David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros Discovery, promising massive cuts to kids and animation spending

[Jman]

 

No more Harley Quinn marathons, that’s for sure.

[PokeNirvash]

I wish there was a function to hide threads, because this would be among several from this past week that I'd abuse that for.

[Blatch]

Yeah, this doesn't sound good. 😕

My hope is, as I've probably said before, that acquiring anime is cheap enough to fit into their plans, so Toonami sticks around as a result. Co-pros, on the other hand... well, let's hope Uzumaki doesn't get shitcanned.

[Ginguy]

Keep in mind they black-holed Batgirl which cost them roughly $100 million because it stunk in testing.

They are not kidding around, anything that doesn't perform is going to be cut. This will only increase as the current recession continues and revenues continue to shrink.

Toonami might be okay since it is largely voluntary, which helps keep costs down, but I wouldn't expect much in terms of budget unless they dramatically improve ratings.

[Sketch]

This is legitimately the first worrying development regarding Toonami and Adult Swim’s future. I don’t think it means the co-productions we know about won’t air. Hopefully  WBD management hasn’t changed their stance on wanting Toonami to be part of their strategy.

Even so, they could toss Toonami and Adult Swim out on a whim if they see fit and they are taking completed or mostly completed films and shows and using them as tax write offs. Close Enough was canceled recently but now I’m concerned they’ll pull it from streaming and write it off as well.

I’m not worried about the Batman and Superman cartoons set for 2023 but plenty of other things not featuring the big 3 could get axed.

DC movie nights will probably still happen. They can be used to promote theatrical releases if nothing else. Though it’s just as likely that they won’t bother.

I feel like Toonami will have a hard time justifying it’s existence if WBD does not grant them an adequate acquisition budget but there’s the rub. You need a audience to justify a budget but it’s awfully hard to get and maintain an audience without enough budget to buy worthwhile content.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Sketch

[CountFrylock]

1 hour ago, Sketch said:

This is legitimately the first worrying development regarding Toonami and Adult Swim’s future. I don’t think it means the co-productions we know about won’t air. Hopefully  WBD management hasn’t changed their stance on wanting Toonami to be part of their strategy.

Even so, they could toss Toonami and Adult Swim out on a whim if they see fit and they are taking completed or mostly completed films and shows and using them as tax write offs. Close Enough was canceled recently but now I’m concerned they’ll pull it from streaming and write it off as well.

I’m not worried about the Batman and Superman cartoons set for 2023 but plenty of other things not featuring the big 3 could get axed. Don’t expect more Harley Quinn or Young Justice.

DC movie nights will probably still happen. They can be used to promote theatrical releases if nothing else. Though it’s just as likely that they won’t bother.

I feel like Toonami will have a hard time justifying it’s existence if WBD does not grant them an adequate acquisition budget but there’s the rub. You need a audience to justify a budget but it’s awfully hard to get and maintain an audience without enough budget to buy worthwhile content.

that's the thing...toonami can't maintain an audience if it doesn't have a good budget to acquire content said audience wants to see

WBD Big wigs have got to understand that....the current lineup isn't the success story they want but that's not toonami's fault

Lupin Yashahime and double one piece just aren't enough to get people excited about the block weekly

they can only acquire what they can afford and with Sony playing hard-ball that further limited the options available to them

if WBD Won't give them more money then they shouldn't be surprised to see no major improvements

Edited August 5, 2022 by CountFrylock

[Top Gun]

So, like, what are these assholes spending money on?

[OwlChemist81]

15 minutes ago, Top Gun said:

So, like, what are these assholes spending money on?

"My big fat 90-day fiance from outer space" or something like that.

[Seight]

I realized earlier this week that they are showing a new episode of Smiling Friends tonight before Toonami.

Saturday night, at 10:30 PM Central Time.

[DragonSinger]

18 hours ago, Ginguy said:

Keep in mind they black-holed Batgirl which cost them roughly $100 million because it stunk in testing.

They are not kidding around, anything that doesn't perform is going to be cut. This will only increase as the current recession continues and revenues continue to shrink.

Toonami might be okay since it is largely voluntary, which helps keep costs down, but I wouldn't expect much in terms of budget unless they dramatically improve ratings.

Those bad testing reports only came out after the news and were mostly positive before. I swear, you'll lick any bootheel when given the chance.

[3ngag3]

Well, it looks like these reports might have been exaggerated/misinterpreted

 

[PokeNirvash]

BWAHAHAHAHAHA SERVES ALL YOU PANICKY ASSHOLES RIGHT.

[Sketch]

1 hour ago, 3ngag3 said:

Well, it looks like these reports might have been exaggerated/misinterpreted

 

Anyone who thought the report meant CN/AS, HBO and WBA were going to stop making animated series entirely were way off base regardless.

