The swiftness with which Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav began canceling shows and entire movies as part of his plan to boost the company's revenue was cause for alarm. Many wondered what Zaslav would gain by killing off pieces of its catalog just months ahead of its fusion with Discovery Plus as the alarm only intensified. In a recent WBD earnings call, Zaslav said that he was confident that the cuts were the right one because none of the shows were doing well for the company.
Zaslav was candid about his desire to focus on franchises in the near future and name-dropped Superman, Batman, and Harry Potter as properties he's keen on tapping back
The last Superman movie was 13 years ago. The last Harry Potter movie was fifteen years ago. Warner Bros.' Motion Pictures made a lot of money from the DC movies and the Harry Potter movies over the last 25 years. The last film in the Harry Potter universe was Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which was released this year.
She wants to do something with her on a Harry Potter project because it is one of WBD's "brands that are understood and loved everywhere in the world."
It has been a priority for the company to identify the success of those brands and the failure of endeavors like going all in on streaming with HBO Max.
While that last bit might raise some hackles, the larger point Zaslav was trying to make was that a small selection of shows like Friends and Two and a Half Men are more popular than a lot of the platform's. It is important for a streaming service to show users new things that they want to watch. Zaslav pointed out that he wanted to make room for new projects, something that wouldn't have been possible without getting rid of other existing intellectual property on the service.
Zaslav said that they didn't take one show off a platform that would help them. It will help us to get it off the platform so that we can invest with the knowledge of what is working and replace those shows with more successful ones.
It has been clear for a long time now that Zaslav is serious about his business and is willing to break a few eggs in his pursuit of a streaming omelette. With today's news of Warner Bros. Discovery pulling the plug on Westworld, it's getting harder to know if Zaslav's plan is just to flood the space with sitcom reruns.
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