Rock wrote:

I'm not a tax accountant, but it's still insane to me that it can be considered more profitable to not release a completed film and use it as a tax write-off instead of releasing it and having it do I would assume at least respectable numbers, given that it's a fucking Batman movie. Even one that underperforms I assume would make back its budget.

Part of the troubling part, for me, is the word (which is conflicting based on the source) that the film's quality did not factor into the decision.  And that makes sense, considering, you know, the more liberal appraoch to quality that WB has given to (at least some of) their DC releases.  It smacks of setting quite a profit throttle that suggests that any and all marketing risks are out the window.  It's not just about Batgirl, it's about the floor for what they're willing to take a chance on, and it's looking pretty exclusive.

Last edited by Jinnistan (8/04/2022 11:01 pm)

crumbsroom wrote:

Maybe this is the full tilt towards creative Armageddon that finally gets people wondering if maybe they can look for more in what they watch. Maybe at some point even the lowest common denominator (well, maybe not the absolute lowest or most common) throw their hands up in the air and think they are worth more than this.

Probably not, but maybe this could be the opening for lower budget fair to start finding wider audiences, simply from desperation for something or anything that has been test marketed to shit before they can even get within sniffing distance of it.

I'm hoping for a backfire, or maybe some slack taken up by Amazon or someone.  There was a point made on the other place about Clint Eastwood, who WB has just broken a 50 year association, that Clint can easily find another studio to finance his films, which tend to be reasonable budgets with modest returns (exactly the kind of business Zaslov has shunned), and that's likely true for Clint Eastwood, but I'm more concerned about smaller, lesser known modest business filmmakers.

I hope that all of these (anonymous mostly) murmurings about Zaslov being reported is an indication that this schumck has few friends and is one flop away from getting shown the door.  But unfortunately, as with all of the entertainment industries, they tend to be run by absolute monsters.

Then, Netflix came for them both...





Adam here covers multiple concerns for physical media collectors (not just decreased likelihood of new physical releases but also spiking prices of existing copies). Beyond that are plenty more concerns. Stating the obvious: Naturally it means we face the problem of being forced to pay over and over again to see anything, no matter how few or how many titles we watch in a given month, at increasingly higher subscription fees, and eventually with more and more ads. Not to mention those annoying endscreens obscuring the end credits, telling you what to watch next. It means we have to depend on a strong Internet connection, up–to date equipment, with up–to date firmware, and deal with all the inherent bugs.
And that raises a less–obvious risk of this scenario: being forced to make ourselves vulnerable to potential hacking, cyber–snooping, data–mining, malware, device takeovers, and other unpleasantness associated with becoming a permanent node in The Grid. Whether or not one worries about such things, we've at least still had the choice to opt out, dwindling though that alternative may be.
Then of course there's the concern about any streaming service's ability to change, edit, censor, "specialize," colorize, etc, without a moment's notice. To Macklunkey their content.
Or to just gump out a Taiwanese flag to appease the CCP.
Another concern is that Netflix streaming is grotesquely compressed, leading to excessive artifacts like blocking and color banding. It's another reason to own one's media, whether on a retail copy or on a digital hard drive, so it doesn't need to be compressed for streaming.
I could gripe on and on about Netflix's shitty interface, including but not limited to that clunky search feature and the fact that Netflix always wants to auto–play any title as soon as you try to examine it. But that's getting into the weeds of a larger issue, that being the massive takeover of a century's worth of national cultural heritage, the great risk it poses to writers, directors, actors, and everyone else in the industry on that long list of end credits, to the future of movie theaters, and more.
On the silver lining side of things, it might herald a new age of independent filmmaking. It could also lead to international film studios getting more of the spotlight.
One more thing it will likely herald: It's already being posited that streaming services have inadvertently brought back media piracy. If the ever–shrinking world of consolidation does lead to a war on physical media, we can reasonably expect media piracy to shift into overdrive.
 

Last edited by Rampop II (12/05/2025 9:18 pm)

Jinnistan wrote:

...it might be wise to start snatching any desired WB films on DVD/Bluray while they are still available.

And good lord where to begin… Looney Tunes, The Wild Bunch, Woodstock, Billy Jack, lots of Kubrick movies, Blade Runner, Superman, Superman II…
...The Jazz Singer 😂
I’ll have to go through the entire catalog A to Z like I did with the Fox catalog, and I’m still nowhere close to checking everything off that list.
 

There's hardly anyone to really root for here.  Netflix's Ted Sarandos has been busy sucking up to Donald Trump for months in anticipation of this merger, hoping to soothe his FCC hammer.  Meanwhile the Ellisons at Paramount, also Trump suck-ups, are trying a hostile buyout of WB, all while using Kushner's Saudi-raised funds to afford it.  Allegedly, Larry Ellison has already been bragging about remaking CNN into a more MAGA-friendly outlet, similar to what Bari Weiss has done at CBS.  Trump seems happy to sit back and court the suck for now.  Either way, this consolidation is bad for the entire media ecosystem.

The only possible outcome worth rooting for would be if the WB shareholders fire David Zaslov and cancel the bid altogether.  Again, it isn't as if WB/HBO is a struggling business that needs a bailout in the first place.