Comedy Wile E. Coyote vs. ACME

[SwordOfMorning]

In an ideal world: No one would work with WB at this point. I, genuinely, have less respect for anyone who will willingly work at the studio at this point - I think it's kind of pathetic if you're already a rich, successful filmmaker to help the Zaslav regime in any way, shape or form. But we don't live in an ideal world and people are never actually going to act against their financial/career self interest that way.

 

[3rdstone]

Not the first time I've posted this, but.. Frank always knew.

 

[Pennywise]

 

[kguillou]

[here we go, forgot how to post twitter links]

Wrong, from Mr Bag O'Dicks himself:

i dont… i … i dont even know what to say to this.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Just when you thought no one could be a bigger D-bag than Zaslav, Jeff Sneider comes along and is like, “Hold my beer.” I’ve always hated that guy.

 

[Mani-Man]

i dont… i … i dont even know what to say to this.

Scum, pure scum.
He and zaslav can shake Hands because they both are awful people on a basic Level, full of greed and arrogance.

 

[kguillou]

This whole thing makes me so angry. As some one who is a writer and who one day aspired to work in Hollywood to write movies, this kind of stuff makes me sick and makes me wonder why the **** would i ever want to work in this industry.

 

[Dr.]

A write off is different than earned income in accounting. Not even going to get into hollywood accounting is also a separate hell to go through. I can see how they would rather take the loss, rather than to take in a potential profit inducing amount of money from a competitor. I also have to assume that selling the movie would mean the various creatives would be able to get money, it it was in their contracts. Writing that off, means you don't have to pay them.

From an accounting standpoint, I can see the points. It is still just terrible, terrible way to run a business, however.

Care to elaborate for us accountancy dummies?

As I understand it…

WB believes (rightly or wrongly) that they’d lose money by releasing the movie. So by taking a (partial) write-down, they calculate losing less money. So far, so good. May not be good PR; but from a pure bottom-line perspective, WB is doing what’s necessary. They’re mitigating losses.

But… An alleged $50M offer from a prospective buyer seems like a better deal than a write-down. I.e., WB would lose even less money. No?

What am I missing?

 

[Mr. Peanut]

It almost feels like Zaslav hates the film and has a personal vendetta against it, because there is nothing that is good business about this move.

The guy explicitly hates scripted content, wants everything to be a zero-effort, pure profit reality TV show. I think he hates animation most of all because of how much time and effort goes into it. It's the antithesis of his mindset that TV should just be about letting the camera run and spending as little as possible otherwise.

 

[Drizzle]

In an ideal world: No one would work with WB at this point. I, genuinely, have less respect for anyone who will willingly work at the studio at this point - I think it's kind of pathetic if you're already a rich, successful filmmaker to help the Zaslav regime in any way, shape or form. But we don't live in an ideal world and people are never actually going to act against their financial/career self interest that way.

Not gonna lie, I'll be disappointed if Nolan goes back to WB during the Zaslav regime.

I'm also bummed that my two most anticipated movies this year happen to be WB releases.

 

[Iceman]

The guy explicitly hates scripted content, wants everything to be a zero-effort, pure profit reality TV show. I think he hates animation most of all because of how much time and effort goes into it. It's the antithesis of his mindset that TV should just be about letting the camera run and spending as little as possible otherwise.

He’s an all out disaster for fans to be in the position he’s got. Just hope his era doesn’t last too long.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Not gonna lie, I'll be disappointed if Nolan goes back to WB during the Zaslav regime.

I'm also bummed that my two most anticipated movies this year happen to be WB releases.

Yeah I’m a big fan of James Gunn and I’ve been waiting for a good Superman movie for… my entire life. But anything that benefits Zaslav makes my skin crawl.

 

[TheVileOne]

I mean, I get the sentiment, I really do, but there's a bit of a difference between characters like Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman, or a talent like Nolan and... Wile E. Coyote. And anything either of them were to make would be something this regime actually green lit.

Guys like Nolan, PTA, Scorsese etc have all been seen with Zaslav, making theatrical deals for Tenet, getting $100M budgets, backing TCM etc etc, before and after this whole write-off debacle. As noble as talent deciding not to work w WB would be, it is never gonna happen. They also aren't juggling the idea of writing off every project they make like Twitter wants to believe.

Not everything James Gunn is planning involves Batman and Superman. Also, we saw how badly Warner Bros. collectively sabotaged and screwed all that up before and how they continued to screw it up under the current regime.

Also James Gunn is literally a producer on this film. It has his name on it.

 

[Sithborg]

Care to elaborate for us accountancy dummies?

As I understand it…

WB believes (rightly or wrongly) that they’d lose money by releasing the movie. So by taking a (partial) write-down, they calculate losing less money. So far, so good. May not be good PR; but from a pure bottom-line perspective, WB is doing what’s necessary. They’re mitigating losses.

But… An alleged $50M offer from a prospective buyer seems like a better deal than a write-down. I.e., WB would lose even less money. No?

What am I missing?

The trashing of such an asset is a fairly straight forward process. A fairly straight up loss. Selling it, it would affect many other things, like revenue and cash flow. And that is not going into what other contracts are involved in selling versus junking it.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

There have been many awful studio executives over the years, including currently employed ones. But I don't recall anyone with such utter distain for the artform as this guy. I'll be dancing in the streets when he's finally gone. I couldn't work for this guy.

 

[Batgirl0202]

Shameful, just shameful

As many others here have said, this guy is a pure capitalist with no appreciation or respect for film as an artform or for the creatives involved.

I understand the appeal of filthy lucre but if I were a creative, I'd be seriously thinking twice about investing a couple years of my life on a WBD project...

 

[emielaen]

I mean, they release far more **** than they don't release so... yeah. Most creatives would and will definitely continue to work with WB. They've made deals w lots of pretty big names in the last year or so.

 

[Arachnerd]

For instance, Margot Robbie just signed off on more collaborative projects under her production company with WBD so there will be no repercussions whatsoever. Zaslav scrapping certain projects for tax write-offs will just keep happening and happening until it becomes normalized in the industry and other studios will follow suit eventually (hell, Netflix already canned that one Halle Berry movie, for one).

It sucks, but it is what it is.

 

[Iceman]

There have been many awful studio executives over the years, including currently employed ones. But I don't recall anyone with such utter distain for the artform as this guy. I'll be dancing in the streets when he's finally gone. I couldn't work for this guy.

WB go from bad to terrible to even worse. How do they even find worse execs?

 

[samsnee]

God I hate Zaslav

 

[TheVileOne]

Much respect for Will Forte showing his public support for the film. I'm just severely saddened by this outcome.

Also, if James Gunn hasn't privately fought for his own film and it failed, what hope does his DC Universe have to come to fruition? Why should I hope his DCU will be a success with people like this in charge?

 

[DarkKnight88]

Why should I hope his DCU will be a success with people like this in charge?

Because they do leave certain artists alone in some cases. Denis Villeneuve for Dune, Greta Gerwig for Barbie. I’m sure Gunn has free rein right now for his DCU. That said, if his Superman underperforms, that’ll all go out the window.

 

[TheVileOne]

Because they do leave certain artists alone in some cases. Denis Villeneuve for Dune, Greta Gerwig for Barbie. I’m sure Gunn has free rein right now for his DCU. That said, if his Superman underperforms, that’ll all go out the window.

DUNE isn't WB's movie. It's Legendary's WB is mainly a distributor. Their stake in the film is much smaller, and they aren't calling the shots.

 

[blueharvest]

 

[Sithborg]

Yeah, not falling for Zaslav's Lucy and the football bit again.