Tag: WarnerMedia

Posted on in Film News

Christopher Nolan Reacts Negatively To News of WarnerMedia Moving Their 2021 Film Slate To HBO Max – Upset They Didn’t Consult With Filmmakers Beforehand

The announcement that Warner Bros. slate of films from 2021 heading to HBO Max certainly sounded like a gut punch to U.S theaters but the people who made the films aren’t terribly happy either. It sounds like WarnerMedia and AT&T failed to tell production partners and the filmmakers themselves they were planning on making the move to a day-and-date model. Today, there were reports that director Denis Villeneuve is upset that Dune (part one of at least two planned films) will be negatively impacted by the move and Legendary Entertainment may end up suing WarnerMedia if they can’t work something out.

One of WarnerMedia’s biggest assets also isn’t terribly pleased with how they announced the plan either.

Entertainment Tonight was able to speak with director Christopher Nolan about the whole thing and as you’d imagine he has some stern words for the company calling it a “controversy” along with a suggestion that they’re simply doing this to pump-up the new streaming service while mistreating the people who actually worked on the films without even consulting with them.

NOLAN: “Oh, I mean, disbelief. Especially the way in which they did. There’s such controversy around it, because they didn’t tell anyone. In 2021, they’ve got some of the top filmmakers in the world, they’ve got some of the biggest stars in the world who worked for years in some cases on these projects very close to their hearts that are meant to be big-screen experiences. They’re meant to be out there for the widest possible audiences… And now they’re being used as a loss-leader for the streaming service — for the fledgling streaming service — without any consultation. So, there’s a lot of controversy. It’s very, very, very, very messy. A real bait and switch. Yeah, it’s sort of not how you treat filmmakers and stars and people who, these guys have given a lot for these projects. They deserved to be consulted and spoken to about what was going to happen to their work.”

“Long-term, I think all of the studios know that the movie theater experience will bounce back and be a very important part of the ecosystem long-term. What you have right now in our business is a lot of the use of the pandemic as an excuse for sort of grappling for short-term advantage. And it’s really unfortunate. It’s not the way to do business and it’s not the best thing for the health of our industry. But when the theaters are back and people are going back to the movies, when the vaccine has been rolled out and there’s an appropriate health response from the federal government, I’m very bullish on the long-term prospects of the industry. People love going to the movies and they’re going to get to go again.”

UPDATE: Christopher Nolan had even more choice words when speaking with The Hollywood Reporter.

NOLAN: “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service. Warner Bros. had an incredible machine for getting a filmmaker’s work out everywhere, both in theaters and in the home, and they are dismantling it as we speak. They don’t even understand what they’re losing. Their decision makes no economic sense, and even the most casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction.”

Nolan isn’t without his own bit of controversy as his latest film Tenet had been released in the height of the pandemic over the summer, where there was plenty of finger-pointing when it came to who had the bright idea to keep the theatrical release date in the summer instead postponing. I don’t think it’s lost on Christopher that Tenet could have easily been part of this group of films thrown on HBO Max without having any real discussions beforehand.

SOURCE: ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT

Posted on in Film News

Legendary May Sue WarnerMedia Over HBO Max Announcement For ‘Godzilla vs Kong’ and ‘Dune’ – Didn’t Give Them Advance Notice

It doesn’t sound like Legendary Entertainment is terribly happy with WarnerMedia’s announcement last week to throw two of their expensive films such as Dune and Godzilla vs Kong on HBO Max as part of their new day-and-date model for the entire 2021 Warner Bros. release slate, all 17 films.

The announcement was just as shocking to Legendary Entertainment as it was to everyone else because they weren’t given advance notice or even knew it was happening. Deadline reports that Legendary is aiming to challenge the move by WarnerMedia as they never gave them advance notice before the announcement, the latter is something that both Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter have mentioned in separate reports.

I’m hearing that Legendary Entertainment either has or will send legal letters to Warner Bros as soon as today, challenging the decision to put the Denis Villenueve-directed Dune into the HBO Max deal, and maybe Godzilla vs Kong as well.

WarnerMedia blocked a hefty $250 million offer from Netflix which likely only adds to Legendary’s frustrations.

On the latter, Legendary reportedly had Netflix ready to pull the film from Warner Bros for around $250 million, before WarnerMedia blocked it. Sources said Legendary had no advance notice before last week’s announcement that both Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong were part of the HBO Max plan.

Variety also adding that this might turn into a lawsuit if a deal isn’t agreed upon.

Legendary Entertainment, the production company that co-financed Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong, may take legal action against Warner Bros. over the studio’s decision to send its movies to HBO Max at the same time they debut in cinemas.

