That executive, of course, is Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who has decided to bounce six more projects from HBO Max, further raising the ire of fans because this time, all six projects are tied to established franchises.
The Amazing World of Gumball: The Movie (working title): With plans for a relaunch of the series, which originally ran on Cartoon Network (1st run episodes were produced between 2011-9), this movie was supposed to serve as a bridge. Seems Gumball has a problem involving an obsessed fan.
And he ain't the only one......
Bye, Bye, Bunny: A Looney Tunes Musical: Yes, the title is a parody of "Bye, Bye, Birdie". Bugs Bunny decides to retire to private life, so Daffy Duck tries to take advantage, but, like Gumball, Daffy has to deal with an obsessed fan.
Batman: Caped Crusader: With people like Bruce Timm, Matt Reeves, & JJ Abrams attached, this looked like a lock.
File photo courtesy Warner Bros. Animation.
More than anything, this proves that Zaslav doesn't care about franchises, as if he hadn't already done that by scuttling a Scooby-Doo holiday movie last month.
The Day The World Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie: Daffy is paired with Porky Pig this time in a parody of those sci-fi epics of years past.
Merry Little Batman: Damian Wayne is reset as a 6 year old in this Christmas story.
The other project is another Christmas project, featuring Steve Urkel (Jaleel White) from Family Matters, which can be considered a semi-spin-off from Scooby-Doo & Guess Who?. Zaslav can ask himself Urkel's favorite line, "did I do that?".
The two Bat-films bring the number to six the DC Comics related projects scuttled by Zaslav in the last three months.
"You're keeping score? Oh, how sweet."
I have to, Jayna.
The good news, though, is that Warner Bros. Animation is shopping all six, so there's a chance they could land elsewhere. Cartoon Network isn't a safe bet as long as Zaslav remains in power. Another streamer, like Netflix, would be a better bet.
I said this earlier elsewhere. If HBO Max starts bleeding subscribers before it finally merges with Discovery+ next year, Zaslav might not last very long. And it's his fault. Stay tooned.
8 comments:
The projects that haven't been scrapped will likely premiere on Cartoon Network, but when they go to streaming, they'll likely be shipped off to other platforms such as Hulu or Netflix, which is kind of dumb if you ask me.
At the rate things are going, this HBO Max/Discovery Plus combo streaming service my crash and burn before it's even launched. I don't think that David "The Grim Reaper" Zaslav will even have his current position next year. I can dream, can't I?
^That should be "MAY crash and burn". I'm a terrible typist.
All this just because this raving nutter has it in his head that "people don't go to HBO Max for kids' content". Well of course they won't if you take it all down, dumb-nuts! If Ding-Dong truly believes that nobody associates the HBO name with family programming, then just change the name of the platform (which WBD is going to do anyway) and give the kids' stuff a window on it, or at the very least move the kids' content to another existing platform like Cartoon Network Online or Boomerang Online.
The more I hear about this, the more I wanna punch this guy in his smug "Toddlers and Tiaras/Honey Boo-Boo" creating face.
A tiny glimmer of hope, though: the buzz is that Zaslav's actions have cost WBD to lose 2.3 billion dollars since Friday. That's BILLIONS, with a 'b'. Word is the higher-ups aren't happy and there's talk of suing going around. Things don't seem to be looking good for Zaslav at the moment.
Good.
Hopefully he's gone by the end of the year. Keep hope alive.
Is Zaslav secretly a double agent working for Disney? This whole thing is just surreal. It's like he's deliberately trying to tank the company and make everyone hate him. And it's working.
Who keeps deleting my comments?
I've gone on record on reddit stating Zaslav would last no more than 12-18 months. His rash actions, as Silverstar notes, could send him packing before the year is out, and then, the spin doctoring begins.
I'm surprised that it's not illegal to cancel something that hasn't even been released.
Because there is no precedent to make it illegal.
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