The 2023 studio slate included a significant number of big-budget movies that lost a lot of money. Nearly all 2023 titles with a production budget of $200+ million lost money. Seeing this, one might expect studios to change course going forward to avoid these losses.
However, an article in Variety this week indicates that Warner Bros. is charging ahead with expensive new film projects despite indications that they will not make back their initial investment, at least not from their run in theatres.
Since taking over in July 2022, WB film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy have prioritized making deals with top-tier stars and filmmakers. The most visible of these deals was a three-film “strategic partnership” with Tom Cruise. Since reclaiming his box office crown with TOP GUN: MAVERICK, Cruise is said to be on the hunt for the one industry prize that has alluded him so far, an Oscar. In his partnership with Warner Bros., Cruise is looking to sign on to projects with famous directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Agreements with any of those directors come at a price, as evidenced by the $100 million+ deals that Abdy and De Luca have already signed with Paul Thomas Anderson and Bong Joon Ho. Some are questioning the financial rationale for those projects, especially because neither of these filmmakers have a record of making movies that produce the hundreds of millions at the box office required to be profitable.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film carries a production cost of $115 million, even though none of his previous movies have grossed more than $80 million at the box office. Similarly, Bong Joon Ho’s upcoming sci-fi thriller MICKEY 17 is widely viewed as a big financial risk, having cost $150 million to produce but having been pushed back from its original March 2024 release date to January 2025.
Some theorize that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is positioning the studio for a potential acquisition or merger and that having marquee talent signed to projects will increase the value of the studio asset. If so, this could leave it up to new management to sort out the financial aftermath of these investments.
