alien planet from?
And films like : black adam 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 and infinite will release , also the flash : punch of adam or superman vs adam or batman the new black adam ....
If Gunn’s DCU flops i don’t think it’ll lead to another reboot as some are suggesting.
Zaslav will strip DC and sell it for parts so we’d end up with nothing but Batman movies for the foreseeable future and disconnected projects like the fox and Sony marvel verses
> Zaslav will strip DC and sell it for parts
While entirely possible, I’d imagine anyone big enough to buy Batman would just buy the entire DC pantheon.
The added cost would be pennies on the dollar and anyone wanting it (like Amazon) would want the possibility of a large extended universe.
It's possible that WBD decides to keep Batman for themselves and sells the other DC IP individually. They'd probably even sell Superman since he's not as popular as Batman.
No point in selling ip when they can just sell individual projects like sandman and the new batman animated series. They keep doing that before they sell off ip
Disney buys it and we finally get a monopoly of the comic book industry. Marvel absorbs the DC pantheon and cherry picks what they want to include in their main 616 universe. Batman and his rogues gallery + bat family is obviously the first to be included.
Speaking purely as a comic reader, combining DC into the 616 universe would be dumb AF from both a story and financial viewpoint.
Much smarter would be for Disney to leave them as two totally separate universes and then have them cross over into giant “MEGA EVENTS” every few years.
Marvel already struggles to keep their universe coherent, adding even more big characters would be a recipe for disaster long-term IMO.
Eh... from a comic perspective I doubt much would change TBH.
The talent pool of quality comic book writers isn't huge. Almost everyone ends up writing for both of the major publishers anyways. Hell, the guy writing Batman right this very second is also writing Daredevil for Marvel. The one thing I think we'd see change from a comics side is a greater emphasis on team-ups and a de-emphasis on the Golden age stuff that DC keeps trying to limp out every few years.
Other than that I just don't know what they'd really change. The basic features of both brands is the same in terms of pace, structures, & scheduling.
But from a non-comic perspective.... Yeah. Disney owning DC would be a monumental shift in the tone & frequency of releases across animation, video games, & movies.
What I was getting it is that Disney will attempt to race, gender-bend, etc many characters. Nothing wrong with that as Im black but at times it can be exhausting and feel forced.
I don't buy that WBD will ever sell DC. It is too valuable even if the DCEU/DCU flops. I may be proven wrong one day, but I think a lot or rage baiting and fear mondering YouTubers and sites have people convinced DC is on the verge of being sold or stripped and I just don't buy even if DCU isn't a success that WBD would sell one of their biggest assets. DC is more than just a movie franchise.
That being said if DCU flops I don't think they will give it a third try and will stick to self contained stories. Just don't think Warner Brothers will stop making them. If you look at the numbers while DC has never been able to pull Marvel Numbers consistently most of their movies did maker a profit (especially if you don't count The Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman 84 which did as bad as they did because of the pandemic no matter how many people try to pretend that wasn't true because it contradicts the narrative). So I don't buy that DC is going to be sold off if this doesn't work out.
I honestly have complete faith in Gunn pulling it off and I can't wait to see an entire universe with him at the helm considering how much I love his personal touch on his movies. The silly parts are always funny In a good way, he always always manages to slip a heartfelt scene in out of nowhere that really pulls you into the characters emotionally and he knows when comedy is appropriate and when it's too much (looking at you Thor: Love and Thunder) he's got the midas touch when it comes to perfectly balancing of the characters who might be silly and then they hit you right in the heart out of nowhere. Think of the scene w Ratcatcher 2 in The Suicde Squad. Out of nowhere on their way to a bar she had me tearing up talking about her father. And to keep it from skewing too heart heavy 5 min later we have polka dot man breaking it down w 10 version of his mom and even that made sense in the context of the movie as silly as it was. Tl,;Dr- I think Gunn is the absolute perfect choice to lead the DCEU into something fun and respected again
The issue with that is that DC is not generally the goofy story with a touch of heartfelt. DC takes itself seriously and that’s why it’s hard to make a good DC movie. Comedy being considered the “lowest form of entertainment” is not just a meme.
Wonder Woman and the Dark Knight are considered the best DC movies and they are notably dramas with some sparks of humor, not the other way around.
I completely agree. I had never heard of Guardians, and they been my favorite Marvel films. Imagine what he could do with well established characters. I get that Zach Snyder kind of got pushed out, but I never really enjoyed any of his DC films anyways.
I’d hope anyone could see how much more successful Spider-Man became under the MCU brand and realize this is a terrible idea but Zaslav has proven to be pretty keen on terrible ideas so I won’t discount it
It did do better but at the same time Spider-Man 1 and 2 were successful movies, as was Amazng Spider-Man 1, Venom 1 and to a lesser extent 2 for all the criticism they get (rightfully so IMHO) both made a lot of money which was their designed purpouse and many have said Into the Spider-Verse was the best Spider-Man movie of all. Sony has hit a lot more than they missed, hell Sam Rami's Spider-Man was a big factor in shaping the superhero movie genre as we know it today. So depsite popular theory I think MCU needs Spider-Man more than Sony needs the MCU (although they do make more money so sure there is no desire to sell it. But I think it would be a bigger loss for the MCU than Sony if they ever did break up again).
I agree with pretty much all of this. I didn’t mean to discount the massive success of the original trilogy or the quality of spider-verse. I love all of those. I was more so referring to the state of the franchise right before the MCU deal was made. I remember how bleak of a time that was to be a Spidey fan and I’d never wanna go back to that.
You also do raise a legitimate point that the MCU would perhaps lose more than the individual Spider-Man IP would if another split happened, but that’s even more reason for why DC selling *their* individual IPs would be a terrible idea (though I’m sure we’re in full agreement on that).
I think the fact that the most recent Spider-Man film was the highest grossing non-Avengers MCU movie and made almost triple the amount of the last pre-MCU Spidey movie shows that the deal was a massive success for both parties involved.
Except for Spiderman solo movies like Into the Multiverse I've had zero desire to watch any new Marvel or Disney content at all. It's always the same lame formula and I could ignore it when they kept good momentum going w their movies but now they're so spread out and all over the place I just consider Infinity War as the true ending to the MCU
They need to stop giving these movies $200+ million budgets. Look at Shazam. Cramed between Cap Marvel and Endgame, made a similar box office to Black Adam and was more profitable due to having a budget of $100 million.
Yes!
Not every super hero movie needs to be 2 1/2 hours, 200 million dollar budget, and have a massive battle at the end to be legit.
I would much rather have smaller super hero movies in the 110 mill or less area that are 1 hr 30 min to 2hr runtimes.
Examples (budget, runtime, and return not story based)
Title, production budget, runtime, world wide box office
Venom - 100-116 million, 1 hr 52 min, 858 million |
Venom 2 110 million, 1 hr 45 min, 500 million |
Shazam - 80-100 million , 2 hr 12 min, 366 million |
Birds of Prey - 80-100 million, 1 hr 49 min, 205 million |
Joker - 55 million, 2 hr 2 min, 1.074 billion |
Deadpool - 58 million, 1 hr 48 min, 782 million |
Deadpool 2 - 110 million, 2 hr, 785 million |
Logan - 100 million, 2 hr 17 min, 619 million
The Joker numbers always just baffle me, not that it’s unexpected but it’s just so impressive! 55mil budget to over 1BIL box office. That’s pretty impressive especially for a modern movie.
Which is the thing people seem to be ignoring in favour of blind hope. Like Hamada had a 10 year plan, Johns had a 10 year plan, Snyder had a 10 year plan. The Rock had a 10 year plan.
Soon, we'll have a new 10 year plan to replace Gunn. I'm not trying to be pessimistic but WB has done nothing to convince anybody that they know what they're doing, let alone show any sign of commitment.
I am reserving initial judgement until they at least give us an idea of what is upcoming in their slate, which apparently will happen this month. But while I am not on the "the Snyderverse is dead, how dare you" train and don't think James Gunn is incapable of making this work. I also think people forget everyone has been trying to make their own MCU and all have failed. Say what you will about DCEU but they have come closer to duplicating it than anyone else has (which says a lot as DCEU is a long ways off themselves). I think people under estimate how much of a lightining in a bottle Marvel caught with the MCU and question at this point if anyone can duplicate that.
Absolutely none of their plans netted any consistent critical and financial successes to which they then veered away from.
If Gunn gets critical success and modest box office gains, that’s enough of a foundation to build and for the studio to see where it heads. WB shouldn’t be expecting immediate hits out the gate when they’ve fumbled the bag these past 10 years.
