DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond

[Christopher]

I’m not sure any of us truly understand the economics of the business unless we were in the c suite or their finance departments.

I’m GUESSING that this may have been a highly leveraged merger, meaning they owe mucho dinero to the banks at high interest rates. So lots of financial pressure on the board.

Sunk costs : Looking at their portfolio of movies and where they are in the launch process and a critical eye towards the remaining $ to launch, marketing etc. vs. expected returns, one could easily see where products are abandoned… particularly when a tax write off would exceed the potential profit estimate. Other movies may have a different economic formula due to the factors above. We don’t know, we can only guess.

layoffs: it always seems to be part of any merger. Duplication of depts and Overlapping depts skill sets. The basic idea of a merger is to increase efficiency by reduction of redundancy. This, in real life however, means folks loose jobs which totally sucks.

What all of this boils down to is that mergers generally hurt everyone except the CEOs. This is why America used to have robust anti-trust laws that prevented greedy capitalists from gobbling up too many businesses, reducing competition, and slashing jobs just so they could make more than the insane amount of money they already have. Unfortunately, those laws have been eroded more and more since the Reagan era.

diversity comment: just looking at the composition of a B.O.D. is , in essence, expecting to see certain rations or quotas.

Wrong. Diversity is the natural state of humanity. If you hire fairly and without bias, you automatically get a diverse group, because talented and capable people naturally exist in every gender and ethnic group. The artifical filters are imposed by the people who perpetuate institutionalized white male privilege, who favor those who fit into the traditionally dominant group rather than hiring fairly. Part of the way institutionalized discrimination perpetuates itself is by propagating the lie that uniformity is the automatic default and diversity is the artificial construct. Which carries with it the unspoken bigoted assumption that only white men are capable of succeeding without artificial help because everyone else is inferior.

It's a lot harder to get rid of male privilege than just changing your pronouns, it's sticky stuff.

Good point.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

As per Variety this morning, the Magnolia Network, which is owned/operated by Chip and Joanna Gaines is being folded into/merged with HBO Max beginning September 1st.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

But it's a particularly stark example of the vulture capitalist that Zaslav seems to be, happily gutting away and how little he seems to give a damn about people. Not to mention pulling various other movies and shows entirely from viewership, cutting 70% of the HBO Max staff, potentially shutting down HBO Max in favor of the vastly smaller service, prioritizing el cheapo "reality" content...

Reality content is--without question--highly profitable and has been for more than three decades. There's no getting around that. He appears to be prioritizing that which has the greater chance to be profitable, as opposed to niche productions that do not bring in the revenue WB is looking for. No corporation can survive if it continues to invest in low-appeal productions which are not expanding viewership, or in the case of certain movie projects, appear to lack the ingredients for the kind scale or energy of desired superhero films.

Pulling some content entirely from being able to be viewed is particularly galling.

You write this as if studios and/or networks and/or services from the days of vacuum-tubed TVs to cable to streaming all have not cancelled, pulled or ceased production, and as if its an entitlement.

The whole point of streaming was supposed to be easy accessibility at any time and any place and now we're going more broadly to the Disney-style vault because the plebs aren't as important as $10 off the tax bill?

Hardly $10.

And it may not apparently be the overriding priority but given that Batgirl and Supergirl are cancelled while that violent creep Ezra Miller still gets a movie to come out I'm going to stick with "misogyny."

Miller would take issue with your labeling his treatment as misogynistic, and at present, no one knows what the fate of the Flash movie is, so anyone else implying "It's misogyny!" have no basis for the charge as of this date.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Sunk costs : Looking at their portfolio of movies and where they are in the launch process and a critical eye towards the remaining $ to launch, marketing etc. vs. expected returns, one could easily see where products are abandoned… particularly when a tax write off would exceed the potential profit estimate. Other movies may have a different economic formula due to the factors above.

Rational post.

He will still green light product that is profitable. If “woke” movies make money you can bet that they will make as many as the market can bear. Conversely, if their best return on investment are schlocky reality shows then that’s what you can expect to see.

Always. Any company either sets or follows profitable trends, whether said trends are internal or external. WB/Discovery is cleaning house to shed what they know does not work (i.e., setting profitable trends), or is projected to lack the kind of subject essence audiences are looking for.