Sources familiar with the situation say top brass at Legendary are trying to have conversations with Warner Bros. regarding its upcoming films… Legendary is hoping to first negotiate a more generous deal, but isn’t taking legal action off the table should the two companies fail to come to a compromise. One possibility is that Warner Bros. would buy the films outright from Legendary. No legal challenge has been filed yet, but a suit could materialize early this week. It’s unclear what legal grounds Legendary would use to challenge the decision, though it would likely involve some breach of contract.

While WarnerMedia dodged questions concerning if the day-and-date model would continue into 2022 and beyond, AT&T CEO John Stankey alluded to The Washington Post they won’t be going back even post-pandemic giving the impression the model is staying.

STANKEY: “In March, we unleashed a new normal in society. That horse left the barn. I don’t think any of us are going to change that dynamic.”

SOURCE: DEADLINE & VARIETY

Posted on in Film News

AT&T CEO Suggests New Release Model For WB Films Will Extend Beyond 2021

Yesterday, WarnerMedia announced that they would be releasing their 2021 slate with a new day-and-date model releasing their films the same day on HBO Max (for one month) and theatrically. Those 17 films will include The Little Things, Judas and the Black Messiah, Tom & Jerry, Godzilla vs. Kong, Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, In The Heights, Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Suicide Squad, Reminiscence, Malignant, Dune, The Many Saints of Newark, King Richard, Cry Macho, and Matrix 4.

While speaking with Deadline, WarnerMedia’s Jason Kilar dodged their question about what 2022 would look like moving forward.

KILNAR: “As to what the world looks like after 2021, I have no grand proclamations to make. Our focus, candidly, is on the here and now. We’re focused on getting through this pandemic like any business is, and we’re putting a lot of brain cells against what the right thing is to do to serve fans and to serve partners and to server ourselves. And all those things are important to do and that’s what our focus is, obviously that is what we announced today.”

However, AT&T CEO John Stankey seemingly jumped into future when asked by The Washington Post if they’d return to normal business practices including severing the day-and-date model they announced yesterday once the pandemic recedes. Stating the following which sounds a lot like they’re keen to keep this model.

STANKEY: “In March, we unleashed a new normal in society. That horse left the barn. I don’t think any of us are going to change that dynamic.”

Stankey did highlight the importance of movie theaters but didn’t really go into extensive detail what that relationship will look like post-pandemic. It’ll be interesting to see the reactions of domestic theaters who are going to be the most impacted if this model becomes a permanent thing as they’ll be in direct competition with HBO Max (a domestic streaming service).

You can watch that exchange below they start talking about the announcement around the 43 minute mark.

It was also mentioned by The Hollywood Reporter that WarnerMedia partners like Legendary Entertainment weren’t even told about the day-and-date model prior to the announcement and were just as blindsided as theaters. Legendary is behind WB’s massive upcoming releases such as Dune and Godzilla vs Kong.

SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST

Posted on in Features

‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Heading To HBO Max For Free Likely Means Warner Bros. Will Struggle To Turn A Profit

Yesterday, it was officially announced that the last big studio blockbuster of 2020 would be releasing December 25th on both HBO Max (free to subscribers) and in limited theatrical markets (unclear how many screens they’ll have), the latter still seems like a bonkers move considering the U.S. is on the brink of another hospital disaster as COVID-19 cases skyrocket. A home option is great but this puts Warner Bros. in position to take another loss as it’ll be extremely tough for the pricey film to recoup costs or even turn a profit at this point.

Obviously, WarnerMedia just wants to get the movie out there in the world and stop gobbling-up prime release dates in 2021 for 2020 movies collecting dust after already bouncing both Godzilla vs Kong and Dune out of the 2020 schedule. 2021’s lineup is already going to see multiple films bumped to 2022 and taking one more piece of the board will likely save them a bit money from a marketing standpoint.

It’s easy to assume that offering up Wonder Woman 1984 for free to subscribers is meant to avoid the bungled streaming release of Disney’s Mulan that had access only to Disney+ subscribers but they had to spend an extra $29.99 on top of their sub fees and only wait until December to get the film for free. Mulan had been hailed as a “success” early on by folks trying to do imaginary math, putting the cart before the horse, only later to be revealed as a bit of disaster for the studio and Disney took a massive loss then pivoted to allow larger access to purchase it digitally, a sign the Disney+ only access wasn’t terribly profitable.

Streaming doesn’t have a box office tally and the only real gauge will be how many subscribers HBO Max was able to keep and add in the weeks after Wonder Woman 1984 is added to the service. I don’t really imagine WarnerMedia is going share the drop-off numbers.

