Hollywood Insiders Reportedly Think Comcast Will Buy Warner Bros. Discovery

[eledoremassis02]

https://uproxx.com/movies/warner-bros-discovery-comcast-acquisition-nbcuniversal-david-zaslav/

Following the surprise cancellation of Batgirl, a film that by all accounts was mostly finished, the newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery has been plagued with headlines about chaos behind the scenes as the new leadership struggles to cut costs while simultaneously rejuvenating brands like DC Comics. The studio has reportedly been searching for a Kevin Feige-type figure to do for DC what Feige does for Marvel, but the top candidate for the position, Dan Lin, has already bowed out.

At issue is the daunting task of righting a franchise that's been slowly rebuilding after the failure of 2017's Justice League. However, that process involved creating separate film universes for both Batman and Joker, and the whole thing is basically a huge mess. Especially when CEO David Zaslav wants a more connected DC Comics brand.

Adding even more uncertainty to the mix is talk of Warner Bros. Discovery being sold as quickly as possible. While the studio reportedly can't do anything until 2024, insiders believe that Comcast is waiting on the sidelines to swallow up the beleaguered entity. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

Given the company's daunting challenges, it has become accepted wisdom at the highest levels of the industry that another deal waits in the wings for Warner Bros. Discovery. For reasons related to the complicated structure of that merger, no negotiations can happen until April 2024. But at that point, many industry observers believe that Comcast's Brian Roberts will make a long-awaited move, looking to combine NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery.

That deal would face some interesting antitrust issues but would give his company scale and a viable streaming service. "Obviously Peacock sucks," says one exec with knowledge of both companies. "There are some good synergies. I'm sure [Roberts] is licking his chops because the [WBD] stock is so low. And I think that's Zaslav's endgame. Get the place sold."

When asked to comment on a potential sale, a WBD spokesperson simply told THR, "We are building Warner Bros. Discovery for the long term." That's not exactly a denial, so make of that what you will.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

[thecolorsblend]

If true, this does put a lot of Zaslav's actions into focus. He's basically Gordon Gecko, cannibalizing the company, selling off (or even giving away) losses while making short term plays to juice up the stock price. Corporate raider stuff.

Frankly, the entity known as WB is already heavily leveraged. Like, I'm not aware of any precedent for a big company like this to get sold off so many times in such a short period.

But there's some logic in Comcast buying them out. Universal is short on franchise IP's and their theme park division has the rights to Harry Potter. I don't see how Universal could do a worse job of managing the Potter brand than WB has in recent times.

My original estimation of Zaslav as a modern media wunderkind was evidently misplaced. He's trying to whip the company into some kind of shape so that it can be sold off. After that, he'll probably grab a golden parachute and glide into retirement.

EDIT- Comcast buying WBD could open the door rather conveniently to the rumored Tenet sequel. I'm not saying that's the only consideration going on here. But I could see where it would be a nice fringe benefit.

[The Laughing Fish]

A few weeks ago, the state of Ohio reportedly sued WBD.

"Warner Bros. Discovery willfully withheld financial information that it was legally obligated to reveal for one highly self-serving reason – to ensure the merger's approval," [Ohio Attorney General Dave] Yost said. "In doing so, it created market distortions that cost Ohio's pension systems and other institutional investors dearly, and that is not OK."

At the time of the merger, the lawsuit says, WarnerMedia was in financial disarray and intentionally hid that fact from Discovery stockholders. The company, it turned out, had overinvested in costly but unproductive business lines, inflated its subscriber numbers by up to 10 million with no regard to margins, and otherwise provided false financial information to Discovery stockholders.

Had the true state of WarnerMedia's business been disclosed, the merger consideration would have been significantly higher for OPERS, STRS and other Discovery stockholders, says Yost.

WarnerMedia's financial challenges prompted Zaslav, the new CEO of the combined company, to disclose shortly after the merger that WBD would shut down many of its money-losing business lines, forcing the company to materially and negatively adjust its budget and financial expectations because they were wildly unrealistic.

https://www.wtrf.com/ohio/ohio-sues-warner-brothers-discovery/

[The Laughing Fish]

A couple of articles I found should raise eyebrows.

WBD is currently $50 billion in debt as it continues to slash costs, jobs, and taxes.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2022-10-24/warner-bros-discovery-to-spend-1-billion-to-downsize#

Anti-Snyder/Cavill spiel aside, this other article has insiders giving details about the poor shape that WBD is in.