But even that Brew article makes it clear there will be cuts, it’s just not guaranteed to be a bunch of the currently being developed animated projects.

Little Ellen is canceled, the Scoob sequel won’t be shown and they aren’t renewing Close Enough. Several live action series and films were cancelled or are soon to be written off and HBO Max will not be making live action kids series or lower cost direct to streaming films. That’s all that’s known so far. We don’t even know if CN’s planned live action series have been canceled but that would make more sense than cancelling live action kids shows for HBO Max.

There’s no reason to assume the Batman, Superman and Tiny Toons series won’t see the light of day nor the Gumball movie. Teen Titans Go will keep on truck’n, Craig of the Creek isn’t getting canceled and CN has other animated series still in production including Genndy’s unicorn show.

Its far from a sure thing that YJ and Harley Quinn won’t get renewed but it depends on how successful they were for Max.

The assumption we tend to make around here is Toonami is expensive to run and doesn’t make much if any money but if that were actually true they surely would have axed it rather than develop new shows for it. It’s almost ironic that I have so many reasons to be mad at WBD right now but “screwing over Toonami” isn’t really one of them. They could stand to throw it more bones but the way WBD is treating Toonami now hardly differs from any other time since the block returned.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Sketch

[Blatch]

More than anything, I'm afraid Uzumaki might get axed, simply because it's been delayed multiple times and has probably sucked up a lot of money. But who knows if it'll test well.

Believe me, I'm trying not to think about Toonami getting cancelled as hard as I can, and I'm sure you are too. But, having dwelled on things, I think the block actually has just as much to gain from the new management at WBD as it does to lose. Because, above all else, Toonami is a brand. A brand that's been around for over a quarter century (though there were three and a half years where it wasn't airing) and has lots of credibility among anime fans. Go up to some rando otaku on the street, show them a picture of TOM, and I think there's a good chance they'll know who he is. So what's to say this brand isn't something Zaslav and friends want to exploit? We already know they want to make a Harry Potter series (which, ew, but it's his beliefs and I can respect that). Maybe Cosmo Samurai: The Series could come with it?

[ben0119]

8 hours ago, 3ngag3 said:

Well, it looks like these reports might have been exaggerated/misinterpreted

 

I was about to say, was there anything besides a single tweet from a website we've never heard of to serve as a source?  Crisis AVERTED.

[MasqueradeOverture]

Well, not entirely.

This is the original source of that report:

It is kind of a damning slide. It's not the Giant Freakin' Robot type reaction of "OH SHIT ALL ANIMATION CANCELLED JASON LOSING HIS JOB" but it doesn't instill confidence either.

[ben0119]

On 8/7/2022 at 3:25 PM, MasqueradeOverture said:

Well, not entirely.

This is the original source of that report:

It is kind of a damning slide. It's not the Giant Freakin' Robot type reaction of "OH SHIT ALL ANIMATION CANCELLED JASON LOSING HIS JOB" but it doesn't instill confidence either.

Doesn't that say it approved additional spending?  Where does it say that the spending was lowered?  Unless I just don't understand corporate speak.

Also, everything is always BELOW EPECTATIONS for these corporations.  They expect endless growth, even though the population of the Earth and their wallets are finite.

Edited August 14, 2022 by ben0119

[matrixman124]

6 hours ago, ben0119 said:

Doesn't that say it approved additional spending?  Where does it say that the spending was lowered?  Unless I just don't understand corporate speak.

Also, everything is always BELOW EPECTATIONS for these corporations.  They expect endless growth, even though the population of the Earth and their wallets are finite.

Yeah it says "Approved additional spend on animation." Well that's good

[MasqueradeOverture]

11 hours ago, ben0119 said:

Doesn't that say it approved additional spending?  Where does it say that the spending was lowered?  Unless I just don't understand corporate speak.

Also, everything is always BELOW EPECTATIONS for these corporations.  They expect endless growth, even though the population of the Earth and their wallets are finite.

It's looking at the previous quarter: "Approved additional spending on projects with unproven financial returns..."

The slide points out the 'faults' of where the money's been flowing this year, which indicates WBD is going to course-correct. CNN+ was on that list and that was killed off, so now how hard they course-correct on everything else remains to be seen.

[Seight]

15 hours ago, ben0119 said:

Doesn't that say it approved additional spending?  Where does it say that the spending was lowered?  Unless I just don't understand corporate speak.

Also, everything is always BELOW EPECTATIONS for these corporations.  They expect endless growth, even though the population of the Earth and their wallets are finite.

THANK YOU. Companies always seem to think "Oh we can just make more money every quarter and/or year than we did last year" and I'm thinking "The Sub-Prime Mortgage crisis was, what, 15 years ago? And based on 'oh this will never go down in value', right?"