Canceled Warner Bros. Movie Is 100% Finished But Still Won’t Be Released
Warner Bros. Discovery canceled Scoob! Holiday Haunt, though the movie was finished.
Another film has been slashed by Warner Bros. Discovery in an attempt to cut costs. According to SyFy, the newest Scooby-Doo flick, Scoob Holiday Haunt is 100% finished but will never be released. Warner Bros. Discovery also recently axed the long-anticipated Batgirl movie, which was also close to complete but will likely never see an audience.
Writer and producer of Scoob! Holiday Haunt, Tony Cervone posted his bittersweet thoughts on Instagram, saying, “Well, we finished this thing today,” captioning a photo of the holiday mystery’s title card. According to a tweet by co-writer Paul Dini, the film was almost finished when the studio decided to nix the project.
Warner Bros. Discovery has been on a rampage of cancelations ever since WarnerMedia and Discovery merged in April of 2022. The new CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, has made savings his number one priority, even if that means cutting almost completed projects.
In his Instagram post, Cervone expressed his appreciation for the entire Scooby team who helped create the Holiday Haunt film. He claimed that the team understood the plot and characters so well and boasted that “Every minute with you was a pleasure.” To his followers on Instagram, he said, “I really hope you get the chance to see it somehow. It’s a good one.”
Scoob! Holiday Haunt was set to be released on HBO Max on December 22. It was written as a prequel to 2020’s Scoob!, and the story follows Scooby-Doo as a puppy and a 10-year-old Shaggy as they play detective and discover the hidden secrets at a spooky holiday resort. It would have been the first-ever Scooby-Doo Christmas mystery.
The prequel sets up the story told in Scoob!, which was ultimately successful and topped the charts nationwide for digital rental at the time of its release, despite receiving low reviews from critics on sites like Rotten Tomatoes.
Frank Welker has been voicing Scooby since 2002 and was set to reprise his role, this time as a young Scooby, in Holiday Haunt. Welker was initially initiated into the Scooby Gang as Fred Jones in 1969 when the Scooby-Doo franchise was first released. He is the only remaining original member still involved with the franchise. Iain Armatage voiced the young Shaggy.
Warner Bros. Discovery wrote off both Scoob! Holiday Haunt and Batgirl as tax-write offs. Because of this, the studio legally can never make any money off either film. Unfortunately, this means that despite both films having been almost completely finished at the time of cancelation, neither of them will probably ever see an audience.
Despite their cancelation, the Scooby team who created Holiday Haunt apparently cared for the film enough to push the stalled Mystery Machine over the edge of the finish line, completing the film even though no one will ever get to see it. Their dedication to the project and clear love for the film add an extra sense of melancholy to the canceled Christmas caper.
Scoob! Holiday Haunt starred Armitage as Shaggy, McKenna Grace as Daphne, Ariana Greenblatt as Velma, Pierce Gagnon as Fred, and, of course, Welker as the famous talking Great Dane himself, Scooby-Doo.
