Franchises have been the secret in Hollywood for years, and Warner Bros. has been franchise-heavy greater than most. Between numerous DC movies, the different Conjuring films, and no matter else, the studio has had a giant franchise push over the past decade. However for present CEO David Zaslav, the corporate hasn’t been using them sufficient to his liking.
Throughout a current Goldman Sachs convention, Zaslav expressed a want to increase upon WB’s largest franchises. Particularly, he thinks “content material” corresponding to DC, together with the likes of Lord of the Rings, have been “underused.” To him, what makes Warner Bros. stand out from different studios is “the nice IP that [it] owns,” he stated. “However for us, the problem is…we haven’t achieved something with Harry Potter for greater than a decade. We haven’t achieved something with Lord of the Rings.”
DC is within the midst of beginning up its 10-year-plan from James Gunn and Peter Safran, with the primary official undertaking being Gunn’s Superman Legacy in 2025. As for Lord of the Rings, it’s identified that WB is engaged on more movies, such because the 2024 anime prequel War of the Rohirrim. Within the case of Harry Potter, that’s extra of a technicality than anything: Zaslav is particularly referring to movies set round or after the timeline of the unique motion pictures, which conveniently distances the three Unbelievable Beasts motion pictures (the final of which, Secrets and techniques of Dumbledore, got here out again in 2022). That area of interest is anticipated to be crammed by a TV adaptation of the unique books, which he stated will run for “10 consecutive years.”
Zaslav talked in regards to the firm needing to make sure it doesn’t “overuse the content material” and threat franchise fatigue. Whereas it’s not a incorrect thought to have, the larger subject could also be that a few of these franchises have lost their staying power lately. DC can attempt to get its act collectively solely so many instances earlier than audiences grow to be extra selective about what they see, and the Potter brand steadily burned out its goodwill for quite a lot of causes, most of them owing to writer JK Rowling’s transphobic beliefs. (And that is to say nothing of WB’s attempted downplaying of these feedback when requested.) Not each model is constructed for continued, long-term success, particularly when it’s checked out by means of a monetary lens moderately than a inventive one.
[through TheWrap]
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