The surprising cancellation of the movie “Batgirl” when the project was well underway marked the beginning of a restructuring within Warner Bros. Discovery, under the new leadership of David Zaslav, whose main focus is once again the productions. cinematographic. This left DC’s future in doubt, but during the company’s investor meeting on Thursday, Aug.4, Warner CEO has unveiled a new plan for the DC Extended Universe in which he believes they will prioritize quality to enhance their most recognized properties.
“Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman or Aquaman are brands recognized around the world”Zaslav said during the meeting. “And being able to spread them all over the world with great stories is a great opportunity for us. We performed a reset. We have restructured the business. We will focus on a team dedicated exclusively to DC and a ten-year plan”.
As previously indicated, Zaslav’s aim is to refocus efforts on big screen hits, thus overturning the plan of the previous council., led by Jason Kilar and Ann Sarnoff, who turned to the development of HBO Max and created the temporary hybrid theatrical and streaming model motivated by the pandemic. “Batgirl” did not fit this new paradigm, while the next “Black Adam” and “Shazam! Wrath of the Gods follows in the calendar.
During the meeting, Zaslav revealed that from now on, his plan for DC will rely heavily on what Kevin Feige did with the Marvel Cinematic Universesaga and benchmark of world success in cinema. “It’s very similar to the structure that Alan Horn and Bob Iger put together very efficiently with Kevin Feige at Disney.”says Warner’s CEO. “We believe we can build much stronger and more sustainable growth, a long-term business from DC and, as part of that plan, we focus on quality “.
Zaslav cited “Black Adam”, the new blockbuster with Dwayne Johnson, as one of the projects he is most excited about, in addition to the sequels to “Shazam!” and ‘Aquaman’, due out in theaters soon. “We are very excited about them”says the executive in statements gathered by The Hollywood Reporter. “We have seen them. We think they’re great, but we think we can make them even better”.
Also to be added is the sequel to ‘Joker’, still starring Joaquin Phoenix, with Lady Gaga confirmed as Harley Quinn, a film that will be released in theaters in the fall of 2024, the second part of ‘The Batman’ with Robert Pattinson, already himself announced and the cursed movie ‘The Flash’, which Zaslav has assured will be released, despite the controversy with its protagonist, Ezra Miller.
Finally, Zaslav also revealed that they are working on it a new distribution plan, where not all films will be released on the same scale: “A number of films will come out with shorter distribution windows and with different marketing campaigns. But we will always be agile and the focus will be on cinema.”.
“Our job is to protect the DC brand”
During the meeting with the investors, Zaslav alluded to the cancellation of “Batgirl” defending his decision as follows: “We will not release a film until it is ready. We will not release a film to make it to quarter e we won’t release a movie if we don’t believe it”. These harsh words somewhat contradict earlier claims, in which the CEO said the decision to cancel the film with Leslie Grace was purely economic and strategic and had nothing to do with its quality.
“The priority will be how to make each of these films the best they can overall.”Zaslav continued in reference to the “Batgirl” case. “DC is something we think we can improve and we are now focused on this”. In this new paradigm, DC movies with an exclusive release on HBO Max would have no place since then according to Zaslav there is no point in making such expensive films for streaming, which puts ‘Supergirl’, ‘Blue Beetle’ and ‘Black Canary’, all in different stages of production, in immediate danger. With quality over quantity as a new maxim, for Zaslav, “The goal is to grow the DC brand. To grow DC characters. But on the other hand, our job is to protect the DC brand and that is what we will do”.
Source: E Cartelera