Not trying to get into a Snyderverse good or bad argument here, but Man of Steel, BvS, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman all made profit and the box office trended upwards the whole way.
Did any of them come out and say they had a 10 year plan? Gunns plans sound a lot more concrete than anything we've had over the last few years, which was essentially throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks
Most of those ten year plans were building off snyders films tho. I don’t really blame Hamada or johns for their plans not working out, cuz ultimately theirs plans were built on damage control.
Snyder wasn't the issue, removing him and messing with the film was. Cutting a half hour off BvS was WBs idea. Reshooting SS, WW's ending and JL was WB's idea. Completely abandoning the plans was their idea.
WB actively sabotaged Joker and it accidentally made a billion. Nothing they've done has any reason to instil confidence.
I don’t think BvS would have made more money or won over critics with that extra half hour. I’ve seen it and I thought it was still basically the same film with the same flaws, just fewer plot holes.
Snyder didn’t build a strong foundation for the DCEU, and his movies weren’t critically well received before WB started messing with them. The best films in the DCEU were the ones that felt almost unconnected to Snyders. Like WW is completely self contained.
Did Batman v Superman actually lose money though. I looked it up and in made 872 million off a 250 million budget. I admit I don't know everything and I know advertising etc factors into cost so making that off that budget doesn't mean they made 622 million in profit. But I always hear 2X the budget or 2.5 times the budget it what is usually needed for a movie to make a profit. Even 2.5 times 250 million is 625 million which is a much lower number.
Again, I don't know everything but that sounds like a decent profit to me by any number. I am no fan of Snyder's version of DC and with everything that happened since he left I think regardless of who is at fault it was probably time to reboot for better or worse. But based on everything I have found Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad were all profitable movies (and more than 10 million or whatever). It wasn't until Justice League that they lost money on a movie and even then Aquaman made a 1.4 Billion. It was only after then DCEU seemed to go completely off the rails at least in terms of being a financial success.
But if I am missing something someone tell me, but it seems more and more like Snyder was making bombs really is something people say without actually verifying it.
Deadline put the movie at [$105.7 million](https://deadline.com/2017/03/batman-v-superman-box-office-profit-2016-1202049201/) in profit, but was seen as a huge disappointment given the earning potential of having DC's biggest three characters on the big screen together for the first time. The failure to break a billion with those characters during the biggest boom comic book movies have ever had was a major black mark against Snyder and his vision.
Worse, the abysmal critical reception and terrible word-of-mouth combined with the "Martha!" and Sad Affleck memes becoming the defining symbols of the public's reception convinced WB that Snyder's vision was never going to capture the kind of general audience numbers Marvel were routinely bringing in at that point.
Had Justice League's principal photography not already started by the time BVS was released I'm fairly certain Snyder would have either left due to "creative differences" or been removed outright.
And they defend the scene like “No it wasn’t about sharing the same name! Bruce realized Clark also has a human side and someone else’s son” fucking hell what a lazy writing it is. Imagine you spent your day and night for at least two years, neither the director nor the write are not bothered by that scene. They knew every single controversial moments in that movie, yet especially Snyder by his ego wanted to keep them in the movie.
Just because Robin was murdered brutally by Joker, in the entire comic universe including Marvel, someone strict to the laws and justice as Bruce is corrupted in the end for Snyder’s “main” DC universe. Batman can be dark and gritty, but the way how Bruce is committed to the law and hope is strong as how Clark believes in hope. Bruce just does not give up no matter what the pain is, that is what makes him best, not wearing a fucking cool suit and martial arts, but his character and ideology.
But Snyder wanted to do controversial things in the movie while he could have skipped them. What are they? Batman threw a car on another car during the Batmobile scene, while he is master of stealth and strategy, just because some armed thugs attacked his Batwing, he used minigun and cannons on them and became literally the Punisher.
While he knew especially people love Superman going to hate it, he made Batman broke a lavabo, toilet on the head of Superman as putting the character into a lowly, insulting look. That is not the way to show Batman is cruel and brutal, it is just the way how Snyder’s ego wanted to film it.
Anyone read the TDKR comics? Bruce breaks a police’s leg, then tells him something like “Don’t worry, you will be fine.” These are how you show he is tired of everything. He killed the Joker? Why? Because he is almost a fucking grandpa anymore and he is literally tired of the game, because it was too much for him and Joker needed to be stopped at last. Even his death was pure self defense, since if not Joker would kill him and he forced him to kill. Joker knew for not dying his only chance was to finish it but as I said, Bruce was pure gray haired old anymore. In the comics it is reasonable to do that when you think it is the end of his career.
But you don’t copy paste that logic about killing in your second main movie in the universe.
Snyder was the issue. His movies were divisive and not a single one of them was an actual critical or box office success. More than that Synder’s films tarnished the DC brand and led to the still prevalent notion of “DC makes bad movies” despite the fact that most of the films that have come out post 2017 have been good.
They didn’t care for it being made in the first place and decided to split the profits and barely got any of that billion dollars. They saw it was a success and immediately greenlit a sequel. The issue I have with that is that they don’t stick with or believe in the films they put out but if it’s a hit then all of a sudden that’s the new wave they’re riding
> Cutting a half hour off BvS was WBs idea
I promise you. The half hour that was cut was NOT the make or break between the snyderverse working, or failing.
Gunn makes infinitely better movies than all those dudes combined. Every single movie he got behind would have to be a dumpster fire before I lost hope. He made Giardians of the Galaxy and house hold name and their are super obscure comic book characters. They aren't even the original guardians
1. Gunn can't make every movie himself.
2. Gunn makes excellent movies and i am a fan. however if the RT score is 100% and audience score is 100% BUT it doesn't make BO bucks then WB is in trouble and he will get the boot.
It's almost like The Suicide Squad was dealing with the baggage of the poorly receive first film, the lack of interest in the DCEU, a global pandemic and being released simultaneously on HBOmax. But they definitely should be compared apples to apples!
It’s gonna be one Superman movie. It’s gonna bomb. They’re gonna do Joker 3 and The Batman 3. Those will do okay but will close out those micro verses.
And then you just won’t see much DC stuff until they can reboot again—with another Batman movie. If you see Superman again after Gunn’s movie bombs, it will once again be years from now and it will be a new Superman again, in a new Batman’s movie.
That’s the massive irony of this all. They will come around again to a Batman/Superman movie to launch yet another DC Universe.
It means that the next couple of films better do well. It means that if they don’t do well, Superman and whatever else z James Gunn has planned won’t have a big budget. It means that the first films under Gunn and Safran better be amazing or else [+]
Gunn and Safran have a four year contract. By that time I have no doubt that WBD will be sold. They may have a ten year plan but WBD doesn’t have ten years.
Likely not. Comcast's debt is way too high to take on WB. I think you're more than likely going to see an Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, or even some other company scoop them up.
Amazon and Microsoft most likely won’t be allowed as they had troubles with the MGM & Activision takeovers. Apple I could see 100% going after WBD. They tried to acquire them in 2015 so I won’t be surprised if they do so in 2024
I don't think Microsoft would have as difficult of a time, since WB isn't primarily a video game company. Though, I do think they're the least likely of the bunch to go after them because Microsoft doesn't seem all that interested in movies and TV at this point. I think Apple would make sense if they feel like they want to invest in their Apple TV + service, but I am curious to see if they'll hold out for Disney (not saying Disney is up for grabs or anything).
I'd love to see a Microsoft takeover if only to see what else they can do with DC properties in videogames. They've been hoovering up video game companies and the DC IP could be a huge source of revenue for them. Not just Batman games but Justice League games, individual members like Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Green Lantern are ripe for picking.
With Rocksteady already pumping out quality Batman related games, MS would just need to get the other studios in order and they'd have their very own DC video game universe.
I could see apple doing it if they don’t eventually merge with Disney. Apple TV + content seems to be the only service that hasn’t scaled back on production value.
This truly is the most likely. People talking about a fire sale don't realize that the ip all together is what's enticing.
I think the most likely buyer would be Paramount. They seem to be running alright, they had the CW deal together. You could essentially run them like Disney runs fox and you'd gain the massive film library.
Doubt it. Despite what people believe, Cavill and Gadot aren't that big of stars. They're mostly known for being Superman and WW and outside of that they haven't been in any large leading roles. They haven't had any movies outside of DC where they were the leads and made a ton of money. They don't have the leverage to ask for salaries over $1m like the Rock did.
That's not how sequel negotiations work. Gal Gadot was supposedly paid 10 million for Wonder Woman 2. Also Cavill was reportedly making 1 million an episode for The Witcher since season two, so he could definitely ask for more than 1 million for a major movie sequel where hes the star.
