Summary
- Warner Bros. Discovery CEO, David Zaslav, believes that the company’s major franchises, such as Harry Potter, DC, and Lord of the Rings, have been underutilized and sees potential in creating long-term plans for each of them.
- The DC Extended Universe (DCU) is set to undergo a reboot with a comprehensive strategy involving movies, TV shows, and video games. Harry Potter is also being adapted for a new series on HBO Max.
- Warner Bros. Pictures has multiple projects in the works related to the Lord of the Rings franchise, including an upcoming animated movie and other potential films. Zaslav emphasizes the importance of fully utilizing these beloved franchises to maximize shareholder value.
It’s been more than two years since David Zaslav assumed the role of CEO for Warner Bros. Discovery, after the merger of both companies. Since then, he has been implementing major changes, canceling movies and TV shows, and building a new strategy to revive some of the most popular franchises that belong to the company.
Among those franchises are Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and the DCU, all brands that have delivered extremely successful titles for the studio in the past. However, in the last few years, things changed. Since Harry Potter‘s main saga came to an end in 2011, the studio tried to expand the universe created by J.K. Rowling with Fantastic Beasts, a prequel saga set many years before the birth of the Boy Who Lived. Although the first movie was pretty well-received, the second one generated mix reactions from the fans, and replacing Johnny Depp in the franchise only made things worst.
In the third installment, the role of Grindelwald was recast with Mads Mikkelsen, dividing audience opinion even more. Other issues to face the Fantastic Beasts sequel were the controversies around Ezra Miller and flaws in the script which essentially led to the cancelation of subsequent planned movies.
The DCEU has fared even worse in recent years. After the departure of Zack Snyder while filming Justice League, with the film being completed and changed by Joss Whedon, there has been a disconnection in the franchise that has ultimately led to its demise in its current form. After the failure of Black Adam in 2022, Zaslav announced a soft reboot of the entire universe with James Gunn and Peter Safran taking charge of the newly formed DC Studios.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is still one of the most impressive movie feats ever achieved, and was a huge gamble back in 2001. Since Warner Bros. jumped into the franchise, the offerings on screen have certainly been limited, but that is perhaps because the main story had been told.
It now seems that Zaslav believes there is more money to be wrung from these franchises, and it seems that he is intent on doing so.
David Zaslav Praises Future Plans for DC, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings
During a presentation at Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference (courtesy of The Wrap), Warner Bros. Discovery’s CEO reflected on the company’s strategy for their big franchises, which he feels are “underused”:
“One of the other real strengths of Warner Bros. is we talk about the great IP that Warner Bros. owns. But, for us, the challenge is that our content, our great IP — Harry Potter, DC, Lord of the Rings — that content has been underused. We think there’s a lot of shareholder value in attaching a 10-year DC — a real plan around DC, bringing Harry Potter back to HBO for 10 consecutive years, doing multiple movies of Lord of the Rings.”
While the DCU is getting a new treatment that will include movies, TV shows and videogames, Harry Potter is being adapted once again into a series for Max. As for The Lord of the Rings, the animated movie The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim was recently delayed to December 2024, but it will be just one of the many projects related to the world created by J.R.R. Tolkien that Warner Bros. Pictures is planning as Zaslav has already teased.
