Warner Bros.’ Pursuit of Big-Name Partnerships: ‘Joker 2’ Budget Balloons, Tom Cruise Explores His Options, and More
All of Hollywood is undergoing a period of uncertainty at the moment. I just covered some of Marvel’s recent strategic shifts to confront an audience that no longer trusts them to deliver quality entertainment, but every studio is going through their own phase of self-reflection. And Warner Bros. Discovery is no exception.
A bit of context first. David Zaslav is the current CEO of the company Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), which he took over from the merged Warner Bros. and Discovery back in April 2022. Since then, he’s been reworking the entire company from the ground up to try to reduce the massive load of debt it’s accumulated over the years. It’s long been believed that Zaslav’s ultimate goal is to sell the company once he’s allowed to. (Merger deal bullet points forbid WBD from doing another merger, sale, or acquisition before April 2024.)
Shortly after Zaslav was anointed CEO, he named MGM’s Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy as co-heads of Warner Bros. Pictures, and the two have been trying to steady the ship ever since. Other public moves included the creation of DC Studios and giving James Gunn and Peter Safran God-like powers to deliver him a franchise that could rival Marvel. Another mandate that Zaslav has passed down to his studio heads is to bring back the old collaborations with some of Hollywood’s biggest names.
Earlier this year, WBD put out a press release in which they announced a “strategic partnership” with Tom Cruise, who has been at the Paramount lot for years. The deal is not exclusive, but would give Cruise an office at WBD’s HQ and allow for major collaborations with Warner Bros. execs. De Luca has already worked with Cruise back on 1999’s Magnolia, for which he got an Oscar nomination.
According to a new story in Variety, he two execs flew to London earlier this year to discuss some of Cruise’s options at the studio going forward. Earlier reports had suggested that Cruise wanted to go back to something more artistic like the movies that earned him Oscar nominations, while not necessarily putting aside event films. Projects in the mix are apparently a sequel to Edge of Tomorrow and also Quentin Tarantino’s The Movie Critic. This was first reported by Jeff Sneider via his newsletter, and comes with a giant asterisk on Variety‘s report: though WB would love to team up with Tarantino, they don’t have the distribution rights yet and, in fact, Sony (which released Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) has the edge at the moment.
Another big-name collaboration the studio is involved in is Bong Joon Ho, whose Mickey 17 was supposed to come out March 29, but has been pushed back until January 31, 2025. Variety says that there are apparently some problems with it, and the studio is not as optimistic about it as we thought. The delay could be to allow time for reshoots. (A WB rep insisted they’re still excited about it.) Also, here’s where Zaslav’s “spare no expenses when it comes to partnerships” mandate comes in. The budget for the film has apparently ballooned to $150M. (The pic stars Robert Pattinson and Mark Ruffalo; plot details are under wraps.)
Speaking of big budgets, Joker: Folie à Deux was one of De Luca and Abdy’s first greenlights back in 2022. The project, which is now in post-production and targeting an early October release. WB has apparently spent $200M+ on this movie, which includes $20M paydays for both Joaquin Phoenix and director Todd Phillips, as well as $12M for Lady Gaga to play Harley Quinn. WB’s worry? The film is a musical, which can be a gamble at the box office (The Color Purple lost them $40M in December, while Wonka made a ton of money; the first Joker earned $1 billion worldwide.)
The studio is also in business with Paul Thomas Anderson and Leo DiCaprioon a yet-untitled movie they are shooting in California at the moment. The budget for that one is also a bit of an eyebrow-raiser, a whopping $115M. (PTA’s past movies have never grossed more than $80M; Licorice Pizza, which he did with De Luca and Abdy at MGM, made $33M worldwide.)
WB is also teaming up with Maggie Gyllenhaal on his Frankenstein film after Netflix passed, and has recently signed big-time deals with Ryan Coogler to release his Michale B. Jordan-led period fantasy pic (details include the rights of the title reverting back to him after 25 years, 25% on first-dollar gross to split between the two, and two guaranteed theatrical slots for future films, which is almost unprecedented) and a first-look deal with Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap. They are also, most definitely, trying to lure Chris Nolan back into working with them. (Nolan split ways with the studio and moved Oppenheimer to Universal under a previous studio regime.)
On the TV side, things are looking brighter. Just announced this week too, Craig Mazin is re-upping his eight-figure overall deal with HBO and Max — a no-brainer considering the critical and ratings success of Chernobyl, and most importantly, The Last of Us. The latter just started production on season 2, and will not be the last season of the show.
All of it, according to Variety, is to pretty the company up to sell it later. The most likely contender is NBCUniversal, but the situation is more complicated when you consider the larger landscape. Paramount Global was also looking to sell, and entertaining offers from David Ellison’s Skydance. But NBCU would probably like a piece of that pie if they could get it — a merger/sale with WBD would probably be quite complicated given Zaslav’s intentions of running the operation. Not to mention anti-trust concerns.
Most analysts predict major changes happening in Hollywood in 2024, including likely a big acquisition or merger. Warner Bros. emerges as a likely player in such scenario, but there’s still a lot undetermined.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