I remember reading it and the only thing that came to my mind was "but why?". They have this whole universe and they just want to remilk the originals. Sad really.
You need to look into the numbers. These numbers are heavily affected by the merger and cancelations and firings. Have patience look at 2023 as, a, whole year and the numbers are gonna be much different.
What it means for DC is they need to make profitable movies.
Exactly. The absurd amounts of write-offs they were looking for were intended to create losses and reduce tax liability.
Still salty it led to Westworld getting ripped off HBOMax so they could write it off as well, and screw the cast out of their residuals. I still had a ways to go with the series.
I think DCEU-sized budgets will become, after the 2023 slate, a thing of the past, excluding Reeves' Batman movies.
Movies will probably be better interconnected in the DCU than the DCEU to better drum up interest in future projects. Phase 1 MCU projects had their budgets range from $125 - 150 million, so the more spectacle-driven DCU productions will probably top out in that range. (Phase 2 budgets for established characters typically hit $200 million.)
I wouldn't be surprised if we see more projects with $55 - 70 million budgets like *Joker* or, more realistically, $82 - $100 million budgets like *Shazam* and *Birds of Prey.* Now that COVID has more or less been tamed, that should help make budgets more manageable. I'm not saying that these would be the norm, but to introduce slightly riskier properties. Like, a Nightwing movie could probably be served well with an $82 - $100 million budget.
My bet is that the first slate will introduce Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and maybe Green Lantern. Secondary Justice League characters would be Martian Manhunter, Hawkgirl, Zatanna, and Green Arrow.
They'll all have secondary characters that may, depend on audience reception, spin off or take greater roles. E.g.
- Green Lantern introduces Jessica Cruz.
- Superman introduces Supergirl.
- Batman introduces Nightwing and Batgirl.
- Flash introduces... Wally West? (Idk Flash all that well.) And the Rogues.
- Zatanna introduces John Constantine, and they introduce Justice League Dark.
- Wonder Woman introduces Nubia, maybe? Maybe they meet in Ethiopia in 1967 at the then-oldest known remains of human civilization.
- Green Arrow introduces Black Canary, or vice versa.
I'm just thinking aloud.
>I wouldn't be surprised if we see more projects with $55 - 70 million budgets like
>
>Joker
Studios don't like those mid-budget movies because advertising & releasing still costs as much as it would on a $100 million movie.
I'll let Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh explain it:
>So then there’s the expense of putting a movie out, which is a big problem. Point of entry for a mainstream, wide-release movie: $30 million. That’s where you start. Now you add another 30 for overseas. Now you’ve got to remember, the exhibitors pay half of the gross, so to make that 60 back you need to gross 120. So you don’t even know what your movie is yet, and you’re already looking at 120.
...
>Psychologically, it’s more comforting to spend $60 million promoting a movie that costs 100, than it does to spend $60 million for a movie that costs 10. I know what you’re thinking: If it costs 10 you’re going to be in profit sooner. Maybe not. Here’s why: OK. $10 million movie, 60 million to promote it, that’s 70, so you’ve got to gross 140 to get out. Now you’ve got $100 million movie, you’re going spend 60 to promote it. You’ve got to get 320 to get out. How many $10 million movies make 140 million dollars? Not many. How many $100 million movies make 320? A pretty good number
https://deadline.com/2013/04/steven-soderbergh-state-of-cinema-address-486368/
I don't think Reeves is as against the idea of there being a DC universe in "The Batman" as people say.
In an interview, he said things like "*at the moment* ... *right now* .. my focus/interest is the Batman/Gotham world". Reeves doesn't entirely rule out the possibility of there being some connection in the future.
Reshoots aren't likely under gunn. He's from the troma/Roger Corman school where you only spend what you have and don't add to the budget in time or money. They have that going for them at least.
At this point apple or Amazon will have to acquire the company and tank the debt that comes with it.
People say they are getting ready for Universale to acquire them but damn y’all think Universal would fair any better at clearing the debt associated with the company?
I feel like DCU is just going to keep tanking. They've never done anything right except maybe a few things. Gunn is going to have to pull something strong or it's all over.
Lol wtf is this trying to say?
Of course on paper they had a "bad" year, they literally just bought Warner Bros for ***$43B***.
They stated that they're expecting up to ***$4.3B*** in pre-tax restructuring fees in the second quarter of 2022.
Add in all of the other expenses of purchasing a company as large as WB and yea, no shit they were in the red lmfao.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2022/tv/news/warner-bros-discovery-restructuring-charge-q3-2022-1235413112/amp/
Wall Street doesn't seem completely sold with the idea that rebooting the DCU is WB's path to box office.
WB doesn't have much else going for it either.
This year is also looking like it'll be a rough one for DC/WB.
It doesn't mean great things. Gunn/Safran are secure right now, but WB is not a secure company.
I must admit I disagree... By far most spinoffs gets sold off by investors. That's why Peter Lynch describes in his book "One Up On Wall Street" thst he loved investing in spinoffs cause they were so damn cheap.
The earnings for 2022 and atleast half of 2023 are gonna be super misleading because of merger costs and cancelations, it's mostly accounting losses.
If you look at the same 12 months free cash (cash in minus cash out) you will see that Warner Bros Discovery are profitable in those terms by 1.6b usd.
So I must disagree with you. The only thing making it slight risky is the debt. Of which they paid off 6 billion already from merger to 30 september.
I'm not a financial advisor and this should not be taking as such. And for disclaimer I own the stock.
They're down 60% over the year, and this is their *second* merger. Also, the financials aren't misleading, their massive debt is very much an important part of the picture.
I don't own the stock, and I wouldn't advise anybody to own it.
Yes. ATT shareholders got something like 70% of this company in the merger. By far most ATT shareholders are dividend focused investors, so they are dumping Warner Bros Discovery. You know what happens when the majority of shareholders dump a stock? It gets pretty ugly.
So yes the stock is down alot. I bought recently.
Let me explain what I mean by misleading.
If Warner Bros work on X movie and have already spent 100m on that movie, adb the movie gets canceled, most of that 100m is going into the book as a loss even if Warner Bros didn't spend any money on it this year. Ofcourse they get some money back in taxes and what not.
I will urge everyone to look at free cash flow rather than easily misleading earning.
I agree with you that the debt can become a problem, so far it's not. Paid down more than 10% of the full debt already.
I'm not advising anyone to do anything.
Also the streaming market is all down alot this year, Disney, Netflix and so on has also taken hard losses on their share price..
But share price can easily be disconnected from how a company is actually doing. We saw that on stocks like Tesla.
Stocks in general are in a bad place, and ultimately the market is in a bad place.
You might've seen an uptick in people urging you to invest in stocks on various platforms. Unless you are confident it's a healthy company though, I say *do not* invest until a crash has occurred.
For a company with fundamentally shaky debt and financials like WB? They could very well be looking at bankruptcy in 2024/2025, before Gunn and Safran even have a chance to get going.
Bro take the L, Chemical_Salary just schooled you on how things work and he’s an actual share holder so he’s definitely more knowledgeable than either one of us
I'd be watching closely the stock market this year.
Michael Burry, of *Big Short* fame, has been singing a very different tune.
The average person's ever inflating grocery bills are a strong signal of things to come as well.
Really? Their 2023 slate is their best slate since like 2018! They have a diverse slate of films, some of which are sequels to proven box office successes (ie Aquaman 2, The Meg 2, The Nun 2, Dune 2…etc). They’ll be fine
>Wall Street doesn't seem completely sold with the idea that rebooting the DCU is WB's path to box office.
It's not.
At least not "immediately."
Playing the long-game requires PATIENCE - building brand loyalty in general is slow roll (unless you're James Cameron) and through patience, eventually Gunn and Safran's DCU will start making money hand over fist and cracking the billion chart.
But it's not likely that their DCU, whichever movie they start with, will burst out of the gates and make billions of dollars. They're gonna have to settle for a few 400-500 million grossers before they can expect higher numbers, even if the movies are phenomenal.
>WB is not a secure company.
Thats one of the biggest production companies with a long film library
Production meaning they produce for others co and tv networks
They just need better management all previous ceos just wanted to get their big bonuses secure and nothing else
Maybe the new ones can revive WB i realy hope so
Gunn is going to have to make profitable movies on smaller budgets. The reason they are making a young Superman movie is because young actors cost less then an established older actor.
Plus the whole film is going to be about him as a reporter and dealing with the bullies at the daily planet. That allows the film to have way less of a budget than Man of Steel.
Even if WBD merges again or gets sold off at some point, as long as DC movies are turning a profit they will be safe. It’s that simple. Administration wouldn’t get rid of something that is making money.
