Last week, Warner Bros. suddenly announced a news that shocked Hollywood: the new "Batgirl" (Batgirl) and the sequel "Scoob!: Holiday Haunt" (Scoob!: Holiday Haunt) are both in post-production. It will be frozen, it will not be put on the shelves, it will not be released, and it will not be sold to other platforms. In short, it will completely evaporate.
Later, David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery Group, announced that Warner Bros. will develop a 10-year project similar to the Marvel Universe for DC Comics to adapt superhero movies. Warner, an old Hollywood company, is clearly looking for a new path after completing its merger with Discovery.
"Batgirl" was set up as early as 2017 and will be officially launched in 2021. It is planned to be launched on HBO Max, Warner's streaming platform. In March of this year, the crew was officially finished, and the production budget burned up to 90 million US dollars. The 90 million US dollars was thrown into the water with a loud noise, but now it is so suddenly announced that the snow is hidden, the effort, energy and time spent by the creative team are completely in vain, and the audience also loses the opportunity to test the quality of the film, which seems a bit cruel. ruthless.
According to US media reports, Warner Bros. decided to hide "Batgirl". It did not disclose anything to the crew members in advance, and did not plan to announce it to the public for the time being. Who knew that the "New York Post" first broke the news, and Warners was forced to later. Public response, official confirmation.
When news of the snow broke, both directors were in Morocco, where Adil El Abi was holding a wedding, which was supposed to be full of festive atmosphere. Actors including Leslie Grace, Brandon Fraser, Michael Keaton, etc. also learned about the news of "Batgirl" being cut by surfing the Internet and looking at their mobile phones, which made the outside world feel that Warners did this. Impersonal.
However, it is reported that the preview screen is a rough-cut version that has not been fully completed in the later stage. Similar to this kind of polling activity, it is generally just to see what areas of the work need to be strengthened, and which areas have received positive feedback from the audience. to do an essay. There are very few precedents in Hollywood for putting away the entire work just because the score of a test screening event was not satisfactory. Moreover, in the past, there were indeed many works that barely passed the test screening score. After later improvement, they achieved excellent box office and overwhelming reputation when they were released. Therefore, it is a little unbelievable that Warners is willing to hide the superhero comic film made by 90 million US dollars just because of the poor feedback from the test screening.
The two directors of "Batgirl", Adil El Abi and Bilal Farah, are both Belgian-born Moroccan immigrants who once studied film at the LUCA Academy of Arts in Brussels and are brothers and sisters. In recent years, the two have made some names in Hollywood with works such as "Jedi Boys: The Fastest Pursuit" and "Amazing Girls". Judging from the production level of these two previous works alone, it is unlikely to say how amazing "Batgirl" will be, but to say that the filming must be sloppy, I am afraid that it is an underestimate of how much behind the scenes. The industry experience and judgment of the professionals involved in the project.
The 27-year-old New York girl Leslie Grace plays Batgirl in the film. Born as a singer, she is quite appealing among young Latinos in the United States. Not long ago, she performed her first crossover performance in the musical "On the Heights", which received a lot of praise. It is worth mentioning that when Warner Bros. asked her to star in "Batgirl", it was emphasized that this was the first time that a Latino woman appeared in a superhero comic film, which was in line with the diversification pursued by Hollywood, but now it has decided to completely The frozen video is really embarrassing. In addition, Michael Keaton's return to play Batman was originally expected by DC fans in the 40s and 50s.
New leadership, new strategy
Just two days after Warner announced that "Batgirl" was frozen, it happened to be the day Warner announced its second quarter quarterly report, as the first quarterly report of the merged Warner Bros. Discovery Group. David Zaslav, the new head of the group who has only been in office for a few months but has been making big moves, is naturally asked about "Batgirl" related topics. He also said quite ruthlessly that the reason why he decided to freeze is because the quality of the film is not good. If it goes online as usual, it will inevitably damage the brand value of DC Extended Universe.
"Unless it's a movie that we can have confidence in, it won't come out," Zaslav said. "Our goal is to enhance the DC Universe brand and develop DC Universe characters, but our mission also includes protecting DC. The golden sign of the universe, this will be the focus of our work in the next step."
