Warner Bros Discovery Exploring Overhaul of DC Entertainment (EXCLUSIVE)
 

The new owners of all things Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman are exploring an overhaul of DC Entertainment, multiple sources close to the situation told Variety.

It’s been less than a week since Discovery closed its $43 billion deal for WarnerMedia, joining one of the largest producers of reality programming with one of the most venerable entertainment brands under the new moniker of Warner Bros. Discovery. David Zaslav, the CEO of the combined companies, and top leadership have been toying with the idea of turning DC into its own solidified content vertical, the sources said.

The move would potentially affect DC feature film development in the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, streaming series at Warner Bros. Television, and the creative arm within DC proper — all in an effort to have the disparate elements more closely aligned in order to maximize the value of the superhero stable — one often seen as punching up against Marvel.

Before the merger closed, Zaslav vetted candidates with experience in creating and nurturing blockbuster intellectual property with a goal of potentially finding someone to serve as a creative and strategic czar similar to what Marvel has in Kevin Feige. One of those candidates included Emma Watts, a former top film executive at 20th Century Studios and Paramount, but it does not appear that Watts will take the job. One insider suggested that Zaslav was less interested in finding a creative guru and more eager to hire someone who had the type of business background needed to keep all the different factions at DC working more harmoniously.

Insiders say that Zaslav believes that the success of the merger, one that has left the company highly leveraged, will rest in no small part on unlocking the full potential of the DC Comics universe of characters. Discovery insiders believe that although DC has achieved cinematic success with recent films such as “Aquaman” and “The Batman,” it lacks a coherent creative and brand strategy. Discovery believes that several top-shelf characters such as Superman have been left to languish and need to be revitalized. They also believe that projects like Todd Phillips’ “Joker” are a shining example of how second-billed characters from the DC library can and should be exploited (Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn is another example).

DC has started to figure out ways for its big screen films to inspire more streaming content — recent examples include the HBO Max show “Peacemaker,” which was a spinoff of “The Suicide Squad,” as well as an upcoming planned series on Colin Farrell’s The Penguin and Gotham City’s police force. But the company believes that DC must do more to grow its approach to comic book fare, including bolstering gaming. Under Walter Hamada, who took over DC Films from Jon Berg and Geoff Johns in 2018, the unit has achieved more consistency in terms of both the critical and commercial reception to the company’s movies. He is under contract until the end of 2023 and could play an important role in whatever Zaslav has planned.

Zaslav has pledged to find $3 billion in synergies in the newly merged company, a signal of how important cost cutting will be to Warners’ new owners. Mining DC’s library of characters could help control spending as Warner Bros. Discovery owns the underlying intellectual property, insiders say.

Upcoming DC Films projects include a sequel to Zachary Levi’s “Shazam,” a sequel to Jason Momoa’s “Aquaman,” the long-awaited franchise started “Black Adam” with Dwayne Johnson, and a third installment of Gal Gadot’s “Wonder Woman.”


https://variety.com/2022/film/news/d...ax-1235232185/

Feel like I've read a version of this article every ~ 2 years

Haha, same here! Warner's has been in such a mess ever since the infamous AOL mega-deal. It's probably been in a bad way for longer than that, but considering that deal was reported at about $165 billion, it's quite humbling to see the current WarnerMedia brand is down to $43 billion in value.

EDIT: From The New York Times, June 2018:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/b...me-warner.html

And the whole "big idea" to "revitalize" DC is always "more synergy between the movies and comics", despite that strategy never working for a variety of reasons. Such as...

- 99% of people who watch movies don't read comic books
- Most people who do read comics hate a lot of the changes Hollywood insists on making to the source material
- Hollywood writers hold comic book writers in disdain, so by definition there can never be any meaningful collaboration or partnership between them
- Comic book writers don't want their writing to be shackled to the whims of some movie or TV studio because it ruins long-term storytelling. "Oh, you've plotted out the next year's worth of plots for Punch Man? Well, the last movie under-performed so we're scrapping _______, killing off the love interest, and also, now the main character is gay. Have fun creating synergy for us!"

I get why to the suits who don't know any better it all makes sense. But in execution it doesn't make any sense at all. It doesn't work.

There really isn't anything DC/WB can do to effectively compete or catch up with Marvel. That game was over when the first Avengers movie came out. If you're second to market, you're a copycat, second-best, and lesser than. All you can do at that point is carve out a little niche for yourself and hope the market eventually shifts to a more advantageous position. The odds of DC ever "catching up" to Marvel in the mainstream media or public opinion space are non-existent.

I know that's not what marketing departments for billion-dollar corporations want to hear, but the fact is they'd rather spend billions of dollars to learn that exact lesson the hard way. At some point, there is no "winning" the game and your strategy should simply be not to be the last-place finisher.

100% same feeling.

Todd Phillips set to assume an 'advisory' role

https://batman-news.com/2022/06/01/t...r-on-dc-films/