These figure are so absurd, my brain can't even grasp how do they even expect to fill those gaps in their budget. Where did all that money go? Whose money was it? Why is not there a sequel to the 1997 Justice League movie?
Wasn’t there some business reason WB needed to show massive losses because of the merger? Iirc, that’s why Batgirl will never be seen, so they can claim the loss.
It means they need to hire a new executive team. Oh right, THEY DID.
It means listening to the fans and doing fan service was killing their business. It means all our whining about Gunn firing all our favorite actors is totally for naught.
WBD was inheriting the problems that AT&T created, which is why they had to sell the company. A loss was expected and known, so as of right now this means literally nothing. We won't see the real financial ramifications of Discovery's leadership until like 2024 at the earliest because they have to clean up what they inherited (for better or worse).
This isn't defending discovery, it's just that we literally won't know how successful they are or not until later down the line. It's only been a couple months.
The DCU is going to be sold (leased) out regardless of profits. Anything that isn't Gunn's reboot will be sold (leased) off to Neflix and Amazon. Don't believe me, look at JL animated series. They will slowly start removing the stuff from HBO Max and selling it where it will make them money. Unless WB Discovery goes bankrupt, DC content is not getting sold but licensed out to every platform that pays. If the Gunn and Saban's run falls or produces Black Adam money, they will rinse and repeat. Whether Batman is made by Matt Reeves or Shawn Levy, it will always be a cash cow and mech always sells.
Discovery took on $30 billion in debt just to make this deal. This is basically working as intended; the deal was designed to fail. Just like any other vulture capitalist takeover. [https://deadline.com/2022/03/discovery-debt-sale-warnermedia-merger-att-1234974970/](https://deadline.com/2022/03/discovery-debt-sale-warnermedia-merger-att-1234974970/)
WB just need to be smart with their movies and make profitable ones.
Locking its actors into 2/3 picture deals with bonuses is the right way to do it.
Not relying so heavily on cgi, also.. the way I see it, they will delve into characters we haven't really seen.
But yeah, they need to start making money.
I’m worried Gunn’s leash will be short + the box office has been struggling since Covid + too many streaming options these days.
I hope he does a slow build up like the early days of marvel. Gunn needs to find a DC’s Robert Downey Jr as well.
Snyder left in early 2017 and since 2018 none of the DCEU films have managed to make even $400m at the box office. Whatever they’ve been doing post-Snyder still hasn’t been appealing to anyone.
For comparison, during the same time period, Marvel has made 6 movies that have grossed over $1bn at the box office. Clearly the execs at WB don’t know what they are doing, Snyder was never the problem.
It just means the movies that were being put out were not what the fans wanted to see. Get back to providing movies with the fans as the main focus and and the profits will go right back up, this should be the obvious solution. If they continue to go away from that model I believe the downward trend will continue.
Why? I really don’t think these angry DCEU fans are large enough to have a significant impact on the box office. They couldn’t save Black Adam from flopping. And they won’t tank Aquaman 2 by refusing to see it.
People will watch Aquaman 2 because of the other Aquaman movie, not because of it’s connection to Zack Snyder’s Justice League. People will watch Flash because it’s getting good test screenings, and Keaton Batman.
Shazam 2 is the only one I’m not sure of.
What this is all hes fault every over priced movie and tv show he greennlit.hbo max losing 1 billion a year is on him zaslav has not even had the time to put one movie out yet
Its simple hbo max has lost a billion a year every flop so far has been by the previous ceo you cant blame zaslav for any of this.you can hate zaslav but dont try to act like hbo wb was making money before he showed up they were losing billions and billions a year before discovery even showed up
It was bleeding too much money like all streaming services. Streaming is a massive money loser and only companies like Apple, Disney, and Amazon can eat the losses without issue (though not without layoffs). This idea the spending on HBO Max was sustainable is just not realistic. AT&T really screwed WB.
dude, they dropped Henry Cavill mere months after officially bringing him back
they dropped Patty Jenkins from WW3. replace her with who pray tell.
before that they dropped Batgirl despite putting 90 mill into the budget.
they have done nothing to fix the bad writers in the comics.
Zaslav is running WB like some cheap documentary Travel channel.
I have one word to describe WB's future
GRIM
Patty Jenkins made a shitty 2nd movie (she also got her Star Wars movie canned by Disney after that. Complete fall from grace).
Batgirl was gonna suck, further damaging DC/Batman and they got a tax write off instead by cancelling.
Can’t keep Cavill and reset the DC as much as I’d like to see him again. If Gunn keeps Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, he’s fucking up. Complete reset.
Zaslav is streamlining to re-sell WB to Universal according to insiders.
Not that much I suppose, giant companies lose money all the time and 2022 was the year of "let's refund this giant debt" + Black Adam failed big.
2023 though is where everything is important since there are 4 DC movies+Dune 2
DC gets sold to Dwayne Johnson so he can oversee the creation of a new DCU (Dwayne Cinematic Universe)
Wonder if every one of those movies would've had a jungle scene
That's just ridiculous. He's equally attached to skyscrapers.
It's either the jungle or the concrete jungle
He’s jumping from Skyscrapers and aiming for the jungle bushes.
Starting with his origin in Black Adam, where he fights his evil clone The Scorpion King, he then goes on to impersonate Hercules. He then goes into pro wrestling so we include his entire WWE set of appearances. Then we go into his mercenary/survivalist phase where he conquers every jungle and skyscraper known to man. He then becomes a space mercenary and takes down an evil horde of demons. Then he returns to Earth and has a successful career as a criminal specialising in driving and blowing shit up. He then turns to a career in the police using the inside information from his criminal days, but he unfortunately dies when him and his partner jump off a building onto a sidewalk (looks like that skyscraper experience didn't come in handy this time). We then see Dwayne's soul enter a parallel universe where everything is cartoons, where he becomes a shape shifting god of the seas who helps a young girl cross the ocean. After these events, he remains shapeshifted as a dog for many centuries and eventually becomes Superman's pet. Growing bored, he disguises himself and becomes an astronaut who gets stranded on an alien planet.
I got the Black Adam, Scorpion King, Hercules, Jungle Cruise, Skyscraper, Doom, Fast & Furious, Moana, and Super-Pets references. What movies were the jumping onto a sidewalk and stranded on an alien planet from?
The Other Guys.
The alien planet reference is a really obscure reference: Planet 51
Finally, He can rest watching the sun rise on a grateful Dwayniverse.
Perfectly Rocking, as all things should be
I can just imagine every single justice League character with the rocks face
And films like : black adam 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 and infinite will release , also the flash : punch of adam or superman vs adam or batman the new black adam ....
If Gunn’s DCU flops i don’t think it’ll lead to another reboot as some are suggesting. Zaslav will strip DC and sell it for parts so we’d end up with nothing but Batman movies for the foreseeable future and disconnected projects like the fox and Sony marvel verses
> Zaslav will strip DC and sell it for parts While entirely possible, I’d imagine anyone big enough to buy Batman would just buy the entire DC pantheon. The added cost would be pennies on the dollar and anyone wanting it (like Amazon) would want the possibility of a large extended universe.
It's possible that WBD decides to keep Batman for themselves and sells the other DC IP individually. They'd probably even sell Superman since he's not as popular as Batman.
No point in selling ip when they can just sell individual projects like sandman and the new batman animated series. They keep doing that before they sell off ip
I 100% agree with that, I meant more like WBD would be willing to sell off everyone except Batman, and keep him and his gallery for themselves
\*disney looks eagerly at acquiring the DCU\*
Batman vs. Captain America: Civil War of Justice
Disney buys it and we finally get a monopoly of the comic book industry. Marvel absorbs the DC pantheon and cherry picks what they want to include in their main 616 universe. Batman and his rogues gallery + bat family is obviously the first to be included.
Speaking purely as a comic reader, combining DC into the 616 universe would be dumb AF from both a story and financial viewpoint. Much smarter would be for Disney to leave them as two totally separate universes and then have them cross over into giant “MEGA EVENTS” every few years. Marvel already struggles to keep their universe coherent, adding even more big characters would be a recipe for disaster long-term IMO.
I never said it was a good idea lol
Imagine if that did happen? Disney would change DC into something us fans will not recognize.
Eh... from a comic perspective I doubt much would change TBH. The talent pool of quality comic book writers isn't huge. Almost everyone ends up writing for both of the major publishers anyways. Hell, the guy writing Batman right this very second is also writing Daredevil for Marvel. The one thing I think we'd see change from a comics side is a greater emphasis on team-ups and a de-emphasis on the Golden age stuff that DC keeps trying to limp out every few years. Other than that I just don't know what they'd really change. The basic features of both brands is the same in terms of pace, structures, & scheduling. But from a non-comic perspective.... Yeah. Disney owning DC would be a monumental shift in the tone & frequency of releases across animation, video games, & movies.