The problem is that HBO Max is mostly a U.S. based streaming service and there is a good chance that in countries where WarnerMedia has made deals with foreign media companies to distribute their content. To me, it feels like the company believes that offering the free for free will lead to a mass drive in new domestic subscriptions, sure, but that number could look inflated (streaming data is sketchy as it is) as we’ll likely won’t know how many people dropped their new subscriptions in the following months.

While adding more access in the United States is great they’re still limited on how many subscribers they could likely add by not being a bigger international player along with not really being able to compete with Netflix, Amazon, and Disney+ on the scale.

In my own case, I’m located in Canada and HBO Max isn’t here because WarnerMedia has had a longstanding deal with Bell Media’s Crave to distribute their HBO content along with the new HBO Max stuff as well. This means that people like myself with Crave might be getting Wonder Woman 1984 with zero dollars going to HBO Max directly, it’s not just Canada as these sort of foreign content deals have kept the streaming service out of multiple countries.

I wouldn’t be shocked if they eventually announce a third PVOD option because I don’t really see how they’re going to earn any money at the box office in late December and throughout early 2021. It’s worth reminding people that Warner Bros. only earned a poultry $56.3 million domestically from the release of their Christopher Nolan blockbuster Tenet and theaters are expected to be in rougher shape over the winter, not just domestically but globally. December and throughout January it doesn’t seem likely that the U.S., Canada, UK, Europe, and other markets will be in the kind of shape due to rising COVID-19 cases to even give the studio the international box office that Tenet saw months back which wasn’t great to begin with.

I’m not sure how many more box office hits Warner Bros. can take before something drastic happens concerning employees as WarnerMedia/AT&T is tinkering with their distribution of massive films (WW84’s budget is said to be in the $200 million range) leading to limited/zero profit on films that should be earning $600 million to a billion dollars is only going to lead to more damage to the studio side and could only get worse in 2021. They’ve already cut a bunch of jobs from the marketing department.

We don’t really know how consumers are going to ultimately react to Wonder Woman 1984 being added to the service outside of loyal fans of the franchise who likely already have HBO Max subscriptions, as do most die-hard DC Comics fans. It’s a single film and hardly comparable to something like an exclusive original ongoing series like The Mandalorian.

I also think it’ll be difficult for them to keep Wonder Woman 1984 from digital and PVOD given that access to HBO Max is limited internationally. I’m not even going to get into the obvious issue of having a pristine HD copy of a massive studio film hitting torrenting sites on the same day as it’s drop date, although, being free on HBO Max might cut down on domestic downloading but not on the international side.

This just feels like a short-term win for fans but at the expense of Warner Bros. ability to actually make money from the film and could add to the harm to the studio if 2021 doesn’t improve in a big bad way.

Posted on in Television News

Character Lineup Revealed For HBO Max’s ‘Green Lantern’ Series – Will Be Written By Seth Grahame-Smith and Marc Guggenheim

Yesterday, HBO Max and DC Comics made a big splash with announcing their character and creative lineup for the upcoming live-action Green Lantern series for HBO Max.

The Lanterns featured in the series will include Guy Gardner, Jessica Cruz, Simon Baz, Kilowog, and will also feature Sinestro. Original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, is showing up as well and they confirm the character will be openly gay in the series.

They also announced that Seth Grahame-Smith (The Lego Batman Movie, Dark Shadows) will be showrunning the series and writing it alongside Marc Guggenheim.

Here is the official press release from DC Comics.

From DC and HBO Max and Berlanti Productions comes a bold adaptation of the iconic comic book franchise: A saga spanning decades and galaxies. GREEN LANTERN will depict the adventures of a multitude of Lanterns, including Guy Gardner, Jessica Cruz, Simon Baz and Alan Scott—Earth’s first Green Lantern, who, true to the comics, is a gay man—and many more. The series will also include fan favorites such as Sinestro and Killowog, as well as introduce new heroes to the ranks of the Green Lantern Corps.

Green Lantern comes from executive producers and writers Seth Grahame-Smith, who will serve as showrunner, and Marc Guggenheim, along with executive producers Greg Berlanti, Geoff Johns, Sarah Schechter and David Madden. Many of these names should be familiar to DCTV fans, as Berlanti has overseen most of DC’s recent small screen offerings, including The CW’s beloved “Arrowverse,” as well as recent streaming hits Titans, Stargirl and Doom Patrol. Guggenheim and Schechter have both played key roles in many of those shows, including Arrow, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl and Batwoman, among others. Guggenheim also co-wrote the 2011 Ryan Reynold’s Green Lantern movie along with Berlanti, Michael Green and Michael Goldenberg.

