Warner Bros’ cancellation of two HBO Max streaming movies sent shockwaves around town. There are many threads here, but the move amounts to an emphatic rejection of previous WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar’s strategy of making $70 million in live-action and animated originals directly for the HBO Max streaming site. The creators of the live-action Batgirl and the animated Scoob! learned today that those films have been discontinued. The timing was especially inconvenient for Batgirl co-directors Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah. Both are in Morocco for El Arbi’s wedding – a wedding present of sorts – and have been waiting to return to the cutting room and resume work on the film starring Leslie Grace, JK Simmons, Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton. There were initial outcries that the disbandment of Batgirl brought bad visibility because the title role is played by a Latina actress. But there were reasons for the move. In both cases, the filmmakers were told that they ended up with a “shopping accounting” maneuver that was available to Warner Discovery because the company changed hands and also changed strategy from the previous regime. That deal expires in mid-August, sources said, and allows Warner Bros. Discovery to not have to carry the losses on its books as the studio tries to reduce $3 billion in debt at its divisions. There has been a lot of speculation as to why Batgirl was canceled, which has to do with it being a bad movie. Sources said the film was rehearsed once and the result wasn’t too bad considering the cut had temporary visual effects that tend to dampen audience enthusiasm for scores. Already, the studio is discussing making different deals with the directors and star of Miss Balla Grace, because this was less a reflection of their talent than a radical change of strategy. It was a tough decision for everyone and very unusual for them to just scrap a movie that cost between $60 and $70 million, made by the hot directors who directed Black and the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel under Kevin Feige, as well as the $426 before the pandemic. M-plus blockbuster Bad Boys for Life. Much of the decision came down to this: Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav rejected Kilar’s strategy to shift heavily to creating streaming subscriptions for HBO Max. This was marked by Project Popcorn’s initiative that put the entire 2021 theatrical schedule – including Dune, Godzilla Vs Kong, King Richard, Matrix 4 – day and date in theaters and HBO Max when theater attendance was thin during of the pandemic. Even after being shown the door, Kilar continued to call the strategy a win. Many disagreed, particularly after Top Gun: Maverick expected and earned $1.3 billion. It’s a decidedly different world than when Kilar made the move. Wall Street is no longer impressed by subscriber numbers as much as profits, as evidenced by the sharp drop in Netflix’s stock value. Companies have come to philosophies such as Sony’s Tom Rothman and Universal’s Donna Langley, that films gain cultural significance when they first appear in theaters with significant theatrical spending. When they appear on streaming sites 45 days or so later, they’re awarded for being culturally relevant. That will be Apple’s strategy next year with the Martin Scorsese-directed Leonardo DiCaprio-Robert De Niro drama Killers of the Flower Moon, which has been pulled from 2022 and, as Deadline has revealed, is likely to debuting at Cannes in 2023 before a full theatrical release. released through Paramount. Back to Batgirl and Scoob! Batgirl is a tough entry — nowhere near the budgets of DC’s The Flash and Aquaman 2 — and it wasn’t designed to compete with the theatrical releases on stage, and neither was Scoob for that matter! Additionally, there were character introductions in that film that the studio wanted to save for these DC theatrical titles. Instead of spending huge sums to increase the budgets of each film to compete in the theatrical market, and then spending $80 million in global P&A, the studio felt that scrapping both films was a better option, combined with the maneuver of the accounting market. Sources don’t expect any more films to be killed like this, because the accounting opportunity ends in the middle of this month. But with all of Warner Bros. Discovery gearing up for Thursday’s quarterly earnings report and the layoffs that are sure to come, no one with a made-for-HBO Max project or executives there can feel confident right now. Warner Bros. Discovery just released this statement: “The decision not to release Batgirl reflects a strategic change in our leadership as it relates to the DC Universe and HBO Max. Leslie Grace is an incredibly talented actress and this decision is no reflection on her performance. We are incredibly grateful to the filmmakers of Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt and their respective casts and we hope to work with everyone again in the near future.”