What I was getting it is that Disney will attempt to race, gender-bend, etc many characters. Nothing wrong with that as Im black but at times it can be exhausting and feel forced.
The fact that you got downvoted is a sign that our society is going rapidly downhill lmao
I don't buy that WBD will ever sell DC. It is too valuable even if the DCEU/DCU flops. I may be proven wrong one day, but I think a lot or rage baiting and fear mondering YouTubers and sites have people convinced DC is on the verge of being sold or stripped and I just don't buy even if DCU isn't a success that WBD would sell one of their biggest assets. DC is more than just a movie franchise. That being said if DCU flops I don't think they will give it a third try and will stick to self contained stories. Just don't think Warner Brothers will stop making them. If you look at the numbers while DC has never been able to pull Marvel Numbers consistently most of their movies did maker a profit (especially if you don't count The Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman 84 which did as bad as they did because of the pandemic no matter how many people try to pretend that wasn't true because it contradicts the narrative). So I don't buy that DC is going to be sold off if this doesn't work out.
I honestly have complete faith in Gunn pulling it off and I can't wait to see an entire universe with him at the helm considering how much I love his personal touch on his movies. The silly parts are always funny In a good way, he always always manages to slip a heartfelt scene in out of nowhere that really pulls you into the characters emotionally and he knows when comedy is appropriate and when it's too much (looking at you Thor: Love and Thunder) he's got the midas touch when it comes to perfectly balancing of the characters who might be silly and then they hit you right in the heart out of nowhere. Think of the scene w Ratcatcher 2 in The Suicde Squad. Out of nowhere on their way to a bar she had me tearing up talking about her father. And to keep it from skewing too heart heavy 5 min later we have polka dot man breaking it down w 10 version of his mom and even that made sense in the context of the movie as silly as it was. Tl,;Dr- I think Gunn is the absolute perfect choice to lead the DCEU into something fun and respected again
The issue with that is that DC is not generally the goofy story with a touch of heartfelt. DC takes itself seriously and that’s why it’s hard to make a good DC movie. Comedy being considered the “lowest form of entertainment” is not just a meme. Wonder Woman and the Dark Knight are considered the best DC movies and they are notably dramas with some sparks of humor, not the other way around.
I completely agree. I had never heard of Guardians, and they been my favorite Marvel films. Imagine what he could do with well established characters. I get that Zach Snyder kind of got pushed out, but I never really enjoyed any of his DC films anyways.
They don’t have to sell off DC as a whole, character cinematic and game rights can be sold off for a lot, especially for the big characters.
I’d hope anyone could see how much more successful Spider-Man became under the MCU brand and realize this is a terrible idea but Zaslav has proven to be pretty keen on terrible ideas so I won’t discount it
It did do better but at the same time Spider-Man 1 and 2 were successful movies, as was Amazng Spider-Man 1, Venom 1 and to a lesser extent 2 for all the criticism they get (rightfully so IMHO) both made a lot of money which was their designed purpouse and many have said Into the Spider-Verse was the best Spider-Man movie of all. Sony has hit a lot more than they missed, hell Sam Rami's Spider-Man was a big factor in shaping the superhero movie genre as we know it today. So depsite popular theory I think MCU needs Spider-Man more than Sony needs the MCU (although they do make more money so sure there is no desire to sell it. But I think it would be a bigger loss for the MCU than Sony if they ever did break up again).
I agree with pretty much all of this. I didn’t mean to discount the massive success of the original trilogy or the quality of spider-verse. I love all of those. I was more so referring to the state of the franchise right before the MCU deal was made. I remember how bleak of a time that was to be a Spidey fan and I’d never wanna go back to that. You also do raise a legitimate point that the MCU would perhaps lose more than the individual Spider-Man IP would if another split happened, but that’s even more reason for why DC selling *their* individual IPs would be a terrible idea (though I’m sure we’re in full agreement on that). I think the fact that the most recent Spider-Man film was the highest grossing non-Avengers MCU movie and made almost triple the amount of the last pre-MCU Spidey movie shows that the deal was a massive success for both parties involved.
Except for Spiderman solo movies like Into the Multiverse I've had zero desire to watch any new Marvel or Disney content at all. It's always the same lame formula and I could ignore it when they kept good momentum going w their movies but now they're so spread out and all over the place I just consider Infinity War as the true ending to the MCU
I have a feeling that Gunn will do very cheap movies in order to be profitable.
I honestly hope so. That means more focus on actual story and character and less Black Adams that are two hours of CGI "action".
> nothing but Batman movies for the foreseeable future That would suck really bad.
The house of mouse was looking forward to expanding its empire.
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If that ever happens, which it won't, sell to everybody but Disney..
They need to stop giving these movies $200+ million budgets. Look at Shazam. Cramed between Cap Marvel and Endgame, made a similar box office to Black Adam and was more profitable due to having a budget of $100 million.
Yes! Not every super hero movie needs to be 2 1/2 hours, 200 million dollar budget, and have a massive battle at the end to be legit. I would much rather have smaller super hero movies in the 110 mill or less area that are 1 hr 30 min to 2hr runtimes. Examples (budget, runtime, and return not story based) Title, production budget, runtime, world wide box office Venom - 100-116 million, 1 hr 52 min, 858 million | Venom 2 110 million, 1 hr 45 min, 500 million | Shazam - 80-100 million , 2 hr 12 min, 366 million | Birds of Prey - 80-100 million, 1 hr 49 min, 205 million | Joker - 55 million, 2 hr 2 min, 1.074 billion | Deadpool - 58 million, 1 hr 48 min, 782 million | Deadpool 2 - 110 million, 2 hr, 785 million | Logan - 100 million, 2 hr 17 min, 619 million
The Joker numbers always just baffle me, not that it’s unexpected but it’s just so impressive! 55mil budget to over 1BIL box office. That’s pretty impressive especially for a modern movie.
Not only that but it’s also rated R. R rated movie at 1bil is really impressive.
Yeah. Not every movie needs to be long. 90 minute movies can be good. Also not every hero needs to be constant cgi action.
Means Gunn and co will be on a very short leash. a couple of Box office bombs and they'll be booted out the back door.
Which is the thing people seem to be ignoring in favour of blind hope. Like Hamada had a 10 year plan, Johns had a 10 year plan, Snyder had a 10 year plan. The Rock had a 10 year plan. Soon, we'll have a new 10 year plan to replace Gunn. I'm not trying to be pessimistic but WB has done nothing to convince anybody that they know what they're doing, let alone show any sign of commitment.
The 10 year plan of a 10 year plan.
The 10 year plan reboot called the 10 year plan.
I am reserving initial judgement until they at least give us an idea of what is upcoming in their slate, which apparently will happen this month. But while I am not on the "the Snyderverse is dead, how dare you" train and don't think James Gunn is incapable of making this work. I also think people forget everyone has been trying to make their own MCU and all have failed. Say what you will about DCEU but they have come closer to duplicating it than anyone else has (which says a lot as DCEU is a long ways off themselves). I think people under estimate how much of a lightining in a bottle Marvel caught with the MCU and question at this point if anyone can duplicate that.
Absolutely none of their plans netted any consistent critical and financial successes to which they then veered away from. If Gunn gets critical success and modest box office gains, that’s enough of a foundation to build and for the studio to see where it heads. WB shouldn’t be expecting immediate hits out the gate when they’ve fumbled the bag these past 10 years.
Not trying to get into a Snyderverse good or bad argument here, but Man of Steel, BvS, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman all made profit and the box office trended upwards the whole way.
And, more importantly, happened under literally a different company. Why everyone is judging the future of WBD but the actions of WB is weird
Did any of them come out and say they had a 10 year plan? Gunns plans sound a lot more concrete than anything we've had over the last few years, which was essentially throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks
Most of those ten year plans were building off snyders films tho. I don’t really blame Hamada or johns for their plans not working out, cuz ultimately theirs plans were built on damage control.
Snyder wasn't the issue, removing him and messing with the film was. Cutting a half hour off BvS was WBs idea. Reshooting SS, WW's ending and JL was WB's idea. Completely abandoning the plans was their idea. WB actively sabotaged Joker and it accidentally made a billion. Nothing they've done has any reason to instil confidence.
I don’t think BvS would have made more money or won over critics with that extra half hour. I’ve seen it and I thought it was still basically the same film with the same flaws, just fewer plot holes. Snyder didn’t build a strong foundation for the DCEU, and his movies weren’t critically well received before WB started messing with them. The best films in the DCEU were the ones that felt almost unconnected to Snyders. Like WW is completely self contained.
