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Recently, Variety reported that Warner Bros Discovery is in negotiations to sell approximately half of its film and TV music-publishing assets for an estimated $500 million. Although the specific assets up for sale are not yet known, Variety's source indicates that a major label, with Sony in the lead, is likely to acquire the rights to "slightly less than half" of the catalog. The catalog, valued at around $500 million, is believed to include music from well-known films such as Purple Rain, Evita, Sweeney Todd, Rent, various Batman films, and several other titles. It may also encompass songs featured in iconic films like Casablanca, including the timeless "As Time Goes By". However, the precise details of the rights involved in the deal remain uncertain. Renowned attorney Allen Grubman is reportedly overseeing the transaction on behalf of Warner Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

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Are the glory days of Warner Bros over?

These negotiations represent another development in the ongoing changes and challenges faced by the once-dominant Warner Bros brand. The decision is almost certainly driven by strategic considerations and financial factors. A prominent and influential entertainment company with a rich history spanning more than 100 years in the film and television industry, WB has undergone significant transformations in recent years. And it has been a mostly downhill journey for one of the pioneering Big Five movie studios. Release after release, the studio has continued to suffer losses. Even the usually reliable cash cow franchises like Wizarding World (which encompasses Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts) and DC, which brought billions in the noughties, are no longer working.

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Of acquisitions and mergers

In 2018, Warner Bros was acquired by AT&T as part of its acquisition of Time Warner, WB's parent company. This led to the formation of WarnerMedia, which encompassed various media properties, including Warner Bros Studios. However, in May 2021, AT&T announced a deal to spin off WarnerMedia into a new company called Warner Bros Discovery. The move was driven by AT&T's desire to focus more on its core telecommunications business and reduce its debt. The merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc, which was finalised in 2022, was expected to create a formidable entertainment powerhouse capable of competing with other major players in the streaming landscape.

But...

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The Zaslav Effect

Ever since he assumed command, Zaslav has faced significant criticism for his controversial decision to drastically reduce the content library on the streaming service HBO Max as a means of tax write-offs. This move resulted in a staggering loss of nearly $25 billion from the company's market capitalisation. Numerous projects, such as Batgirl (a $90 million film) and Scoob! Holiday Haunt, were either close to completion or in advanced stages of post-production, but were axed anyway. Cancelling a movie like Batgirl, featuring acclaimed directors like Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah at the helm, an undeniable popular appeal that is inherent in comic-book superheroes, and finally a cast with names like Leslie Grace, Michael Keaton, Brendan Fraser, and JK Simmons is unprecedented.

Earlier, before Zaslav's time, Christopher Nolan, for whom Warner Bros had been a home for nearly more than 17 years, chose to quit after the studio announced in 2021 that it will release every big screen project on both HBO Max and in theatres. Apart from Nolan, many other filmmakers took exception to the decision. Now, Zaslav's actions may have further exacerbated the discontent among filmmakers and industry professionals. 

But Warner Bros' biggest issue is DC.

The DC Problem

While the Marvel Cinematic Universe started with 2008's summer release of Jon Favreau's Iron Man, the DCEU's beginning came half a decade later in 2013 with Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, and it has only played catchup since then. Starring Robert Downey Jr in the role, Iron Man was a runaway, though unexpected, hit. The superhero was not a well-known one, and frankly neither were the Avengers that came later for the general audience who were not comic book readers. But Marvel Studios, with Kevin Feige at the helm, had trust in themselves and the cast (even Robert Downey Jr, who was pretty much persona non grata back then due to his substance abuse issues and run-ins with the law) and crew that paid off. 

The challenge in front of Iron Man was also The Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan's grownup-oriented Bat-movie was more of a crime thriller than a full-fledged superhero pic. But the Dark Knight trilogy, featuring Christian Bale in the role, was its own self-contained universe. And it was not until Man of Steel that DC really dipped its toes in the water of a unified cinematic universe populated by several superheroes.

Starring Henry Cavill in the role of Superman, the film was a standalone that was supposed to eventually lead to the formation of the Justice League. But the film was poorly received, as Snyder's gloomier Superman was rejected by fans. The film was a decent commercial success and received mixed critical reviews. The next two releases — Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad —were even more heavily panned by critics and disappointed at the box office as well. That is when the former had the main trinity of DC superheroes — Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman.

Then came Wonder Woman in 2017, a more hopeful and sunny superhero movie starring Gal Gadot, which pleased both audiences and critics. However, whatever goodwill Wonder Woman had generated evaporated with Justice League later, a bastardised product with two competing visions of Snyder, who had to quit the production midway after a family tragedy, and Joss Whedon, who had directed the first two Avengers movies for rival Marvel Studios and was brought to finish the film.

The film was a spectacular failure, grossing about $650 million on a budget of an incredible $350 million (the vagaries of film economics mean that the original budget does not include promotional and marketing costs, and the cut of theatre chains. The actual budget then is much higher) . It prompted execs at Warner Bros to overhaul the structure of DC Films, the studio in charge of DC adaptations, just one of many since then. After that, DC films have been more successful, with hits like Aquaman and Shazam!, but there have been setbacks too mainly due to the regimes that keep changing and that are evermore capricious. 

While James Gunn, a filmmaker with a perfect track record in superhero cinema, is now at the helm of DC Studios, the entity that replaced DC Films, the future is still uncertain. The Flash, the latest release, is proving to be another expensive ($200mn) disaster. Gunn is building out a whole new DC Universe, which brings together cinema, television, animation, and gaming to tell one big, cohesive story. But it might be too late. The audiences might be overly fatigued and disenchanted by the continuous poor quality churned out by the brand. In any case, Gunn has his work cut out. 

We shall wait and see.

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