Warner Bros. Production announced a few days back that they will release their entire 2021 slate of films (which number upto 17 movies, by the way) on HBOMax as well in (available) theaters on the same premiere date. What’s more, each movie will run for 31 days on the OTT streaming service, starting from the day of release. If this plan sounds similar, it is because we will witness the same for WB’s upcoming Superhero venture, ‘Wonder Woman 1984’, which is going to premiere on December 25th in Inida.
Last month, Warner Bros. approached Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins, the lead actor and director respectively, of the much anticipated ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ (‘WW84’) to discuss the possibility of releasing the feature in both theaters (the ones which are open around the globe) and on their streaming platform HBOMax. After some tense negotiations, the production company agreed to pay them both a sum of over 10 million USD each for the release of ‘WW84’ simultaneously.
By doing this, Warner Bros. kept the much important talent on their side. But when the company saw the hype behind ‘WW84’ and the lack of backlash from fans, they decided to do the same for all of their next year’s movies. But this time, instead of repeating what they did with Gadot and Jenkins, Warner Bros. dropped the decision like a bomb to their partners, talent agencies and even some of their executives, just 90 minutes before the actual announcement.
Of course it makes sense that a lot of movie lovers, HBOMax subscribers and DC fans are excited about this situation but that hasn’t been the case for most of the collaborators involved in the 17 films. Pretty much every actor, director, producer and even lawyer involved have been on a warpath since the announcement. Many of the agents and managers of Hollywood heavyweights like Denzel Washington (The Little Things), Margot Robbie (The Suicide Squad), Will Smith (King Richard), Keanu Reeves (The Matrix 4), Hugh Jackman (Reminiscence) and Angelina Jolie (Those Who Wish Me Dead) have been left fuming with the disparity in treatment by Warner Bros. with Jenkins & Gadot and their clients.
Legendary Media who has co-financed two upcoming blockbusters with Warner Bros. ‘Dune’ and ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ (supposedly financing around 75% of both films) are talking with their lawyers about taking legal action against the production giant. In fact, everyone involved from producers and actors to directors are all planning to sue Warner Media over this decision. No challenge has been issued as of yet by any party, but it is just a matter of time before the first lawsuit appears.
The Directors Guild of America is considering a boycott, with Dune director Denis Villeneuve expressing his disappointment with the decision made by Warner Media. Christopher Nolan was said to be fuming over the decision despite the fact that he doesn’t even have a movie coming out in the given slate. Nolan angrily stated in The Hollywood Reporter “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.” Ouch. Many reports suggest that it was the “failure” of his brilliant film ‘TENET’ that started all this, but the money raked in by the movie despite having not opened in major markets in India and China actually showed how well the film was doing during the pandemic.