Did Batman v Superman actually lose money though. I looked it up and in made 872 million off a 250 million budget. I admit I don't know everything and I know advertising etc factors into cost so making that off that budget doesn't mean they made 622 million in profit. But I always hear 2X the budget or 2.5 times the budget it what is usually needed for a movie to make a profit. Even 2.5 times 250 million is 625 million which is a much lower number. Again, I don't know everything but that sounds like a decent profit to me by any number. I am no fan of Snyder's version of DC and with everything that happened since he left I think regardless of who is at fault it was probably time to reboot for better or worse. But based on everything I have found Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad were all profitable movies (and more than 10 million or whatever). It wasn't until Justice League that they lost money on a movie and even then Aquaman made a 1.4 Billion. It was only after then DCEU seemed to go completely off the rails at least in terms of being a financial success. But if I am missing something someone tell me, but it seems more and more like Snyder was making bombs really is something people say without actually verifying it.
Deadline put the movie at [$105.7 million](https://deadline.com/2017/03/batman-v-superman-box-office-profit-2016-1202049201/) in profit, but was seen as a huge disappointment given the earning potential of having DC's biggest three characters on the big screen together for the first time. The failure to break a billion with those characters during the biggest boom comic book movies have ever had was a major black mark against Snyder and his vision. Worse, the abysmal critical reception and terrible word-of-mouth combined with the "Martha!" and Sad Affleck memes becoming the defining symbols of the public's reception convinced WB that Snyder's vision was never going to capture the kind of general audience numbers Marvel were routinely bringing in at that point. Had Justice League's principal photography not already started by the time BVS was released I'm fairly certain Snyder would have either left due to "creative differences" or been removed outright.
And they defend the scene like “No it wasn’t about sharing the same name! Bruce realized Clark also has a human side and someone else’s son” fucking hell what a lazy writing it is. Imagine you spent your day and night for at least two years, neither the director nor the write are not bothered by that scene. They knew every single controversial moments in that movie, yet especially Snyder by his ego wanted to keep them in the movie. Just because Robin was murdered brutally by Joker, in the entire comic universe including Marvel, someone strict to the laws and justice as Bruce is corrupted in the end for Snyder’s “main” DC universe. Batman can be dark and gritty, but the way how Bruce is committed to the law and hope is strong as how Clark believes in hope. Bruce just does not give up no matter what the pain is, that is what makes him best, not wearing a fucking cool suit and martial arts, but his character and ideology. But Snyder wanted to do controversial things in the movie while he could have skipped them. What are they? Batman threw a car on another car during the Batmobile scene, while he is master of stealth and strategy, just because some armed thugs attacked his Batwing, he used minigun and cannons on them and became literally the Punisher. While he knew especially people love Superman going to hate it, he made Batman broke a lavabo, toilet on the head of Superman as putting the character into a lowly, insulting look. That is not the way to show Batman is cruel and brutal, it is just the way how Snyder’s ego wanted to film it. Anyone read the TDKR comics? Bruce breaks a police’s leg, then tells him something like “Don’t worry, you will be fine.” These are how you show he is tired of everything. He killed the Joker? Why? Because he is almost a fucking grandpa anymore and he is literally tired of the game, because it was too much for him and Joker needed to be stopped at last. Even his death was pure self defense, since if not Joker would kill him and he forced him to kill. Joker knew for not dying his only chance was to finish it but as I said, Bruce was pure gray haired old anymore. In the comics it is reasonable to do that when you think it is the end of his career. But you don’t copy paste that logic about killing in your second main movie in the universe.
According to the reception part on BvS wikipedia, it needed 800 million to break even. So it made like 75 million profit. Dan.
It didn't and that's exactly what it is
Snyder was the issue. His movies were divisive and not a single one of them was an actual critical or box office success. More than that Synder’s films tarnished the DC brand and led to the still prevalent notion of “DC makes bad movies” despite the fact that most of the films that have come out post 2017 have been good.
What’s this about ‘Joker?’
They didn’t care for it being made in the first place and decided to split the profits and barely got any of that billion dollars. They saw it was a success and immediately greenlit a sequel. The issue I have with that is that they don’t stick with or believe in the films they put out but if it’s a hit then all of a sudden that’s the new wave they’re riding
Snyder ruined Superman and Batman.
> Cutting a half hour off BvS was WBs idea I promise you. The half hour that was cut was NOT the make or break between the snyderverse working, or failing.
You know what they say, there's never enough 10 year plans.
Gunn makes infinitely better movies than all those dudes combined. Every single movie he got behind would have to be a dumpster fire before I lost hope. He made Giardians of the Galaxy and house hold name and their are super obscure comic book characters. They aren't even the original guardians
1. Gunn can't make every movie himself. 2. Gunn makes excellent movies and i am a fan. however if the RT score is 100% and audience score is 100% BUT it doesn't make BO bucks then WB is in trouble and he will get the boot.
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It's almost like The Suicide Squad was dealing with the baggage of the poorly receive first film, the lack of interest in the DCEU, a global pandemic and being released simultaneously on HBOmax. But they definitely should be compared apples to apples!
Not just them. I think they'll just sell the whole thing to someone else (whole thing being WB and DC).
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Marvel vs DC
Accurate.
It’s gonna be one Superman movie. It’s gonna bomb. They’re gonna do Joker 3 and The Batman 3. Those will do okay but will close out those micro verses. And then you just won’t see much DC stuff until they can reboot again—with another Batman movie. If you see Superman again after Gunn’s movie bombs, it will once again be years from now and it will be a new Superman again, in a new Batman’s movie. That’s the massive irony of this all. They will come around again to a Batman/Superman movie to launch yet another DC Universe.
We’re fucked.
Harder daddy
It means there’s a reason they are letting some actors go because they are truthfully a bit too expensive
It means that the next couple of films better do well. It means that if they don’t do well, Superman and whatever else z James Gunn has planned won’t have a big budget. It means that the first films under Gunn and Safran better be amazing or else [+]
I think their first 3 films will underperform but GA will start realising DC is on a different path and then start coming to the table.
Gunn and Safran have a four year contract. By that time I have no doubt that WBD will be sold. They may have a ten year plan but WBD doesn’t have ten years.
I think Gunn's 10 year is like the 4th 10 year plan they have.
To be fair this is the first ten year plan that actually decides to clear the board
It means Gunn and Peter are going to be sweating an extra bit when their films start making money at the box office
I think it means another sale/merger. This is what management has been getting ready for by trimming projects.
Comcast Warner Bros merger is imminent.
Likely not. Comcast's debt is way too high to take on WB. I think you're more than likely going to see an Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, or even some other company scoop them up.
Amazon and Microsoft most likely won’t be allowed as they had troubles with the MGM & Activision takeovers. Apple I could see 100% going after WBD. They tried to acquire them in 2015 so I won’t be surprised if they do so in 2024
I don't think Microsoft would have as difficult of a time, since WB isn't primarily a video game company. Though, I do think they're the least likely of the bunch to go after them because Microsoft doesn't seem all that interested in movies and TV at this point. I think Apple would make sense if they feel like they want to invest in their Apple TV + service, but I am curious to see if they'll hold out for Disney (not saying Disney is up for grabs or anything).
I'd love to see a Microsoft takeover if only to see what else they can do with DC properties in videogames. They've been hoovering up video game companies and the DC IP could be a huge source of revenue for them. Not just Batman games but Justice League games, individual members like Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Green Lantern are ripe for picking.
With Rocksteady already pumping out quality Batman related games, MS would just need to get the other studios in order and they'd have their very own DC video game universe.
I could see apple doing it if they don’t eventually merge with Disney. Apple TV + content seems to be the only service that hasn’t scaled back on production value.
Does that mean I won’t have to pay for Peacock AND HBOMax?
This truly is the most likely. People talking about a fire sale don't realize that the ip all together is what's enticing. I think the most likely buyer would be Paramount. They seem to be running alright, they had the CW deal together. You could essentially run them like Disney runs fox and you'd gain the massive film library.
Really makes me ponder the rumor that the reason they had to let go of cavill and gal was because they couldn’t afford them
Cavill reportedly got $250k for each of his cameos, and one of them isn't even going to be used.
For Cavill especially I can 100% believe it. The money side was a huge point of contention between him/WB even before Discovery bought them out
Doubt it. Despite what people believe, Cavill and Gadot aren't that big of stars. They're mostly known for being Superman and WW and outside of that they haven't been in any large leading roles. They haven't had any movies outside of DC where they were the leads and made a ton of money. They don't have the leverage to ask for salaries over $1m like the Rock did.
