A new rumor alleges that DC Studios could be sold or “go the way of Fox” if James Gunn’s Superman movie does not perform well at the box office.
This rumor comes from Kim Masters at Puck, who painted a bleak picture not only for DC Studios, but Warner Bros. Pictures at-large.
Speaking specifically to DC Studios, Masters shared that Gunn’s Superman film has “taken on almost incalculable importance to Warner Bros. Discovery” and that if they can’t find a way to make the DC franchise work “the studio will go the way of Fox, which was swallowed by Disney in 2019.”
An alleged Warner Bros. veteran told Masters, “An essential element of the stock price is believing that the I.P. of DC is meaningful. David bet big that they can show the world that the DC I.P. can have real value. Superman is the first movie. That will set the tone. They have a tremendous amount riding on it.”
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On top of this rumor that much of DC Studios’ and Warner Bros.’ future relies on Gunn’s Superman film, Masters also detailed that Warner Bros. Pictures bosses Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy might get replaced by DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran or that Zaslav might find another replacement himself.
However, Warner Bros. spokesman Robert Gibbs rejected a previous rumor of the same vein claiming that De Luca and Abdy were on the way out. He said, “There is no truth to that rumor.”
Nevertheless, Masters is not the only one reporting that there is trouble brewing inside Warner Bros. Thomas Buckley at Bloomberg claimed that Zaslav took issue with De Luca and Abdy over the failure of Joker: Folie a Deux. The film only grossed $207.5 million globally despite having a reported a $190 million production budget.
Not only did Zaslav take issue with the failure of the Joker sequel, but he was reportedly not happy with the costs of other upcoming films greenlit by De Luca and Abdy. However, a spokesman said the meeting was simply “a straightforward Joker 2 postmortem and a constructive conversation on the slate.”
The report also claimed that De Luca and Abdy were letting budgets get out of hand. However, the a company spokesman countered noting that the average net production cost has decreased from $168 million to $106 million under De Luca and Abdy and they are “aligned [with Zaslav] on budget priorities.”
What do you make of these rumors and reports regarding DC Studios and Warner Bros.?
Because of how strong Zaslov initially came in with being against DEI enough to cancel BATGIRL I was hoping he'd get DC back on track but his choice of James Gunn to lead it all was very questionable. I would hire Gunn in a minute to direct 1 or roe films but NOT to lead it all. Gunn's humor does NOT work for every character/group. Its VERY concerning how Gunn might approach a BATMAN film.
I do not wish failure on them but I do hope Gunn doesn't turn every DC property into a Guardians of the Galaxy like set b/c that's bad. The best take on DC to date is Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. I would have tried to get him to at east get everything planned out and started and then if he wanted to move on in say 5-10 years. let someone else pick up and complete what he would have mapped out.
I’m taking a wait and see mentality on that. If superman is good and I think it will be despite what anyone says then there is no problem. Too early to predict things before they happen.