Grahame-Smith may not be as familiar of a name to DC fans, but Green Lantern isn’t the first DC project in which he’s been involved. Grahame-Smith co-wrote the screenplay to 2017’s The Lego Batman Movie, along with 2012’s Dark Shadows, directed by Tim Burton. Prior to that, he gained some notoriety in geek circles with his novels Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Unholy Night.

Surprising nobody, Geoff Johns was announced as the show’s executive producer.

You might remember that Seth was one of the many people tasked to write and direct Ezra Miller’s Flash movie in one of it’s various incarnations.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see what level of quality they’ll be aiming for with the Green Lantern show.

It was also previously announced that James Gunn and John Cena would be reuniting for a Peacekeeper series that would be a spinoff of the upcoming sequel The Suicide Squad.

Matt Reeves and Terrence Winter are also working on a series set in the world of Gotham Police Department that will take place a year before the events of The Batman.

SOURCE: DC COMICS

Posted on in News

Massive Layoffs At WarnerMedia Will Directly Impact Warner Bros., DC Comics, and DC Universe

Another blow to the entertainment industry is on the way. 

On Monday, it was revealed that WarnerMedia would be moving forward with massive layoffs with the “first wave” said to be around 600 according to a report from THR. 

The layoffs are being attributed to the damage inflicted by the Coronavirus pandemic. 

The laid-off employees include Warner Bros. CFO Kim Williams, Warner Bros. Worldwide Television Distribution president Jeff Schlesinger and Ron Sanders, Warner Bros. president, Worldwide Theatrical Distribution & Home Entertainment and Executive Vice President, International Business Operations.

Yesterday, news hit that the comics side of the company would be taking a huge hit as well. 

The Hollywood Reporter included a list of people at DC Comics publishing that are expected to go as well such as editor-in-chief Bob Harris, Hank Kanalz, Jonah Weiland, Bobbie Chase, Brian Cunningham, and Mark Doyle. 

Among those said to be losing their positions are editor-in-chief Bob Harris, senior VP of publishing strategy and support services Hank Kanalz, VP of marketing and creative services Jonah Weiland, VP global publishing initiatives and digital strategy Bobbie Chase, senior story editor Brian Cunningham, and executive editor Mark Doyle, who oversaw the rollout of the Black Label graphic novels. Jim Lee remains the CCO.

They also point out that a “majority” of people at the DC Comics centric streaming service DC Universe will also see layoffs. 

There had been plenty of signs recently that DC Universe was on borrowed time after their talk show The Daily DC was canceled and multiple shows moved to other WarnerMedia services slowly making the streaming service less relevant. 

This news comes days before WarnerMedia’s big star-studded DC Fandome event on August 22nd is likely going to leave fans a little sour given the state DC Comics and DC Universe will be in. 

We had previously seen a bunch of layoffs at 20th Century Studios (formerly 20th Century Fox) because of some job redundancies post-merger with the Walt Disney Company, which regularly happens when media companies combine. Equally as sad but that was slightly more expected in the wake of the merger and was one of the reasons many Fox employees were quitting before the merger had even completed. 

WarnerMedia recently launched HBO Max back on May 27th and seemingly hasn’t seen the growth they expected alongside the pandemic essentially stalling a majority of their various productions around the globe making. 

I’m sure everyone is interested to see if AT&T/WarnerMedia will keep divisions after the cuts to staffing or instead attempt to sell them off. There had been reports that they were trying to offload Warner Bros. Interactive, their profitable video games division, but some have had the assumption that these layoffs may delay that sale. 

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Television News

‘Chernobyl’s Johan Renck Says He’s Directing Pilot Episode For HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’

We were excited when HBO announced they would be developing a live-action series based on the Naughty Dog post-apocalypse video game The Last of Us with Neil Druckmann and Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin writing it. 

THE LAST OF US – Set in the post-apocalyptic United States, the game tells the story of survivors, Joel and Ellie, as they work together to survive their westward journey across what remains of the country to find a possible cure for the modern fungal plague that has nearly decimated the entire human race.

They’ve seemingly added another creative force behind the successful Chernobyl miniseries as director Jonah Renck will be involved. Johan revealed to Discussing Film in a recent interview that he’ll be directing the series pilot and hints he could potentially direct more episodes, but seems to be unsure if that will happen. 

RENCK: “I’m an executive producer on it and attached to it. It’s an ongoing TV series. So that’s not something that I will be able to take on to that extent, but I’m part of that series and I will be directing at least the pilot. Then we’ll see how it goes on further. I mean, both Craig and I, we are working with each other again and we will work with each other on other things because we like each other.”

HBO has yet to announce any casting for the series. 

SOURCE: DISCUSSING FILM