In fact, in May of this year, Zaslav had already called off a DC comic book movie that was in the early stages of preparation. The film is also exclusively for streaming media. This plan focuses on the comic characters "Wonder Twins". The project was announced in February this year, the director and starring candidates were announced in April, and it was announced in May that it would not be filmed, all because of Slavs are really not optimistic about such a project with a large investment but no guaranteed output.
Unexpectedly, in April this year, when Warner Media and Discovery Media completed the merger, Jason Kira left the scene sadly, and after the new officer took office, Zaslav first emphasized two points, which is to save expenses - claiming to save 3 billion US dollars. ——And restore the relationship with the theater.
In order to save money, Zaslav stopped the CNN+ streaming platform business that had been officially launched, and determined that the production cost of works exclusively for the HBO Max platform like "Batgirl" must be limited to between $35 million and $40 million. new standard. Because in his opinion, the difference between the new subscribers that a work with an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars can attract and the new subscribers that a work with an investment of 30 million to 40 million US dollars can attract after the launch is actually not big, not at all. Worth doubling down on it.
As for restoring the relationship with the theater chain, Zaslav re-emphasized this time: "We will fully embrace the traditional theater screening model... (compared to the previous management) We have a complete and complete understanding of the matter of skipping theaters and directing online distribution. Different views, and some fairly aggressive approaches have been taken to revise corporate strategies over the past period.”
The quarterly report released by Warner shows that in the second quarter, Warner lost 3.4 billion US dollars, and the total number of global subscribers of its two major streaming media platforms HBO Max and Discovery+ increased by 1.7 million, and the current total reached 92.1 million, which is still quite large from Netflix's 220 million. difference.
After the release of the quarterly report, Warner's stock price fell immediately, and it is currently only less than 15 US dollars per share, which is not a small gap from the 25 US dollars when the merger was completed in early April, not to mention the 77 US dollars in history when the merger was announced last March. Highest price.
In this context, Zaslav's decision to freeze "Batgirl" not only saves unnecessary reshoots, reshoots and publicity costs, but also can directly declare it as a non-performing asset on the financial statements, relying on the corresponding tax breaks to cover as much as possible the $90 million in filming costs. Although this is too cruel for filmmakers who have paid a lot of money behind the scenes, it is indeed a wise move in the eyes of many Wall Street financial analysts.
As for imitating the Marvel Universe, formulating a ten-year plan and establishing a dedicated team, Zaslav believes that this is a sustainable development model. "So we will focus on the quality of the work itself, and the works that are not of sufficient standard will never be released to meet the audience. The goal is to strive for perfection in every DC Universe movie. Because the DC Universe still has a lot of Development potential, we didn't pay enough attention to it in the past, and we won't in the future."
Later, David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery Group, announced that Warner Bros. will develop a 10-year project similar to the Marvel Universe for DC Comics to adapt superhero movies. Warner, an old Hollywood company, is clearly looking for a new path after completing its merger with Discovery.
Batgirl poster
High-quality IPs are abandoned"Batgirl" was set up as early as 2017 and will be officially launched in 2021. It is planned to be launched on HBO Max, Warner's streaming platform. In March of this year, the crew was officially finished, and the production budget burned up to 90 million US dollars. The 90 million US dollars was thrown into the water with a loud noise, but now it is so suddenly announced that the snow is hidden, the effort, energy and time spent by the creative team are completely in vain, and the audience also loses the opportunity to test the quality of the film, which seems a bit cruel. ruthless.
'Batgirl' is played by Latino Leslie Grace
In fact, according to the original plan, "Batgirl" will be launched within this year, and the director combination Adil El Abi and Bilal Farah and starring Leslie Grace, J.K. Simmons, Michael Keaton, Brandon Fraser, etc., have also been interviewed on various occasions recently, talking about how hard the film was made and how they looked forward to seeing the audience as soon as possible. Even Brandon Fraser, who played the No. 1 villain "Firefly", talked about his experience with the character at the Galaxycon fan meeting held in Florida a few days ago.According to US media reports, Warner Bros. decided to hide "Batgirl". It did not disclose anything to the crew members in advance, and did not plan to announce it to the public for the time being. Who knew that the "New York Post" first broke the news, and Warners was forced to later. Public response, official confirmation.
