Warner Bros. Discovery Execs Speak On 'Batgirl': 'Our Job Is To Protect The DC Brand'

Executives of Warner Bros. Discovery would probably rather not hear of "Batgirl" anymore, let alone talk about it. But when you run a publicly traded company and you're asked a question on a quarterly earnings call, you have no choice.

On Thursday, after the company announced its second quarter 2022 results, which represent the first quarter of the combined Discovery-WarnerMedia company's existence, a Deutschebank analyst asked David Zaslav about his decision to kill " Batgirl,” an HBO Max exclusive. ”

“The Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group has fantastic intellectual property and a great history,” Zaslav said. "Between DC and the animation group, as well as the entire Warner library, our ambition is to bring Warner back and produce great, high-quality films. When we look at the opportunities that are available to us, overall , DC is one of the top of the list for us. Look at Batman, Superman, Wonder-Woman, Aquaman, these are brands that are known all over the world. The ability to drive them all over the world is a great opportunity for us .”

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Zaslav said DC's organization going forward will resemble the strategy that drives Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“We did a reset. We structured the company,” Zaslav said. “There will be a team with a 10-year plan just focusing on DC. Alan Horn and Bob Iger have set up very effectively with Kevin Feige at Disney We believe we could build a long-term and much more sustainable growth business out of DC, and within that we're going to focus on We're not going to release a movie until it's ready… The goal is going to be, how are we going to make each of these movies, in general, as good as possible DC is something we can improve , and we're focusing on that now. We've got some great DC movies coming up. 'Black Adam', 'Shazam!', and 'Flash'. We're working on all of those. We've seen them, and we think they're great , and that we can make them even better. That's what Mike [De Luca] and Pam [Abdy, the new cinematic heads of Warner Bros.]."

Two days earlier, Warner Bros. Pictures Group had removed the live-action titles "Batgirl" and "Scoob!: Holiday Haunt". "Batgirl" was particularly amazing: the company had already invested $90 million in making the film for streaming, which was effectively finished. But after poor test screenings, Zaslav decided he liked the DC Comics movie more as a tax write-off and less as a movie. By never publishing a piece of content in a form that could be considered monetization, including streaming, a company can use the sunk cost to offset its taxable income.

Zaslav added: "We have taken a close look at the direct streaming industry. We have seen, fortunately, with access to all the data, how these movies perform. Our conclusion is that expensive streaming movies , in terms of consumption on the platform, how often people buy a service for them, how they feed over time, are not comparable to what happens when you launch a movie. theaters. This idea of ​​expensive movies going straight to streaming. We can't find economic justification for it. We can't find economic value for it, and so we're making a strategic shift."

Ultimately, Zaslav said, the goal is to "grow the DC brand, grow the DC characters. But our job is also to protect the DC brand, and that's what we're going to do. "

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