It’s a sad day for movie lovers as film production company, The Village Roadshow, filed for bankruptcy today. It is the same company that has given us films like The Matrix trilogy, Joker and many others. In addition, the film company was also special for India as it was a partner with PVR which led to a multiplex boom in the nation. 

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Village Roadshow was founded in 1997 and has produced and released over 100 films, including Joker, The Great Gatsby and The LEGO Movie. 

Village Roadshow goes bankrupt. Here is why

Village Roadshow filed for bankruptcy after a long-drawn battle with Warner Bros Discovery Inc. The company sought for bankruptcy protection in Delaware, US on March 17 with $223.8 million in asset-backed secured notes and $163.1 million of senior secured debt, according to court documents.

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Village Roadshow took a beat because of the pandemic in 2019. It struggled to recover money post a long dry spell. It suffered again in 2023 when writers and large part of the creative workforce in Hollywood went on dual strikes leading to delays in film productions and financial losses.

Its liquidity problems, however, stemmed largely from an ongoing arbitration with long-standing partner Warner.

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In 2022, Village Roadshow Entertainment filed an arbitration over the release of The Matrix Resurrections, the latest chapter of the movie series, on the HBO Max streaming platform, allegedly depriving the company of theatre revenues.

The company also accused Warner of “shutting it out of its rights to co-own and co-finance” new chapters of the films that it had first developed, it said in the filing.

The threat of a potential arbitration award “could flatten the company’s balance sheet,” and even if the lawsuit is resolved, its key relationship with Warner has been “irreparably decimated,” Village Roadshow Entertainment said.

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