New Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav spoke to investors during the company’s Q3 earnings call, and his comments indicate that the company will be focused on franchises likeSupermanandHarry Pottermoving forward. The CEO also indicated that streaming would not be a huge focus for the company.
Since its merger with Discovery in 2022, Warner Bros. has been undergoing many changes. Zaslav has implemented a number of executive decisions (some of which have proven to be controversial) that include the cancellation of several streaming projects, a decreased focus on their animation department, and the announcement thatHBO Max and Discovery Plus would mergeinto one streaming platform next year. His short tenure as CEO has been eventful, to say the least.
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According to a report byDeadline, Zaslav made several comments about the future of the company during an earnings call. Zaslav pointed out that the company was not making use of some of its biggest franchise assets. “We haven’t had aSupermanmovie in 13 years. We haven’t had aHarry Pottermovie in 15 years. The DC movies and theHarry Pottermovies provided a lot of profits to Warner Bros motion pictures over the last 25 years," he said, explaining that franchises can be very lucrative. “House of the Dragonis a big example of that;Game of Thrones,taking advantage ofSex and the City.Lord of the Rings— we still have the right to doLord of the Ringsmovies.”
Zaslav also commented on the importance of tentpole projects and reiterated his stance on the direct-to-streaming model. “You focus on the big movies, the tentpoles that people are going to leave home, leave early from dinner to see,” Zaslav explained. “We learned what doesn’t work […] direct-to-streaming movies. So spending a billion dollars or collapsing a motion picture window into a streaming service. The movies that we launch in theaters do significantly better and launching a 2-hour, 40-minute movie direct to streaming has done nothing for HBO Max in terms of viewership, retention or love of the service.”
Some of Zaslav’s comments are very interesting, and not only because they indicate the forward trajectory of the company. For instance, it was previously known thatHBO had pitched a very differentLord of the Ringsseriesbefore Amazon premieredThe Rings of Power,but Zaslav’s comments imply that the company can still makeLord of the Ringsfilms (an animated picture,The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,is expected to be released by Warner Bros. Pictures on July 06, 2025). Zaslac also states that there hasn’t been aSupermanfilm in 13 years or aHarry Pottermovie in 15 years, butMan of Steelcame out in 2013 andHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2came out in 2011.
It’s possible he misspoke, but forHarry Potter,it is interesting that the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery considers the franchise to be an untapped potential sinceFantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledorecame outjust last year to a disappointing franchise-low opening. The fact that Zaslav doesn’t consider that film to be a recent entry into theHarry Potterfranchise suggests he’s thinking of the mainline series and may mean the company wants to bring Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry Potter and friends back to the big screen rather than focusing onPotter-adjacent works. It could also mean that theFantastic Beastsfranchise is officially out of commission.
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