Hollywood Insiders Reportedly Think Comcast Will Buy Warner Bros. Discovery

[The Laughing Fish]

While Hollywood is engulfed in a writers' strike, David Zaslav was criticised for his annual salary.

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/adam-conover-david-zaslav-cnn-interview-1235601743/

Zaslav said he hopes to find common ground where people are paid fairly, but then suggests "a love of working and business" could end the strike.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/warner-bros-discovery-writers-strike-david-zaslav-1235480523/

If he loves working and business so much, maybe he should give up some of his $250 million salary. After all, WBD needs to cut its debt as much as it can.

Speaking of debt, WBD reported another $1 billion loss in Q1:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4600931-warner-bros-discovery-not-entertained

This was reported a few weeks after Paramount filed a countersuit against WBD for owed money for streaming South Park episodes:
https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/south-park-lawsuit-warner-bros-discovery-paramount-counterclaim-1235589324/

Finally, God bless this chick:

[The Laughing Fish]

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.

I have to revisit this again.

That BRAINDEAD, self-sabotaging decision to announce a reboot before the last four movies were coming out will go down as one of - if not - the WORST decision in Hollywood history. And that's saying a lot, but when you take WBD's debt troubles into account, that claim is justified.

Sure, the films may not be very good. Yes, there were other external factors that contributed to the bad PR, e.g. Ezra Miller. But you don't have to be a box office expert to realise these films were always going to be handicapped by this awful attempt at a reboot and the timing of its announcement. So far, the results have been unsurprisingly disastrous. This is what happens when you alienate everyone: from fans to actors to directors.

And to make matters worse, WBD are reportedly still pumping more money into reshoots for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Even though they're bleeding so much cash to the point they're trying to sell off their film and TV soundtrack catalog to try to reduce their $49 billion debt.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dbloom/2023/06/23/purple-rain-batman-among-film-music-rights-possibly-on-block-as-debt-laden-wbd-seeks-more-cash/?sh=398c5f6d5e81

Insanity.

Gunn went on record already saying Flash was supposed to reset the timeline, but now he's saying  Blue Beetle is the "official start" of his DCU. This screams like moving the goalposts to me. Blue Beetle was originally meant to be an HBO Max exclusive, with a modest budget like Batgirl had, not to mention it was supposed to be in Hamada's post-Flashpoint timeline. Now that film will be facing a lot of pressure it wasn't meant to have, and by the looks of it, it's a typically generic movie as it gets. And it seems people are getting tired of that formula, with some exceptions.

Then there's issue with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Bloggers and scoopers have been saying the test screenings have been awful, and the film has already undergone so many reshoots. Why bother spending more money on it if you're planning to kill off the franchise anyway, so Momoa can become Lobo?

I can't believe the mismanagement at WBD. Zaslav, along with Gunn and Safran, should be removed for their negligence. I'd say more, but I'll just simply share this disgruntled fans' thoughts on the whole fiasco.

[The Laughing Fish]

David Zaslav was upset over a GQ article that heavily criticised his leadership of WBD, so he had the publication remove it.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2023-07-06/gq-removed-its-article-warner-bros-discovery-ceo-david-zaslav

It turns out the GQ editor is supposed to produce a film for WBD.
https://variety.com/2023/film/news/gq-editor-david-zaslav-story-producing-movie-warner-bros-1235662109/

This goddamn company and the constant revolving door of sh*tty executives. Zaslav has proven to be no better than Emmerich. In many ways, he's perhaps even worse.

[The Laughing Fish]

A new Looney Tunes movie that was starring John Cena and co-written and co-produced by James Gunn has been SHELVED:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/john-cena-coyote-vs-acme-movie-shelved-1235643235/

I have no sympathy for Gunn, I'm glad he got the Batgirl treatment. This is why you can't take trust WBD, and why I have great doubts that any of these DCU announcements will get off the ground.

[The Laughing Fish]

WBD has now supposedly reversed their decision to shelve Coyote vs. Acme, and will give the directors the chance to sell the film to another buyer. They allegedly caved because directors in the industry threatened to boycott.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/coyote-vs-acme-wb-warners-canceled-reversal-shop-film-1235645372/

I thought you couldn't sell a product once you wrote it off. Either the studio hadn't done so yet at the time of the announcement...or this was a cynical marketing ploy to generate hype for the movie, and the aggrieved directors and producers were in on it. There was already talk about other rival streaming services were offering WBD to buy the film beforehand, but Warners said no.

