- Warner Bros. will focus on drawing up a 10-year film plan for DC characters.
- The CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav made the comments during a second-quarter earnings call for the company.
- Zaslav added that they will “focus on quality” and not release a film before it is ready.
Warner Bros. will finally work on a 10-year strategy to better serve its beloved DC characters inspired by Disney’s hit Marvel Studios machine.
During the Warner Bros. conference call
“Our ambition is to bring Warner back and produce great, high-quality movies,” Zaslav said during the Q&A portion of the earnings call. “As we look at the opportunities that we have, in general, DC is one of the top of the list for us.”
Zaslav specifically noted that Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are all popular characters that present a “huge opportunity” for the company.
“We’ve done a reset,” Zaslav said of DC at Warner Bros. “We’ve restructured the business where there will be a team with a 10-year plan focused only on DC. It’s very similar to the structure that Alan Horn and Bob Iger worked very effectively with Kevin Feige at Disney.”
Over the last decade, Marvel Studios has released theatrical hits. Three of his films they are currently among the top 10 highest grossing films of all time. At one point, “Avengers: Endgame” was the highest-grossing film of all time.
DC’s highest grossing movie is ‘Aquaman’.
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures & © DC Comics
DC’s highest-grossing film, 2018’s ‘Aquaman’, is the 25th highest-grossing film of all time.
He added: “We believe we could build a long-term, much stronger sustainable development business outside of DC. And as part of that, we’re going to focus on quality. We’re not going to release any movie before it’s ready. We’re not going to release a movie to make a quarter.” The focus will be, “How do we make each of these movies, in general, as good as possible?”
Recently, WBD hired ex Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horne in an advisory role.
Prior to his ten-year tenure at Disney, Horn oversaw the success of Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” trilogy along with the “Harry Potter” franchise.
Alan Horn will likely help Warner Bros. with its DC plan.
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for the National Board of Review
“DC is something we think we could do better and we’re focused on that right now,” Zaslav added, noting that they still have Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s “Black Adam” coming out along with “The Flash” and ” The sequel to Shazam.
Without naming “Batgirl,” Zaslav said that after studying the performance of direct-to-streaming movies, their conclusion is that “there’s no comparison to what happens when you launch a movie in theaters.”
“This idea of expensive movies going straight to streaming, we can’t find a business case for it,” Zaslav added. “We can’t find a financial value for it. So we’re making a strategic shift. We’ve been going to town talking about our commitment to the theatrical exposure and the theatrical window.”
Zaslav later added, “The goal is to grow the DC brand, to grow the DC characters, but also, our job is to protect the DC brand, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
“Bat Girl” It reportedly cost $90 million to build.
For those disappointed about the loss of a “Batgirl” movie, WB has been releasing DC movies that feel more unique and disparate than unified (“Joker,” which has a 2024 sequel starring Joaquin Phoneix and Lady Gaga, is not connected to anything else in the DC universe).
It seems that WBD is finally looking to fix with a rollback after its next releases.
Or in Zaslav’s words: “The goal is to grow the DC brand, to grow the DC characters, but also, our job is to protect the DC brand, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
