Those write offs must be so frustrating for everyone working on it. Someone should restrict that instrument, it is clearly being used for non intended purposes
"All this, only to see his film get run off a cliff."
".....is the story of an underdog taking on a heartless company whose executives don’t realize there can be real consequences to making their products blow up in your face."
“In a strange twist of fate, Warner Brothers decides to get back into the business of releasing films instead of the more profitable business of smothering them with a pillow.”
It won’t have curbed the intent, just this particular execution of the intent. The people in power in that creative space aren’t creative people, they’re extreme capitalists, and that problem isn’t easily fixed.
Guess they realized that even letting another company distribute one of their biggest and most storied legacy IPs wasn’t the best look either. Man, what a mess. Such an insane series of unforced errors in service of nothing more than the pursuit of the ever-fabled quarterly earnings boost.
Just the incredible music score alone made it such a shame to hear about this being shelved. I am so happy to see such a demand for this film. Cannot wait.
Really sick of the trend of companies throwing away thousands of hours of people's work (not to mention the waste and environmental impact) because the tax write-off is larger than the potential profits.
"[I]t’s easy to imagine that if an in-demand creative has an all-things-being-equal choice of going with Warners or another studio in the future, Zaslav’s aggressive tax strategies could give real pause...."
Gee—you THINK?!?
Zaslav's a Reality TV suit who thinks now he's Thalberg or Selznick.
This current movement of shelving already-made movies for a tax write-off is disturbing. The recent mega-mergers have studios doing anything they can to cut costs to pay for the enormous costs they've incurred in their mergers and acquisitions.
It's even more troubling than Disney's pattern of "putting movies in the vault" for fifteen years to drive up demand when they re-release it. Stuff just ... disappears ... all so the studio can make more money in the future, and a lot of folks miss out on awesome art because of it.
Disney is in the midst of acquiring the 33% stake in Hulu that is currently held by Comcast. Can't imagine what that will do to their tactics to increase their bottom line.
Probably kill it by merging it with Disney+. If only we had actual antitrust enforcement interested in stopping this endless march towards monopoly and oligopoly (price isn't everything!). Lina Khan is awesome, but she's trying to undo fifty years of momentum.
Just googled it. Disney expects it will pay $8.61 billion to acquire Comcast's 33 percent stake. Disney already owns the rest so this will give Disney full ownership of Hulu. Hulu is popular so they'll be alright. The problem as I see it is Disney's debt which will require cutbacks somewhere.
I did wonder if it was a crass marketing move.
Back in August 2022, we found out earlier before the financial quarter ended.
This time we found out the company cancelled the release over a month after the third quarter ended
I suppose the strikes buried the news if it ever was announced sooner
I work specifically in film marketing, and these kinds of conspiracies drive me nuts. The overwhelming majority of us got into this because we’re huge film nerds and just want to help people discover movies they’d like.
We were all furious about Coyote vs. Acme (and Batgirl).
While I don't agree that us Marketing people are sane, I do agree this wasn't a gimmick. Glad he got to shop the work instead of it getting buried. We need more of this.
Comments
".....is the story of an underdog taking on a heartless company whose executives don’t realize there can be real consequences to making their products blow up in your face."
I see what they did there.🤔
The truth is out there!
Take a look at other, some quite well established, companies hollowed out to satisfy shareholders over customers/audience. Staff pay the highest price
Gee—you THINK?!?
Zaslav's a Reality TV suit who thinks now he's Thalberg or Selznick.
Back in August 2022, we found out earlier before the financial quarter ended.
This time we found out the company cancelled the release over a month after the third quarter ended
I suppose the strikes buried the news if it ever was announced sooner
We were all furious about Coyote vs. Acme (and Batgirl).