• Gunn and Safran only got the DC Studios job because "nobody else in Hollywood wanted it". They apparently begged Todd Phillips to take it, but he declined. The insider claims there is doubt among many industry people that Gunn is fit for the role because he lacks the experience to run a studio.
• Most importantly, it's speculated that if NBCUniversal buys out WBD, there is a chance that Gunn and Safran's ideas could be dropped anyway. WBD is described as "a cash-poor company being stripped to be sold" and the likelihood of another merger is very high, despite Zaslav saying otherwise.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221218001423/https://nypost.com/2022/12/15/dc-studios-was-actually-right-to-fire-superman-henry-cavill/

What a shambles.

I don't have much sympathy for corporations to begin with, and I certainly won't shed if - and when - WBD's nonsensical DC plans blow up in their faces. Not after their shocking U-turns with Cavill and Affleck.

There is a major flaw I find with this article about the reboot itself: if you are going to reboot, then make sure you actually start with a clean slate. Not when you have four movies coming out in the New Year. As I keep saying, those movies' box office theaters took a massive hit after the latest developments, and I still cannot comprehend how Safran - who is a producer on three out of four of those movies - would try to sabotage them. Well, the only way to fix the problem is to shelve all of them. Judging how WBD is cutting content as write-offs, it's not a bad idea at all.

The way the studio's financial situation is going, this Gunn reboot might die before it even begins. I, for one, hope so.

[eledoremassis02]

I think they should just hold off the universe and just focus on DC Black (where I think keaton would have fit better in anyways).

If Universal buys it, their attemps at shared universes die even quicker (plus they have Marvel IP theyre not even using). The way they treated "their" legacy characters have been pretty bad too. They seem to be stuck in the Scyfy budget circle.

Im also just tired of giant Monopolies and Dinsey is showing how bad of an idea that is. WB should be its own thing. I think comic book movies just need a rest and we need to go back to one or two every few years.

HeavySpoilers video on the current situation

[The Joker]

A couple of articles I found should raise eyebrows.

WBD is currently $50 billion in debt as it continues to slash costs, jobs, and taxes.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2022-10-24/warner-bros-discovery-to-spend-1-billion-to-downsize#

Anti-Snyder/Cavill spiel aside, this other article has insiders giving details about the poor shape that WBD is in.

• Gunn and Safran only got the DC Studios job because "nobody else in Hollywood wanted it". They apparently begged Todd Phillips to take it, but he declined. The insider claims there is doubt among many industry people that Gunn is fit for the role because he lacks the experience to run a studio.
• Most importantly, it's speculated that if NBCUniversal buys out WBD, there is a chance that Gunn and Safran's ideas could be dropped anyway. WBD is described as "a cash-poor company being stripped to be sold" and the likelihood of another merger is very high, despite Zaslav saying otherwise.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221218001423/https://nypost.com/2022/12/15/dc-studios-was-actually-right-to-fire-superman-henry-cavill/

What a shambles.

Yeah, I remember the NBCUniversal buyout of WBD chatter, and pretty much thought that the strategy with the DCEU going forward, would be that if we're going with the notion that Zack Snyder's vision was "Post-Crisis", the Zaslav/Gunn approach would be more "Post-Infinite Crisis/Pre-Flashpoint". Bringing the band back together so to speak (Henry, Ben, Gal), spending money to make money, and going with (as DC Comics did from about 2006-2011) a more Silver Age/Bronze Age influence but with modern sensibilities (admittedly the tone would probably come across like another Disney MCU clone, but hopefully with a lot less Whedon quips). Ideally these films would, ultimately, get the WBD stock back up, and if the end goal is to off load it, then would be the time to do so.

I don't have much sympathy for corporations to begin with, and I certainly won't shed if - and when - WBD's nonsensical DC plans blow up in their faces. Not after their shocking U-turns with Cavill and Affleck.

There is a major flaw I find with this article about the reboot itself: if you are going to reboot, then make sure you actually start with a clean slate. Not when you have four movies coming out in the New Year. As I keep saying, those movies' box office theaters took a massive hit after the latest developments, and I still cannot comprehend how Safran - who is a producer on three out of four of those movies - would try to sabotage them. Well, the only way to fix the problem is to shelve all of them. Judging how WBD is cutting content as write-offs, it's not a bad idea at all.