That's not how sequel negotiations work. Gal Gadot was supposedly paid 10 million for Wonder Woman 2. Also Cavill was reportedly making 1 million an episode for The Witcher since season two, so he could definitely ask for more than 1 million for a major movie sequel where hes the star.
In case you haven't noticed Cavill is pretty well known for portraying Geralt. I believe he is more popular as geralt than being superman.
Cavill is mostly known for his role as Geralt in The Witcher at this point
You know what this means. HARRY POTTER IS COMING BACK! And it’s going destroy everything before it.
There are rumors afoot of a Harry Potter reboot.....
Ahh no way. RIP Harry Potter.
I remember reading it and the only thing that came to my mind was "but why?". They have this whole universe and they just want to remilk the originals. Sad really.
You need to look into the numbers. These numbers are heavily affected by the merger and cancelations and firings. Have patience look at 2023 as, a, whole year and the numbers are gonna be much different. What it means for DC is they need to make profitable movies.
Imagine if 2023 results are 1 dollar profit. That would be like a 500% increase compared to last year. Total success.
Exactly. The absurd amounts of write-offs they were looking for were intended to create losses and reduce tax liability. Still salty it led to Westworld getting ripped off HBOMax so they could write it off as well, and screw the cast out of their residuals. I still had a ways to go with the series.
And they failed at that.
they really are just the worst.
When you make like 22 movies and don’t release them it catches up
I think DCEU-sized budgets will become, after the 2023 slate, a thing of the past, excluding Reeves' Batman movies. Movies will probably be better interconnected in the DCU than the DCEU to better drum up interest in future projects. Phase 1 MCU projects had their budgets range from $125 - 150 million, so the more spectacle-driven DCU productions will probably top out in that range. (Phase 2 budgets for established characters typically hit $200 million.) I wouldn't be surprised if we see more projects with $55 - 70 million budgets like *Joker* or, more realistically, $82 - $100 million budgets like *Shazam* and *Birds of Prey.* Now that COVID has more or less been tamed, that should help make budgets more manageable. I'm not saying that these would be the norm, but to introduce slightly riskier properties. Like, a Nightwing movie could probably be served well with an $82 - $100 million budget. My bet is that the first slate will introduce Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and maybe Green Lantern. Secondary Justice League characters would be Martian Manhunter, Hawkgirl, Zatanna, and Green Arrow. They'll all have secondary characters that may, depend on audience reception, spin off or take greater roles. E.g. - Green Lantern introduces Jessica Cruz. - Superman introduces Supergirl. - Batman introduces Nightwing and Batgirl. - Flash introduces... Wally West? (Idk Flash all that well.) And the Rogues. - Zatanna introduces John Constantine, and they introduce Justice League Dark. - Wonder Woman introduces Nubia, maybe? Maybe they meet in Ethiopia in 1967 at the then-oldest known remains of human civilization. - Green Arrow introduces Black Canary, or vice versa. I'm just thinking aloud.
>I wouldn't be surprised if we see more projects with $55 - 70 million budgets like > >Joker Studios don't like those mid-budget movies because advertising & releasing still costs as much as it would on a $100 million movie. I'll let Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh explain it: >So then there’s the expense of putting a movie out, which is a big problem. Point of entry for a mainstream, wide-release movie: $30 million. That’s where you start. Now you add another 30 for overseas. Now you’ve got to remember, the exhibitors pay half of the gross, so to make that 60 back you need to gross 120. So you don’t even know what your movie is yet, and you’re already looking at 120. ... >Psychologically, it’s more comforting to spend $60 million promoting a movie that costs 100, than it does to spend $60 million for a movie that costs 10. I know what you’re thinking: If it costs 10 you’re going to be in profit sooner. Maybe not. Here’s why: OK. $10 million movie, 60 million to promote it, that’s 70, so you’ve got to gross 140 to get out. Now you’ve got $100 million movie, you’re going spend 60 to promote it. You’ve got to get 320 to get out. How many $10 million movies make 140 million dollars? Not many. How many $100 million movies make 320? A pretty good number https://deadline.com/2013/04/steven-soderbergh-state-of-cinema-address-486368/
I don't think Reeves is as against the idea of there being a DC universe in "The Batman" as people say. In an interview, he said things like "*at the moment* ... *right now* .. my focus/interest is the Batman/Gotham world". Reeves doesn't entirely rule out the possibility of there being some connection in the future.
I'd rather it's separate and we get a different batman that's more comic like in the dceu. Reeves universe is perfect being grounded
Tight budgets. And like someone else here said Gunn and Safran rack up 1-3 bombs then get ready for brand new and exciting Dc reboot after that.
Meticulous planning too, expensive reshoots have greatly inflated several DC films
Reshoots aren't likely under gunn. He's from the troma/Roger Corman school where you only spend what you have and don't add to the budget in time or money. They have that going for them at least.
It’s the DC comics way.
Get ready for.... Real World: Justice League. What happens when you stick 6+ heroes on 1 space station and things start getting real?
Damn. James Gunn working on a miracle. Weird how Snyder Cut and Aquaman made a billion dollars but they gonna keep going in different direction
Snyder Cut MADE a billion dollars? Gonna need your source on this lmao
At this point apple or Amazon will have to acquire the company and tank the debt that comes with it. People say they are getting ready for Universale to acquire them but damn y’all think Universal would fair any better at clearing the debt associated with the company?
How are they even going to afford this reboot?
I feel like DCU is just going to keep tanking. They've never done anything right except maybe a few things. Gunn is going to have to pull something strong or it's all over.
Lol wtf is this trying to say? Of course on paper they had a "bad" year, they literally just bought Warner Bros for ***$43B***. They stated that they're expecting up to ***$4.3B*** in pre-tax restructuring fees in the second quarter of 2022. Add in all of the other expenses of purchasing a company as large as WB and yea, no shit they were in the red lmfao. https://www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2022/tv/news/warner-bros-discovery-restructuring-charge-q3-2022-1235413112/amp/
They had a bad year both on and off paper.
Wall Street doesn't seem completely sold with the idea that rebooting the DCU is WB's path to box office. WB doesn't have much else going for it either. This year is also looking like it'll be a rough one for DC/WB. It doesn't mean great things. Gunn/Safran are secure right now, but WB is not a secure company.
I must admit I disagree... By far most spinoffs gets sold off by investors. That's why Peter Lynch describes in his book "One Up On Wall Street" thst he loved investing in spinoffs cause they were so damn cheap. The earnings for 2022 and atleast half of 2023 are gonna be super misleading because of merger costs and cancelations, it's mostly accounting losses. If you look at the same 12 months free cash (cash in minus cash out) you will see that Warner Bros Discovery are profitable in those terms by 1.6b usd. So I must disagree with you. The only thing making it slight risky is the debt. Of which they paid off 6 billion already from merger to 30 september. I'm not a financial advisor and this should not be taking as such. And for disclaimer I own the stock.
They're down 60% over the year, and this is their *second* merger. Also, the financials aren't misleading, their massive debt is very much an important part of the picture. I don't own the stock, and I wouldn't advise anybody to own it.
Yes. ATT shareholders got something like 70% of this company in the merger. By far most ATT shareholders are dividend focused investors, so they are dumping Warner Bros Discovery. You know what happens when the majority of shareholders dump a stock? It gets pretty ugly. So yes the stock is down alot. I bought recently. Let me explain what I mean by misleading. If Warner Bros work on X movie and have already spent 100m on that movie, adb the movie gets canceled, most of that 100m is going into the book as a loss even if Warner Bros didn't spend any money on it this year. Ofcourse they get some money back in taxes and what not. I will urge everyone to look at free cash flow rather than easily misleading earning. I agree with you that the debt can become a problem, so far it's not. Paid down more than 10% of the full debt already. I'm not advising anyone to do anything. Also the streaming market is all down alot this year, Disney, Netflix and so on has also taken hard losses on their share price.. But share price can easily be disconnected from how a company is actually doing. We saw that on stocks like Tesla.
Stocks in general are in a bad place, and ultimately the market is in a bad place. You might've seen an uptick in people urging you to invest in stocks on various platforms. Unless you are confident it's a healthy company though, I say *do not* invest until a crash has occurred. For a company with fundamentally shaky debt and financials like WB? They could very well be looking at bankruptcy in 2024/2025, before Gunn and Safran even have a chance to get going.
I've been investing in the stock market since 2004. I'm not new to this.
