CEO David Zaslav and his company Warner Bros. Discovery are sitting on absolute fantasy gold – which, in his opinion, the company has earned far too little of: “One of the great strengths of Warner Bros. are the big IPs [Intellectual Property = geistiges Eigentum]of which Warner Bros. is the owner. But the challenge for us is that these strong brands – “Harry Potter“,DC,”Lord of the Rings“ – have not been used enough.”
This made Zaslav loud announced at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference. “We haven’t done anything with ‘Harry Potter’ in over a decade,” Zaslav continued – delivering another major blow to the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise starring Eddie Redmayne and Jude Law and making Part 4 of the series more or less a clear rejection.
“Harry Potter” series instead of “Fantastic Beasts 4”
In fact, Warner Bros. no films specifically about Harry Potter have been produced in the past ten years. However, with the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ films, there were at least three spin-offs in theaters, which, however, fell short of expectations at the box office and have since largely been completely ignored in public announcements by Warner’s CEO.
Instead, the focus of “Harry Potter” is now elsewhere – on one thing Remake of the Potter series with new actors for Harry, Ron, Hermione and Co., whose term will last at least ten years, Zaslav reaffirmed at the conference. Zaslav also reiterated his plans to produce more “The Lord of the Rings” films in the coming years and heavily promote Marvel rival DC under the new leadership of James Gunn:
“We believe there is a lot of shareholder value in this a Ten Year Plan for DC Bringing ‘Harry Potter’ back to HBO for ten consecutive years and making multiple ‘Lord of the Rings’ films.”
Gold mine for Warner Bros.
Why is this focus placed? Zaslav made a loud noise at this It’s no secret: if you look at the performance of Warner Bros. over the past twenty years and excluding the franchises mentioned, the result is ‘fairly flat’. However, if you include these fantasy franchises, “it’s the most successful studio in the world. We have to use our best resources and we have to do it with the best creative people in the world.”
However, Zaslav also warns: “We must be careful not to overuse this content.” However, Zaslav did not make clear what exactly he envisioned as overuse of these brands – the (fantasy) future at Warner Bros. rather seems more focused on these well-known franchises than it has been for years.
New ‘Lord of the Rings’ movie in theaters in 2024
By the way, not only are all three “The Lord of the Rings” films and the “Harry Potter” films currently showing again in many cinemas to celebrate the centenary of Warner Bros. To celebrate, we also have the first of the new “The Lord of the Rings” theatrical films coming to your home: “The Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrimstarts on December 12, 2024.