The Japan Times - Comeback studio Warner takes 'victory lap' amid takeover rumors

With a string of box offices smashes like "Superman," "A Minecraft Movie" and "Sinners" -- plus the acclaimed "One Battle After Another" starring Leonardo DiCaprio -- Warner Bros Discovery's film division was the first studio to hit $4 billion at the box office this year.

It is a dramatic turnaround from as recently as March, when Warner was reeling from expensive flops like "Mickey 17" and its high-profile, roundly reviled "Joker" sequel.

"We're doing our part," movie studio co-head Michael De Luca said Thursday, in an interview at the Bloomberg Screentime summit in Los Angeles that trade press dubbed a "victory lap."

"When there is a good run at a studio, morale is high," he said.

Renowned cinephiles De Luca and fellow studio boss Pamela Abdy were pilfered from Warner's smaller rival MGM back in 2022.

By this spring, the pair were rumored to be on the way out, with CEO David Zaslav reportedly even taking meetings with potential successors.

This week, their contracts were renewed.

"We can't address the speculation and rumors and all that stuff," said Abdy.

"All I can say is, David, Mike and I had the privilege of seeing all these movies early. We knew what we had with the filmmakers and with these stories and we couldn't wait for audiences to see them."

- Horror hits -

Having generally trailed rivals like Disney and Universal in recent years, Warner has had nine films that opened at the top of the box office charts this year -- more than any other studio.

That list included "Weapons," one of several breakout horror hits this year from Warner, at a time when the until-recently thriving genre has suffered disappointing returns at rival studios.

Other Warner horror hits included installments in two long-running franchises: "Final Destination" and "The Conjuring."

De Luca attributed the success to bringing in "fresh and innovative" ideas, like injecting more humor into the gory "Final Destination" universe.

"With franchises that are particularly long in the tooth, you really have to innovate within the genre," said De Luca.

He added: "None of them were phoned in. None of them were a bunch of executives in a room saying 'milk that franchise'.

"Audiences can tell when something is not prefabricated."

- Takeover rumors -

The sudden success has come at a nonetheless turbulent time for parent corporation Warner Bros Discovery, the product of a 2022 merger with Discovery.

In June, Zaslav announced the business was again splitting, separating its booming streaming and movie divisions from the dwindling television channels.

That has now been called into question by a potentially even bigger deal.

In what would be the latest and most startling game of Hollywood musical chairs, Warner has been targeted by Paramount -- recently acquired by the billionaire tech family of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, the world's second-richest man.

Larry's son David Ellison, the new Paramount CEO, on Thursday declined to comment on the rumored bid, but said "there are a lot of options out there that are actionable in the near future."

He also made the case for scaling up, in order to produce "more movies, more television series" for consumers.

"There's always going to be speculation in our business -- we're in a time of massive disruption," said Abdy.

"You can't focus on that."

S.Ogawa--JT