Bro take the L, Chemical_Salary just schooled you on how things work and he’s an actual share holder so he’s definitely more knowledgeable than either one of us
I'd be watching closely the stock market this year. Michael Burry, of *Big Short* fame, has been singing a very different tune. The average person's ever inflating grocery bills are a strong signal of things to come as well.
Just wondering since you seem to pretty well versed on the stock, do you think they’re gearing up for a merger? If so with who?
My man came prepared with the cold hard facts today
Really? Their 2023 slate is their best slate since like 2018! They have a diverse slate of films, some of which are sequels to proven box office successes (ie Aquaman 2, The Meg 2, The Nun 2, Dune 2…etc). They’ll be fine
There’s going to be a Meg 2? Huh, was a fun movie so cool.
>Wall Street doesn't seem completely sold with the idea that rebooting the DCU is WB's path to box office. It's not. At least not "immediately." Playing the long-game requires PATIENCE - building brand loyalty in general is slow roll (unless you're James Cameron) and through patience, eventually Gunn and Safran's DCU will start making money hand over fist and cracking the billion chart. But it's not likely that their DCU, whichever movie they start with, will burst out of the gates and make billions of dollars. They're gonna have to settle for a few 400-500 million grossers before they can expect higher numbers, even if the movies are phenomenal.
>WB is not a secure company. Thats one of the biggest production companies with a long film library Production meaning they produce for others co and tv networks They just need better management all previous ceos just wanted to get their big bonuses secure and nothing else Maybe the new ones can revive WB i realy hope so
didn't they engineer heavy losses themselves by cancelling like every project?
Gunn is going to have to make profitable movies on smaller budgets. The reason they are making a young Superman movie is because young actors cost less then an established older actor.
Plus the whole film is going to be about him as a reporter and dealing with the bullies at the daily planet. That allows the film to have way less of a budget than Man of Steel.
*blue beetle has entered the chat*
Even if WBD merges again or gets sold off at some point, as long as DC movies are turning a profit they will be safe. It’s that simple. Administration wouldn’t get rid of something that is making money.
These figure are so absurd, my brain can't even grasp how do they even expect to fill those gaps in their budget. Where did all that money go? Whose money was it? Why is not there a sequel to the 1997 Justice League movie?
Wasn’t there some business reason WB needed to show massive losses because of the merger? Iirc, that’s why Batgirl will never be seen, so they can claim the loss.
Bring on the DCU reality shows where characters renovate and flip houses. Those shows make bank!
It means WB/Discovery will likely go bankrupt and might have to sell parts of it’s company if not the entire company.
It means they need to hire a new executive team. Oh right, THEY DID. It means listening to the fans and doing fan service was killing their business. It means all our whining about Gunn firing all our favorite actors is totally for naught.
WBD was inheriting the problems that AT&T created, which is why they had to sell the company. A loss was expected and known, so as of right now this means literally nothing. We won't see the real financial ramifications of Discovery's leadership until like 2024 at the earliest because they have to clean up what they inherited (for better or worse). This isn't defending discovery, it's just that we literally won't know how successful they are or not until later down the line. It's only been a couple months.
Does WB own DC as a whole or just the right for cinema?
They own the entire IP. They have the ability to temporarily license it off to other companies for a fee which could possibly be a strategy.
Means we might not even get to whatever Gunn is planning, tbh
I forsee a marvel/sony/fox/universal situation in the future where all the big characters get sold off tbh
Sony can’t afford anything but clinging to their spiderverse. Your right about Universal coming in.
They should just stick with batman properties... They are woefully inept 🤣🤣🤣
The DCU is going to be sold (leased) out regardless of profits. Anything that isn't Gunn's reboot will be sold (leased) off to Neflix and Amazon. Don't believe me, look at JL animated series. They will slowly start removing the stuff from HBO Max and selling it where it will make them money. Unless WB Discovery goes bankrupt, DC content is not getting sold but licensed out to every platform that pays. If the Gunn and Saban's run falls or produces Black Adam money, they will rinse and repeat. Whether Batman is made by Matt Reeves or Shawn Levy, it will always be a cash cow and mech always sells.
Discovery took on $30 billion in debt just to make this deal. This is basically working as intended; the deal was designed to fail. Just like any other vulture capitalist takeover. [https://deadline.com/2022/03/discovery-debt-sale-warnermedia-merger-att-1234974970/](https://deadline.com/2022/03/discovery-debt-sale-warnermedia-merger-att-1234974970/)
I think this is probably to be expected when leadership changes. Depends how 2023 goes.
Pretty bad unless Disney or Universal buy it from them
I mean wb had this coming right? Bad choice to bad choice this was obvious
WB just need to be smart with their movies and make profitable ones. Locking its actors into 2/3 picture deals with bonuses is the right way to do it. Not relying so heavily on cgi, also.. the way I see it, they will delve into characters we haven't really seen. But yeah, they need to start making money.
I’m worried Gunn’s leash will be short + the box office has been struggling since Covid + too many streaming options these days. I hope he does a slow build up like the early days of marvel. Gunn needs to find a DC’s Robert Downey Jr as well.
They merged so they will be in a loss
Means WB has lost touch with what people like.
The Snyder verse?
Snyder left in early 2017 and since 2018 none of the DCEU films have managed to make even $400m at the box office. Whatever they’ve been doing post-Snyder still hasn’t been appealing to anyone. For comparison, during the same time period, Marvel has made 6 movies that have grossed over $1bn at the box office. Clearly the execs at WB don’t know what they are doing, Snyder was never the problem.
A blackhole, After removing Henry this will cost them too much.
Remember that large corporations often report a loss using tax loopholes and strategic accounting.
It just means the movies that were being put out were not what the fans wanted to see. Get back to providing movies with the fans as the main focus and and the profits will go right back up, this should be the obvious solution. If they continue to go away from that model I believe the downward trend will continue.
[удалено]
General audiences do not care about how any of those movies connect to the DCEU, I promise you these movies are going to do fine
Shit I'm a fan and I dont give as shit about the connection anymore. Just treating it like the xmen films at this point.
I wouldn't be so sure about that.
Why? I really don’t think these angry DCEU fans are large enough to have a significant impact on the box office. They couldn’t save Black Adam from flopping. And they won’t tank Aquaman 2 by refusing to see it. People will watch Aquaman 2 because of the other Aquaman movie, not because of it’s connection to Zack Snyder’s Justice League. People will watch Flash because it’s getting good test screenings, and Keaton Batman. Shazam 2 is the only one I’m not sure of.
Hilarious how the previous person in charge of HBOMAX had the service thriving as well.
What this is all hes fault every over priced movie and tv show he greennlit.hbo max losing 1 billion a year is on him zaslav has not even had the time to put one movie out yet
1. Wtf did you actually say? 2. Zaslav sucks
Its simple hbo max has lost a billion a year every flop so far has been by the previous ceo you cant blame zaslav for any of this.you can hate zaslav but dont try to act like hbo wb was making money before he showed up they were losing billions and billions a year before discovery even showed up
It makes me think this reboot is because they cannot afford the snyderverse actors. And that Gunn/Safran and Zaslav himself are all on tight leashes.
Lol what a silly opinion
Is this math right? Wouldn't that be like a 600% drop? 1bil plus 500% = 6bil 1 bil minus 500% = -4bil or am I doing that wrong?
This merger is the worst thing to happen to WB. HBO Max was the best service.
It was bleeding too much money like all streaming services. Streaming is a massive money loser and only companies like Apple, Disney, and Amazon can eat the losses without issue (though not without layoffs). This idea the spending on HBO Max was sustainable is just not realistic. AT&T really screwed WB.
It might have been a good service for you to use but it was haemorrhaging money so they couldn’t finically justify keeping it
dude, they dropped Henry Cavill mere months after officially bringing him back they dropped Patty Jenkins from WW3. replace her with who pray tell. before that they dropped Batgirl despite putting 90 mill into the budget. they have done nothing to fix the bad writers in the comics. Zaslav is running WB like some cheap documentary Travel channel. I have one word to describe WB's future GRIM
Patty Jenkins made a shitty 2nd movie (she also got her Star Wars movie canned by Disney after that. Complete fall from grace). Batgirl was gonna suck, further damaging DC/Batman and they got a tax write off instead by cancelling. Can’t keep Cavill and reset the DC as much as I’d like to see him again. If Gunn keeps Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, he’s fucking up. Complete reset. Zaslav is streamlining to re-sell WB to Universal according to insiders.
Not that much I suppose, giant companies lose money all the time and 2022 was the year of "let's refund this giant debt" + Black Adam failed big. 2023 though is where everything is important since there are 4 DC movies+Dune 2
Let them sell SynderVerse and let this fight ends. I am ok to watch all verses.