WB Says 'Beep Beep' to 'Coyote v. Acme' Movie

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Mark Jeffries

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Nov 9, 2023, 6:02:59 PM11/9/23
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The live-action/CGI film made originally for Max (when it was HBO Max) in which Wile E. Coyote sues the maker of all of those devices that did not help him catch the Road-Runner, in which John Cena played the attorney representing ACME, wrapped last year, was moved to theatrical release in July but got postponed in favor of, hi "Barbie"!, and now Daddy Zaslav, Super Genius, has decided that it will jon "Batgirl" and "Scoob! Holiday Haunt" in the Land of Tax Write-offs--understandably, the film's director is pissed:

Kevin M.

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Nov 9, 2023, 7:05:39 PM11/9/23
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It’s a clever premise. Sort of like Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law but for the WB animated characters 

On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 3:03 PM Mark Jeffries <spotl...@gmail.com> wrote:
The live-action/CGI film made originally for Max (when it was HBO Max) in which Wile E. Coyote sues the maker of all of those devices that did not help him catch the Road-Runner, in which John Cena played the attorney representing ACME, wrapped last year, was moved to theatrical release in July but got postponed in favor of, hi "Barbie"!, and now Daddy Zaslav, Super Genius, has decided that it will jon "Batgirl" and "Scoob! Holiday Haunt" in the Land of Tax Write-offs--understandably, the film's director is pissed:




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Jon Delfin

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Nov 9, 2023, 10:14:50 PM11/9/23
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fortunately, the original New Yorker piece by Ian Frazier is still out there

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Tom Wolper

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Nov 9, 2023, 10:16:52 PM11/9/23
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The coyote just can’t catch a break.

Stan S

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Nov 10, 2023, 12:41:24 AM11/10/23
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They dropped an anvil on the whole project. 

Doug Eastick

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Nov 10, 2023, 8:02:37 AM11/10/23
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I would have liked to watch this.

Resilience, anvils, trains, fake light at the end of the tunnel.... So many metaphors for this story.

I still don't really Get the idea of spending $70M+ and canning it and getting a tax write-off. I guess that's why I'm not an accountant.


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Tom Wolper

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Nov 10, 2023, 8:36:27 AM11/10/23
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Producers, directors, writers, and some technical people have to take years out of their lives to make movies like this happen. To go through all that and then find out nobody will get a chance to watch them must be heartbreaking.

It’s like a Renaissance prince was a patron to a master artist. He asks the artist for a painting on a specific subject, and when the artist shows him the final work he burns it.

Kevin M.

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Nov 10, 2023, 11:40:52 AM11/10/23
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As others indicated, I’m not versed in studio accountancy, but nobody seemed interested in the tax write off by NOT releasing the Cindy Crawford/Baldwin brother film Fair Game, despite it being theatrical malaise. The studio that gave us Kangaroo Jack is claiming a Wile E Coyote movie is somehow lacking?! The studio said “yes” to the cinematic flotsam and jetsam that was the Arthur remake, Battlefield Earth, and Cop Out, but a film about a female caped crusader gets buried in a shallow grave?


David Bruggeman

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Nov 10, 2023, 11:55:34 AM11/10/23
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It certainly seems like accounting rules, the levels of debt that are involved in these write-offs, and/or something else has changed over the last 10 years to make eliminating completed works better for the bottom line than releasing them straight-to-DVD (which is still kind of a thing), or burning off the unaired episodes in the wee small hours.

David

M-D November

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Nov 10, 2023, 2:27:04 PM11/10/23
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He released the new Space Jam movie, but this is getting shelved?  Come on.

Tom Wolper

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Nov 10, 2023, 3:35:16 PM11/10/23
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There’s a biased reasoning that if the movie is getting shelved it must be a terrible movie. It’s entirely possible that these movies are fine, even better than some which have been released, but there’s some accounting or tax benefit to shelving them. If it’s saving them money one way or another it doesn’t have to make sense.

Adam Bowie

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Nov 13, 2023, 4:52:14 AM11/13/23
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According to Matt Belamy at Puck, the film is now going to get shopped around, so not necessarily locked into the vault. Aside from anything else, I guess there are some relationships to maintain. 

He also has a bit of a discussion about exactly how much you really save by taking a tax write off on a film that has already cost millions. Basically, the main gain is that you can account for it sooner, rather than waiting months or years for the movie to play through the various windows and the accounting to be mostly calculated. So take the loss now rather than a year or two down the line. And WBD does have an enormous debt pile to pay down.

I've got to think that with the likely paucity of movies in theatres in spring/summer next year, someone will bite on this. I mean "Trolls Band Together" which hasn't even opened in the US yet, has earned nearly $60m. (OK - I know film economics mean you basically need to double your production budget to hit the black, and this movie is said to have cost  $70m).


Adam

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M-D November

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Nov 13, 2023, 12:16:37 PM11/13/23
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To be fair, the Trolls number is probably heavily influenced by the 'sneak preview' screening last weekend and presale of 1st-run streaming rights to the 'Cock.

Honestly, tho...how does any student OTHER than WB release a Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote movie? ("Roger Rabbit" not withstanding.)

Adam Bowie

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Nov 13, 2023, 1:35:22 PM11/13/23
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The $60m is purely international figures. I don't think the "sneak preview" box office numbers get reported until the actual opening weekend when they get added together and create a suspiciously large number to ensure they go high in the top 10. So basically that's $60m before the US has taken a dollar. 

(In the UK it was nearly $10m alone, as far as I can see by virtue of being the only kids' film around during half-term break - not something that happens in the US, although you obviously get long-weekends around certain public holidays. Distributors always have a kid-friendly film in those periods here to help out parents who are looking for something - *anything* - to do with their kids. Especially in the darker, colder days of November... A colleague of mine did precisely this with her kids. She said, "It's exactly what you think it will be.")

PGage

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Nov 13, 2023, 2:13:31 PM11/13/23
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Add to that Wall Street now seems to mostly care about debt reduction, and rewards studios and streamers immediately with a bump in their stock price when any significant debt reduction is announced. So Zaz pays down his enormous debt load and gets a stock bump in basically real time. 

The Studio heads were always about making money, but say what you want about the old guard, they also were to some degree interested in making good or popular movies. That is in no way true of guys like Zaz, who are 100% in the money making business, not show business. 

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Dave Sikula

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Nov 14, 2023, 4:28:11 AM11/14/23
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I'm the last one to defend Zaslov, but I found Frazier's original article to be strained at best, and Chuck Jones, who probably knew the characters better than anyone, realized that they were best seen in seven-minute doses, and rarely at that. An hour and a half of it would probably outstay its welcome.

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Bob Jersey

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Nov 14, 2023, 7:10:24 PM11/14/23
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A US Congress-member (not from California, but San Antonio TX) who called for DOJ investigation of WBD when the write-downs started, did so again on X late Monday...
B

Dave Sikula, to PGage, Nov 14th:

Doug Eastick

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Nov 14, 2023, 7:22:11 PM11/14/23
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I'd like to think that he's peeved "that a movie displaying the beautiful geography of the southern USA, and innovative thinking has been killed by a studio"

(My words, not his)

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