When news of the snow broke, both directors were in Morocco, where Adil El Abi was holding a wedding, which was supposed to be full of festive atmosphere. Actors including Leslie Grace, Brandon Fraser, Michael Keaton, etc. also learned about the news of "Batgirl" being cut by surfing the Internet and looking at their mobile phones, which made the outside world feel that Warners did this. Impersonal.
Michael Keaton to return as Bruce Wayne in 'Batgirl'
It is obviously a film that has been fully filmed, and it has cost nearly 100 million US dollars in investment, why should it be quietly put away? There is a lot of speculation about this. The most mainstream view is that the film was a mess, and Warners really had no face to arrange it to meet the audience. Indeed, a trial screening of "Batgirl" was arranged not long ago, and it is said that the audience's score was barely passing, which directly caused Warners to feel unacceptable.However, it is reported that the preview screen is a rough-cut version that has not been fully completed in the later stage. Similar to this kind of polling activity, it is generally just to see what areas of the work need to be strengthened, and which areas have received positive feedback from the audience. to do an essay. There are very few precedents in Hollywood for putting away the entire work just because the score of a test screening event was not satisfactory. Moreover, in the past, there were indeed many works that barely passed the test screening score. After later improvement, they achieved excellent box office and overwhelming reputation when they were released. Therefore, it is a little unbelievable that Warners is willing to hide the superhero comic film made by 90 million US dollars just because of the poor feedback from the test screening.
The two directors of "Batgirl", Adil El Abi and Bilal Farah, are both Belgian-born Moroccan immigrants who once studied film at the LUCA Academy of Arts in Brussels and are brothers and sisters. In recent years, the two have made some names in Hollywood with works such as "Jedi Boys: The Fastest Pursuit" and "Amazing Girls". Judging from the production level of these two previous works alone, it is unlikely to say how amazing "Batgirl" will be, but to say that the filming must be sloppy, I am afraid that it is an underestimate of how much behind the scenes. The industry experience and judgment of the professionals involved in the project.
The 27-year-old New York girl Leslie Grace plays Batgirl in the film. Born as a singer, she is quite appealing among young Latinos in the United States. Not long ago, she performed her first crossover performance in the musical "On the Heights", which received a lot of praise. It is worth mentioning that when Warner Bros. asked her to star in "Batgirl", it was emphasized that this was the first time that a Latino woman appeared in a superhero comic film, which was in line with the diversification pursued by Hollywood, but now it has decided to completely The frozen video is really embarrassing. In addition, Michael Keaton's return to play Batman was originally expected by DC fans in the 40s and 50s.
Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl in 'Batman and Robin'
Speaking of the character "Batgirl", her real identity is Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Police Chief James Gordon in the comics "Batman", which first appeared in the comics in 1967. In terms of movies, Alicia Silverstone played this role in the 1997 movie "Batman and Robin", and she also appeared in the cartoon "Batman: The Deadly Joke" and In The Lego Batman Movie.The image of Batgirl in the original comic book is full, and it is a popular symbol full of feminist symbolism
The Batgirl in the original comics has experienced ups and downs and has a full image. She has always been one of the characters that fans love very much, and she is also a popular symbol full of feminist symbolism. As we all know, the main audience of American comics and today's comics is still dominated by men. Although there have been works like "Wonder Woman", "Captain Marvel" and "Black Widow" in recent years, there is still a big gap in quantity and quality compared with male superheroes. Therefore, a high-quality IP like Batgirl should be cherished and developed well, but the result is such a 180-degree turning point, which really makes the outside world quite puzzled.New leadership, new strategy
Just two days after Warner announced that "Batgirl" was frozen, it happened to be the day Warner announced its second quarter quarterly report, as the first quarterly report of the merged Warner Bros. Discovery Group. David Zaslav, the new head of the group who has only been in office for a few months but has been making big moves, is naturally asked about "Batgirl" related topics. He also said quite ruthlessly that the reason why he decided to freeze is because the quality of the film is not good. If it goes online as usual, it will inevitably damage the brand value of DC Extended Universe.