The way the studio's financial situation is going, this Gunn reboot might die before it even begins. I, for one, hope so.

It is a .... odd strategy. These films are great, and we're going to make them better via rewrites, reshoots, and added scenes, right? Only, nah. Apparently. Just more sunken cost for films on a road that lead to absolutely no where. Such is the ever-so finicky nature of WBD. They can't even adhere to a 10 month plan, let alone a 10 year plan.

[The Laughing Fish]

I think they should just hold off the universe and just focus on DC Black (where I think keaton would have fit better in anyways).

Im also just tired of giant Monopolies and Dinsey is showing how bad of an idea that is. WB should be its own thing. I think comic book movies just need a rest and we need to go back to one or two every few years.

I agree with you about Keaton. It would've been far more exciting to see him returning in a Burtonverse project of some kind - whether it would've been Beyond or whatever - than get mixed with this fiasco going on with Flash and Batgirl.

I agree with you about corporate monopolies and comic book fatigue too. Even MCU die-hards are getting fed up with the movie overload nowadays, not to mention the shows on Disney+. It's overkill, and now it's rumoured Disney themselves want to cut down the content for Phase Five and Six.

It is a .... odd strategy. These films are great, and we're going to make them better via rewrites, reshoots, and added scenes, right? Only, nah. Apparently. Just more sunken cost for films on a road that lead to absolutely no where. Such is the ever-so finicky nature of WBD. They can't even adhere to a 10 month plan, let alone a 10 year plan.

I just cannot comprehend the lack of logic behind their decisions lately. They have flushed money down the toilet, during a time when they have to make money in the short term. What happens if all four films bomb, won't that affect their bottom line and threaten their reboot plans? For argument's sake, what happens if, say, The Lost Kingdom becomes the second Aquaman film to become a box office? Are they seriously still going to kill off that franchise so Momoa can become Lobo, as it was heavily rumoured? That would be like Kevin Feige rebooting the MCU after The Winter Soldier and Chris Evans goes from playing Captain America to the Punisher.

It's utter nonsense. All it takes for something to go wrong, and their reboot talk will fall apart. It's only a matter of time.

[The Laughing Fish]

Warner Bros Discovery weighs sale of music library to pare debt

Catalogue including Batman soundtracks could fetch more than $1bn for media group

https://www.ft.com/content/74fc28b8-0499-406e-95d1-a7b99f5e52e9?fbclid=IwAR2oVNdfXL3fEct_8e9mzkgPbrFaz54sxNSI8BaH9HdFInuNZJyK-Tdnr10

What are the odds they sell their IPs if their financial situation doesn't improve?

[The Laughing Fish]

More legal trouble for WBD?

Lawmakers Want DOJ To Investigate Warner Bros Discovery Merger, Claiming It Harmed Workers And Reduced Content Choice; Cite Axed 'Batgirl' In Letter

Four Democratic lawmakers want the Justice Department to investigate Warner Bros Discovery, claiming that the merged company has harmed workers and reduced consumer choice.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-CA), Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and DOJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter that the merger "appears to have enabled" the company to "adopt potentially anticompetitive practices that reduce consumer choice and harm workers in affected labor markets."

https://deadline.com/2023/04/warner-bros-discovery-antitrust-justice-department-elizabeth-warren-1235320218/

[thecolorsblend]

More legal trouble for WBD?

Lawmakers Want DOJ To Investigate Warner Bros Discovery Merger, Claiming It Harmed Workers And Reduced Content Choice; Cite Axed 'Batgirl' In Letter

Four Democratic lawmakers want the Justice Department to investigate Warner Bros Discovery, claiming that the merged company has harmed workers and reduced consumer choice.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-CA), Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and DOJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter that the merger "appears to have enabled" the company to "adopt potentially anticompetitive practices that reduce consumer choice and harm workers in affected labor markets."

https://deadline.com/2023/04/warner-bros-discovery-antitrust-justice-department-elizabeth-warren-1235320218/

It's hard to take that seriously. #1, everyone knows that "paying a fine" (government name, bribe) will make that all go away. #2, before things can even get to that point, the DOJ will have to admit it made mistake in approving the merger in the first place. And #3, my favorite part, the DOJ will then have to believe at an institutional level that movie studios don't have the right to not release a movie if they lose confidence in it.

Does that sound realistic to anyone?