For the third time since taking over Warner Bros., CEO David Zaslav has killed a movie.
Per Deadline, the studio has completely shelved a finished film in the upcoming Looney Tunes-inspired comedy Coyote vs. Acme, which starred notable faces like John Cena, Will Forte and Lana Condor. It’s reportedly because the studio, go with us here, wants to write the project off on taxes to save $30 million on the film’s $70 million budget.
Coyote vs. Acme joins the shelved Batgirl adaptation and the animated spinoff Scoob Holiday Haunt! as recent Warner Bros. projects that have gotten completely scrapped despite being largely completed for alleged tax incentives.
Here’s the statement from WB, per Deadline: “With the re-launch of Warner Bros. Pictures Animation in June, the studio has shifted its global strategy to focus on theatrical releases. With this new direction, we have made the difficult decision not to move forward with Coyote vs Acme. We have tremendous respect for the filmmakers, casts, and crew, and are grateful for their contributions to the film.”
Shelving Batgirl had the weak excuses of a full DC universe reset and allegations of poor test scores, which Deadline, shared did not befall Coyote vs. Acme as the film reportedly tested well for audiences. Making it even stranger is the fact that new DC co-head James Gunn both produced and received a story credit on the now-axed Looney Tunes project.
Gunn’s DC co-head Peter Safrin defended the move to put the largely completed Batgirl away in the vault, but we can’t imagine either of them would be thrilled with shelving a completed film Gunn worked on.
Now, a third Warner Bros. film will never see the light of day, allegedly so Warner Bros. Discovery can save a little bit on taxes.
If you think this is good for movies or art, allow me to sell you some pristine beachfront property in the tippity top of the North Pole.
Zaslav’s crude cost-cutting measures are absolutely abysmal for one of the legacy film studios and the medium in general. Make no mistake; even absolute film disasters just don’t get thrown away. The list of historically shelved films is sparse for a reason.
Warner Bros. has released plenty of big-budget stinkers in the past; remember, this is the studio that released 1999’s Wild Wild West.
Unless a film is genuinely too troubled to be released (see Jerry Lewis’ ill-fated Holocaust drama The Day the Clown Cried, which may still see the light of day eventually) or involved an individual surrounded by controversy (see Kevin Spacey’s unreleased Netflix Gore Vidal biopic), studios usually take one on the chin and just put a movie out there because of the financial investment and out of respect to the hard-working artists.
The precedent Zaslav and WB Discovery are setting has literally never been done in the history of movies. Completed films based on intellectual properties just don’t get canned. Five years ago, you would’ve bowled over in laughter if you were told a film set in the Batman universe would never make it to audiences, or that a film featuring the studio’s legacy Looney Tunes characters would get trashed for a tax credit.
Now, it’s becoming a genuine practice at one of the biggest studios in Hollywood, and that is absolutely horrible for the future of the industry. There is just no good that comes from this outside of an alleged momentary respite on WB Discovery’s financial documents.
Killing a movie that is already completed feels like the cardinal sin a corporation can commit against an artist. Even if the film isn’t any good, a bond of trust is formed between a distributor and an artist that has historically stipulated that the film will at least get released.
Films have gotten buried in the past with limited marketing campaigns and no theatrical releases, but the projects most always make it to the audience. It’s common (if a bit impossible) to chop down a tree in the middle of the woods and try to hush the sound, but it’s extremely stupid to just chop one single tree down in a giant forest to grow a small patch of grass in its place.
We’re entering a very delicate environment where one of the largest film studios in the world just cannot be trusted to release a movie it greenlights. After the 2020 HBO Max fiasco that saw WB foolishly release its entire 2021 theatrical slate in theaters and on streaming simultaneously, you would’ve thought the studio wouldn’t want to do more to alienate artists after it ran off one of the few tentpole filmmakers working in Christopher Nolan.
Nolan apparently is willing to come back WB, but moves like this might give him serious pause to stay with Universal for the time being. While it would seem genuinely unfathomable for the studio to shelve a film from a major director like Nolan, what in the past year or so would completely dismiss that concern outright?
Unless it’s the literal Barbie sequel, it does not seem like any film that Warner Bros. makes while Zaslav runs the company is guaranteed a release if tax incentives come into play. It makes the studio wholly untrustworthy with artists who actually want audiences to see their films, lest they wind up in the dumpster for an alleged quick save in the tax book.
Between this horrible trend, the TCM controversy and Max pulling its own films and television shows off the service, it’s looking dour for a company that used to shine a golden light for the entertainment industry.
Warner Bros. cannot be trusted as a film and television company any longer with this current leadership as it is. Especially as long as they keep axing completed films, how can anyone take this studio seriously as actually caring about the mediums it claims to support?