"Unless it's a movie that we can have confidence in, it won't come out," Zaslav said. "Our goal is to enhance the DC Universe brand and develop DC Universe characters, but our mission also includes protecting DC. The golden sign of the universe, this will be the focus of our work in the next step."
In fact, in May of this year, Zaslav had already called off a DC comic book movie that was in the early stages of preparation. The film is also exclusively for streaming media. This plan focuses on the comic characters "Wonder Twins". The project was announced in February this year, the director and starring candidates were announced in April, and it was announced in May that it would not be filmed, all because of Slavs are really not optimistic about such a project with a large investment but no guaranteed output.
The filming project featuring the DC Comics character "Fantastic Twins" has been the first to be stopped
Whether it's "Batgirl", which has already been completed, or "Fantastic Twins", which is threatened with miscarriage, they are all projects that the previous generation of Warners boss Jason Kilar (Jason Kilar) ordered to undertake. He graduated from Harvard Business School and is very optimistic about the prospects of the streaming media market. In order to promote the development of HBO Max, he did not hesitate to put all of Warner's 2021 works on the streaming media platform at the same time, which annoyed various theater owners and many first-line filmmakers. . In order to make HBO Max's global subscribers catch up with Netflix and Disney+, he did not hesitate to burn a lot of money to shoot HBO Max-specific works like "Batgirl" to attract potential viewers to pay to join the HBO Max platform.Unexpectedly, in April this year, when Warner Media and Discovery Media completed the merger, Jason Kira left the scene sadly, and after the new officer took office, Zaslav first emphasized two points, which is to save expenses - claiming to save 3 billion US dollars. ——And restore the relationship with the theater.
In order to save money, Zaslav stopped the CNN+ streaming platform business that had been officially launched, and determined that the production cost of works exclusively for the HBO Max platform like "Batgirl" must be limited to between $35 million and $40 million. new standard. Because in his opinion, the difference between the new subscribers that a work with an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars can attract and the new subscribers that a work with an investment of 30 million to 40 million US dollars can attract after the launch is actually not big, not at all. Worth doubling down on it.
As for restoring the relationship with the theater chain, Zaslav re-emphasized this time: "We will fully embrace the traditional theater screening model... (compared to the previous management) We have a complete and complete understanding of the matter of skipping theaters and directing online distribution. Different views, and some fairly aggressive approaches have been taken to revise corporate strategies over the past period.”
The quarterly report released by Warner shows that in the second quarter, Warner lost 3.4 billion US dollars, and the total number of global subscribers of its two major streaming media platforms HBO Max and Discovery+ increased by 1.7 million, and the current total reached 92.1 million, which is still quite large from Netflix's 220 million. difference.
After the release of the quarterly report, Warner's stock price fell immediately, and it is currently only less than 15 US dollars per share, which is not a small gap from the 25 US dollars when the merger was completed in early April, not to mention the 77 US dollars in history when the merger was announced last March. Highest price.
In this context, Zaslav's decision to freeze "Batgirl" not only saves unnecessary reshoots, reshoots and publicity costs, but also can directly declare it as a non-performing asset on the financial statements, relying on the corresponding tax breaks to cover as much as possible the $90 million in filming costs. Although this is too cruel for filmmakers who have paid a lot of money behind the scenes, it is indeed a wise move in the eyes of many Wall Street financial analysts.
As for imitating the Marvel Universe, formulating a ten-year plan and establishing a dedicated team, Zaslav believes that this is a sustainable development model. "So we will focus on the quality of the work itself, and the works that are not of sufficient standard will never be released to meet the audience. The goal is to strive for perfection in every DC Universe movie. Because the DC Universe still has a lot of Development potential, we didn't pay enough attention to it in the past, and we won't in the future."
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