Whatever it is, you have to wonder whether or not WBD are bleeding THAT much money to not being able to afford to distribute the film themselves. On the other hand, it could be that Zaslav is stripping the whole studio to parts to make it cheaper for a sale. Which I don't understand the logic behind it personally, but I notice it's a popular guess online.

Furthermore, any creative person should stay the f*** away from that mess of a studio. One PR debacle to another.

[The Laughing Fish]

A politician suggests the Federal Trade Commission needs to look into WBD's conduct.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/democratic-rep-calls-federal-probe-002659283.html

Not the first time a politician wants to put the whole company under the spotlight. Well, the government definitely made a huge mistake for approving this merger.

How convenient that DC Studios announced an inexperienced writer to helm the Supergirl project. Rather strange timing. After the HBO chief of programming admitted to using bots to troll critics for writing unflattering reviews of his shows, who's to say this Supergirl news isn't an attempt to distract everyone from the negative publicity? Anything is possible with this damn company.

[The Laughing Fish]

BTAS alum Tom Ruegger has declared that David Zaslav should be fired:

Warner Bros./Discovery's most recent earnings report, in early November, was met with one of the biggest single-day sell-offs in WB/D's short history. THE STOCK HAS NOW LOST HALF ITS VALUE SINCE ZASLAV TOOK CHARGE. This guy is an unmitigated disaster. He needs to be sent packing.

https://twitter.com/tomruegger/status/1725071430403207662

Zaslav made some headlines for the wrong reasons again the other day for justifying "overpaying" the writers to end their strike, despite the absurd amount of money he makes. This third of the article sums up the mess debacle surrounding him and WBD:

Zaslav's 2022 comp package set as $39.3 million, only $8 million short of the entire increased expenditure. He didn't actually reach that number — Zaz's realized pay last year was $27.2 million — but he was supposed to! Either way, one individual gobbled up much of what an entire union wanted for all of its members working for his company.

(Zaslav infamously was set up with $246 million comp package in 2021, ahead of the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger, with $203 million coming from stock options tied to closing the deal. The headline number also proved overinflated — Zaslav realized $69.6 million that year.)

Zaslav's comp package is not an outlier in Hollywood, or even among his fellow strike negotiators. Netflix's co-CEO Ted Sarandos is at $50 million; Bob Iger is expected to earn up to $27 million this year. However, it hits different when you consider the devaluation of Warner Bros. Discovery under Zaslav's leadership. WBD stock has lost half its value since the April 2022 merger, and a huge selloff occurred after the earnings call earlier this month. While Warner Bros. Discovery has done an admirable job to pay down debt — paying off $12 billion — it still has $44.5 billion of debt to go.

None of this accounts for the intangible of creatives feeling burned by deleting "Batgirl" and "Scoob! Holiday Haunt," by instituting mass layoffs at Turner Classic Movies (a couple of the top execs were rehired following backlash), and most recently by pulling the plug on Dave Green's John Cena starrer "Coyote vs. Acme." After that backlash, Warner Bros. Discovery agreed to at least attempt to shop the film to other distributors to release.

To work in Hollywood is to work in the business of creativity. Right now, the only thing that feels creative in WBD's approach is finding new ways to burn bridges.

https://www.indiewire.com/news/analysis/david-zaslav-overpaying-writers-post-strike-1234926590/

If Hollywood is run on egos, you still have to build and maintain relationships. What good is it to suck up to these suits, if you're a director, when you're constantly worried of being stabbed in the back? The AMPTP has shown how ugly they are during this year's strikes, but Zaslav's greed takes to a whole new level. Only Bob Iger from Disney matches Zaslav in terms of insensitivity.

[The Laughing Fish]

After yet another dismal quarter due to box office flops and losing the NBA rights, WBD's money trouble continues despite supposedly generating cash flow from streaming.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/warner-bros-discovery-negative-credit-watch-1235977117/