Canary in the coal mine: I’m interested to see if this is the first of similar belt tightening in the entertainment industry due to changing economic conditions.

Well, we see changes at Netflix already happening, and there were some rumors about Paramount+ going in that direction. Still too early to tell.

 

[crookeddy]

So, Magnolia moving to HBO is a BIG sign that HBO is NOT going away. That's one worry down. But it is a reality series, so definitely keeping alive the concern that scripted content is going away.

 

[StCoop]

This is funny:
Leslie Iwerks, a documentary filmmaker with such credits as 2007's The Pixar Story and 2019's The Imagineering Story, asked to license clips from the 2021 version of Justice League for a history of DC. In response, Iwerks was told that the 2017 version of Justice League is the only one there is.

 

[fireproof78]

Canary in the coal mine: I’m interested to see if this is the first of similar belt tightening in the entertainment industry due to changing economic conditions.

I expect a lot more tightening right now, and not as much output until the dust clears.

 

[crookeddy]

I think Netflix's Hollywood level movie a week approach was probably too expensive (and the movies weren't that good) so if they cut that down to once a month I wouldn't mind. But, if they start vaulting all their underperforming movies (90% of them, pretty much) then that's absolutely horrible. There will literally be absolutely no way for anyone to see those movies ever again.

 

[theenglish]

I thought that Netflix started increasing production on original content because Paramount, CBS, Warner, etc were consolidating their content on their own streaming platforms. I really think this is a case of mutual cooperation being more beneficial for everyone overall--having streaming companies to distribute content and other companies to produce that content reduces the number of channels out their competing with each other and theoretically gets more potential eyes on the product. Most people can easily subscribe to two or three channels. At my house we have four: Amazon (and I would be a prime member without the streaming), Disney+, Crave (HBO/Warner plus other content), and Netflix. Annually, that is still a lot less money than a cable bill.

 

[StCoop]

There will literally be absolutely no way for anyone to see those movies ever again.

Everything I've watched on a streaming service that I might want to watch again is backed up on hard drives since I know it can all disappear tomorrow. Same for all the games I've bought on Steam.

 

[crookeddy]

Everything I've watched on a streaming service that I might want to watch again is backed up on hard drives since I know it can all disappear tomorrow. Same for all the games I've bought on Steam.

You rip streamers? Most people wouldn't know how to do that.

 

[Set Harth]

This is funny:
Leslie Iwerks, a documentary filmmaker with such credits as 2007's The Pixar Story and 2019's The Imagineering Story, asked to license clips from the 2021 version of Justice League for a history of DC. In response, Iwerks was told that the 2017 version of Justice League is the only one there is.

it's the one China policy of JL

 

[Nightowl1701]

“It can be truly said that I have a bat in my belfry… shall we dance?”

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[wayoung]

Earnings Call Statement is out:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...-discovery-reports-first-earnings-1235192127/

Lost $3.4 Billion last quarter.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Fascinating.

 

[crookeddy]

Earnings Call Statement is out:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...-discovery-reports-first-earnings-1235192127/

Lost $3.4 Billion last quarter.

So what do we think about the moves now? They are losing an existential amount of money. Obviously changes needed to be made, the only question is whether they are making the right changes, and whether they are making the said changes the right way.

 

[fireproof78]

Consolidate, focus on less projects, and find financial streams for resources. Possibly sell off assets.

More importantly, reduce liability otherwise be leveraged right out of business.

 

[wayoung]

So what do we think about the moves now? They are losing an existential amount of money. Obviously changes needed to be made, the only question is whether they are making the right changes, and whether they are making the said changes the right way.

Still waiting for reports from the call. So far all that I've seen is confirmation they're merging HBO Max & Discovery+ into one service, which we already knew, with no details.

 

[crookeddy]

Still waiting for reports from the call. So far all that I've seen is confirmation they're merging HBO Max & Discovery+ into one service, which we already knew, with no details.

They should call it The Discovery of HBO.

 

[crookeddy]

Related: Paramount lost 1.8 billion.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...t-stock-analysts-streaming-losses-1235192656/