Warner Bros CEO Says None Of The Canceled Shows And Movies Were Worth It
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav says none of the many canceled projects would have financially helped the company.
If you’ve been following the shakeup of the Warner Bros. Discovery merger over the last few months then you know that major monetary cuts have been made. After axing several scripted series from HBO Max such as Camping, Mrs. Fletcher, and Run and Vinyl, along with feature titles including the mostly completed Batgirl, CEO David Zaslav is saying that nothing they’ve done is “going to help [Warner Bros. Discovery] in any way.” Sticking to the idea that producing massive amounts of content is just a money pit if the projects aren’t hitting their monetary targets, Zaslav seems to have no regrets for the tough decisions that were made – even if the extra cash didn’t add up to much.
Deadline revealed that the Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO sees money-making projects like House of the Dragon, the Harry Potter franchise, Euphoria, The Batman, and others as crucial to the continuation of the brand while many of the previously canceled productions weren’t making the numbers necessary to help stabilize the budget cuts the studio moved forward with post-merger.
But, he’s not letting these statistics get him down. In fact, the savings plan over at Warner Bros. Discovery has only shot up in recent days, now tapping in at a whopping goal of $3.5 billion, $500 million more than the original projection.
While those aforementioned projects and others like reality series Ellen’s Next Great Designer and Generation Hustle were chopped from the studio’s list, Zaslav believes that they’re still just making room for more fan-favorite content – hopefully at a lower price. During his statement, the head of Warner Bros. Discovery said that he doesn’t believe that the “golden age of content” has come to an end, reiterating that audiences are taking in TV and film at a larger rate than ever, but noting that “it has to be great content.”
When it comes down to it, it’s all just a matter of quality over quantity – making sure the studio is pouring money into productions that its fans want to tune in for.
Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t the only network to be making huge changes and budget cuts in recent days. After their recent buyout from Nexstar, the teen-centered network CW has also been making some major modifications. After it was revealed that their viewer demographic was much higher than we all expected, the studio has been slicing a number of scripted series to make room for more Multicam projects that will cost less money to make and may land even better with their median age of viewers.
For The CW, long-running fan favorites like Riverdale, The Flash, and Stargirl are coming to an end with Nancy Drew also bowing out after three seasons. Like Warner Bros. Discovery, the studio is hoping to keep costs low while bringing in fresh content for its audiences to enjoy. While they weren’t given their expected Season 1 back-orders, breakout favorites The Winchesters and Walker: Independence are still expecting to receive second-season renewals even if they are scripted productions.
With an entirely new world of programming on the horizon, it will be interesting to see what moves Warner Bros. Discovery makes next. While we may never see what was to become of Batgirl, hopefully Zaslav and the rest of the higher-ups will listen to the fans moving forward and bring us the content we deserve.
